…brought to you in large part by Tom Fontana & Friends
Frank Lloyd Wright conceived the boathouse in 1905 for the University of Wisconsin for a site on the Yahara River. The project, never built, was redrawn by Wright as a perspective sketch for presentation at traveling exhibits in 1930 and 1931. At that time, the stated materials changed to concrete from the original plaster on wood frame. Hamilton Houston Lownie, working in association with Taliesin Architects, has developed Wright’s sketches into plans for a working boathouse on the Black Rock Channel, where Lake Erie joins the Niagara River.
And Tom Fontana, Buffalo ex-pat, Executive Producer of St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Street and creator of OZ, is helping to raise the cash to make it real. Not only has he contributed $500K+ to the effort, he’s recruited some of his show business colleagues (some of them Buffalo ex-pats as well) to help in the effort. The News reports Mary Tyler Moore, Blythe Danner, Edie Falco, Richard Belzer, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, Barry Levinson, Sidney Lumet, Grant Tinker, David Milch, Diane English and playwright A.R. Gurney, among others have all contributed to the effort.
Fontana was approached to help with the project by several rowers who had been coached by his father, Charlie Fontana a Buffalo rowing legend, who died 22 years ago.
The article also mentions that $1MM from funds once intended for Adelphia Communications’ office tower downtown will go toward the boathouse effort. Another $3MM will be used to “build the Frank Lloyd Wright Gas Station and expand the Buffalo Transportation/Pierce Arrow Museum at Seneca Street and Michigan Avenue.
Ani Difranco and Tom Fontana- the early favorites for "Buffalonian of the Year" honors, and it is only January!
Boathouse: Life on the Water.
Tom Fontana is a genius. Now, all we need is a gritty, beautifully written, and sublimely acted crime drama produced by Fontana and Levinson set in Buffalo.
Maybe Pembleton moves to Buffalo?
here here !! Fontana writing about Buffalo! Genius, compelling, interesting.
I live downstate and I work with Edie Falco's brother. I told him to let his sister know that the people in Buffalo are surely thankful for her donation and that she should pay a visit to the Queen city sometime and see their thriving theatre scene.
What Tom Fontana and Hollywood pals are doing is so wonderful and generous...What can we do to say thanks? Maybe a plaque somewhere in the boat house giving special acknowlegement? Invitations to the opening ceremony...other ideas out there?
Today's dopey question: exactly where on the Black Rock channel is this boathouse to be built?
At the foot of Porter, where Buff State had some property.