Buffalo Rising Online

Feb 6th 2007, 7:45am By Elena Cala Buscarino

I have a recurring dream of wandering endlessly through abandoned buildings—behemoths on the horizon—and so I was not about to turn down an offer from preservationist/housing activist/historian, David Torke, when he conducted a tour of Transfiguration Church, circa 1896, on Sycamore and Mills this past Saturday.

Many city churches of this type have closed, and they can't all have an Ani DiFranco to love them back into functionality, but consider the sheer irony of the name of this church, as you view the slideshow.

Theologically speaking, the transfiguration the church's name refers to is Christ's appearance, in radiant glory, to disciples Matthew, Luke, and Mark. The word denotes a complete change of form or appearance into a more beautiful or spiritual state. Not so here.

The devastation to the church took little more than 14 years to perpetrate. It is noted that the priests trying to keep this parish alive gave up the arduous task in 1990, and then Bishop Head declared it closed in 1993--one hundred years after it was founded--along with three other Polish churches. The church has since become to pigeon droppings what a rain gauge is to rain; 14 years worth.

Torke's motives are obvious through the name of his website: Fix Buffalo

As one might guess, he's spends a lot of his time tilting at windmills, but with a true heart. "What does the current condition of this Poly Gothic church say about our relationship to important things? This would be a crime in Europe, why not here?" Torke asked.

In an effort to revitalize mid-town, Torke will offer to help a person buy an abandoned house from the city for a dollar, which in essence, makes him a friend of the city, but his friendship doesn't come unconditionally. He wants fixes. Join him on a Saturday tour of pieces of midtown that need some love. You'll be hard-pressed to walk away unaffected.

On our way out of Transfiguration, the enormous monument to the 150 original families who built it, we looked across the street at a tiny, yellow brick church. A phenomenon all over the city, but most prevalent on the east side, it brought up a whole new question about what worship has become; the breaking into small cells of churches, directly in the shadow of formerly vibrant giants.

And only because I'm sure he can build a tour around it, I ask my apt guide one last question: For a man who holds architecture, religion, and humanity in reverence, just what is this a symptom of, David?

Acts 12:23 (King James Version): "And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory: and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost."