City October 25, 2010 1:30 PM

Preservation Opportunities: How to Determine 'The List'?

WCPerspective 12

Ask a half dozen Buffalo residents and expats to list five decrepit buildings that should be saved in the city and you'll likely receive six unique lists. Expand the list to ten buildings and one or two may be repeated amongst the lists. There are that many buildings that should be saved.

Preservation in Buffalo is basically a triage operation. A group preparing a list of "must-save" buildings needs to complete the list in a systematic way that has logic and allows for explanation to the general public - why is the building is important, why it is in danger, and why it needs to be saved. A draft set of criteria has been created, the most important being that if action is not taking soon, the building is likely to be destroyed within the next five years. So, while the Statler and Central Terminal may be the buildings most folks would say should be on the top of a "must save" list, it is extremely unlikely those buildings are going anywhere in the next five years and will not make the final list.

One option to determine criteria is to use the National Register Evaluation Criteria, which is as follows:

Criteria for evaluation. The quality of significance in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture is present in districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that possess integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association and

(a) that are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or

(b) that are associated with the lives of persons significant in our past; or

(c) that embody distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

(d) that have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in prehistory or history.

However, some may say that the above criteria may be too limited, that additional criteria, such as "is it likely to be destroyed within the next five years?" and "is it the only one of its type remaining?" should be included. We would like your input on what should be used as criteria.

Identifying all the properties worth saving could take months, there are likely thousands of them. For this reason the list by our group cannot be comprehensive in its evaluation of the city's endangered architectural treasures. The list is meant to draw attention to properties that should be saved, many of which are off the radar of locals and have few "friends" fighting to save it them. The initial list will include ten priorities to aid in efforts to be proactive rather than reactive. We hope to promote the list and raise the awareness not only of these buildings but all of Buffalo's historic resources. Some will be saved, some will be lost. That's the nature of advocacy. But if eventually a culture of preservation can be built and strengthened in Buffalo, the city will definitely be a better place for its people.

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Comments

12 Comments Leave a comment

Chris

October 25, 2010 12:38 PM

It is too bad that the city can't come up with a plan to provide leadership on this.

Also I know that we put a lot on UB but given our history and location it would be nice to have a historic preservation/rehab wing of the achecture/engineering department. It would seem that there is a lot of money in that field. I found that the University of Maryland has a department like that.

[ Reply ]

Score: 2 ( 2 votes )

townline

October 25, 2010 1:24 PM

Honestly - I really hate the idea of creating "The List". To me preservation of Historic or Period structures, while important, is vastly secondary to preservation of the "urban fabric" of a city or neighborhood. I'd much prefer to have an entire streetscape completely infilled with non-historic post-war buildings that exhibit quality urban design, than a streetscape full of holes except for the three buildings that meet some sort of criteria to be on a non-demo list...

If you look at a place like Freiburg, Germany, it lost somewhere around 90% of its structures during WWII... So it is nearly devoid of its historic authenticity. Few of the buildings remaining there would probably qualify for any such list. However, its still one of the most beautiful cities in the world - not because of its architecture, but because its urban design qualities were kept intact. They rebuilt the entire city with streets and streets of small and mid-sized mixed-use buildings. Its absolutely gorgeous. You don't even realize the buildings aren't historic until you take a closer look. The reason those cities are so fabulous has far less to do with their architecture than it does their planning and urban design. Look at Elmwood - maybe the city's most vibrant street - there is hardly a historically important commercial structure on the street - yet the commercial structures and their integration with the streetscape are clearly the most important in providing the look, feel and atmosphere qualities of the street.

The focus of preservation efforts should be redirected to providing an understanding of how structures contribute to the overall urban fabric of a neighborhood or a city - not their individual significance. Just because something isn't "historically" important, doesn't mean it is any less worth saving. And I fear that creating a list of specific properties that are on the "do not touch" list will create a greater argument for demolishing properties that are not on that list. My hope is that the new Buffalo Zoning Code that is beginning development will provide more of what I'm advocating here than any preservation list could. Regulatory codes are the avenue to protecting the most important physical qualities of our city.

[ Reply ]

Score: 7 ( 7 votes )

grad94

October 25, 2010 7:08 PM

well said. i wouldn't hate new architecture (what little we get in buffalo) if it didn't defiantly reject good urban design principles all the time. like the new federal courthouse that everyone is creaming their jeans over. at the street level, all you experience of it are blank concrete walls as a terrorism prevention measure.

oh, and i've long thought that one serious hazard of any list is that whatever is not on it will be considered expendable.

[ Reply ]

replied to townline

Score: 2 ( 2 votes )

townline

October 25, 2010 1:30 PM

http://pixdaus.com/?sort=tag&tag=architecture%20-%20by%20slack12

Take a close look at that streetscape from Freiburg - there isn't an historic building within it - they've all been built since the '50s. But its amazing - because of the density, transparency of the windows, variety of the facades, proliferation of small business, vegetation, etc...

Again - it shouldn't be (just) about preserving individual buildings. It needs to be about advocating for good design.

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Score: 2 ( 2 votes )

Travelrrr

October 25, 2010 1:53 PM

Towline: I agree with you in regards to the overall urban design need and plan, but disagree on the need for preservation: we need to save the most significant buildings so that we CAN infill quality newbuilds alongside. However, if we lost them, they are gone and we lost the opportunity.

Also, I think a list is critical in that it would help mobilize those of us in the community around some buildings....an effort which does not currently exist. So, it is only additive.

[ Reply ]

replied to townline

Score: 2 ( 2 votes )

townline

October 25, 2010 2:39 PM

I think my argument is more a matter of where the focus should be placed.

[ Reply ]

replied to Travelrrr

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

Sean Brodfuehrer

October 25, 2010 8:50 PM

Your comments are true in many respects but we shouldn't forlorn our past to try and recreate some chic urbanism because if we had actually protected our past from the beginning we would not have ever lost it to begin with. There are 'some' great examples of modern day urbanism happening in America... but they are VERY VERY scarce in the larger scheme of things. American's forgot how to build cities, maybe forget is the wrong verb. We scared ourselves city-less. Whether it was fear of nuclear attack, minorities, poor, tenement houses, ethnic enclaves. Doesn't matter, but for 60 years we have been telling our children that cities are bad. The result is an urban footprint hundreds of times what is actually necessary and generations of people that don't care about urbanism... One thing they have been found to care about, and want back in their life, is a sense of history \ tradition. Someplace simple that is defined by us and not me. Welcoming, homey and diverse. These are what I see as having brought people back to cities in America.

[ Reply ]

replied to townline

Score: 5 ( 5 votes )

townline

October 25, 2010 9:41 PM

Well let me make it clear that I'm certainly not advocating for the demolition of historic structures and that I absolutely agree that they are extremely important for defining the uniqueness and culture of place. But, again, I think they play a secondary role to the overall urban design of a place and like grad94 pointed out, there is a danger in so definitively identifying the properties worth saving - giving the implication that everything else is expendable...

One of the major problems we had from a few years back was the whole Atwater/Pano's battle. Those advocating for the preservation of the Atwater House, including (I think) Forever Elmwood, were really advocating for the protection of their neighborhood and the protection of the processes of development. I think the people who really understood the issues at hand fought because they did not want to set the dangerous precedent of allowing any property owner to acquire a parcel of land and rightfully be able to demolish it, thus damaging the fabric of the neighborhood, for the individual benefit of a single owner. In my mind, how the city acted in this instance set the stage for any property owner on Elmwood Ave. or wherever, to purchase the property next door, and since they own it and some politician gave them verbal permission 10 years ago, they have every right to demolish it for their own betterment - regardless of its implication to the rest of the neighborhood. If I was a property owner, who was only really vested in myself, I would certainly make that case...

However, this important argument got lost in the Pano's case because the focus became the "historic preservation" of the Atwater house. I don't know where it stemmed from, but people began to argue for the protection of the Atwater based upon its historic and architectural qualities. Publicly, the opposition to Pano was criticized because there was nothing actually historically significant about that house. It wasn't really that much more important than 100 other houses in the neighborhood and yes, that architecture can be found elsewhere. Therefore, the attention that the "historic" preservation issue gained, ultimately hurt the case for preserving the Atwater house, which should have been focused on the "urban" preservation of the neighborhood, and the preservation of a good process that was in the interest of entire neighborhoods rather than individually property owners.

That's why I think a list that so clearly advocates and defines Historic Preservation can be damaging to what should be our real goal of preserving and building a quality city with quality urban neighborhoods.

[ Reply ]

replied to Sean Brodfuehrer

Score: 1 ( 3 votes )

JSmith

October 25, 2010 1:46 PM

I agree 100%. The thing about historic construction that is most in need of preservation in Buffalo and most of the rest of the US is the basic concept of how to build cities.

The people involved in the new Buffalo Green Code effort are saying all of the right things IMO. I just hope it doesn't get totally diluted down in the implementation phase, or ignored afterwards (like the Queen City master plan has been).

http://www.buffalogreencode.com/

I think zoning codes can influence the feasibility of preservation, too. For example, minimum parking requirements can make it difficult to reuse older buildings, as can stringent building code regulations if historic buildings are always held to the same standards as new construction when renovated.

[ Reply ]

Score: 2 ( 2 votes )

Slobadan Melosivic

October 25, 2010 5:50 PM

in a place where the only new construction is government buildings, we need desperately to preserve the old because space does not get filled in fast

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Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

STEEL

October 25, 2010 9:22 PM

A preservation list is only a tool. It is not an end. Preparing a list of buildings which are in iminent danger does not mean that other preservation efforts must come to a halt. It does not mean that ere are not urgent preservation issues including saving the urban fabric.

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Score: 3 ( 3 votes )

Travelrrr

October 26, 2010 6:10 AM

100% agreed Steel. It also is a start, another way to raise awareness around the need for preservation and a way for the community to begin to participate and become more engaged. If that can work in consort with other, more macro, policies-fabulous.

[ Reply ]

replied to STEEL

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )