The past, and the future
Demolition clears two key sites for projects that help Buffalo
Published: July 06, 2009, 12:30 am
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There hasn’t been this much excitement here over demolition in, well, decades.
Chalk that up to a hunger for progress. The focus of much of the excitement is Memorial Auditorium, now all but vanished in an attempt to convert the heart of Buffalo’s urban waterfront into a new family-oriented retail and entertainment zone. Last week the Aud’s time capsule was opened as the last remnants of the building awaited careful deconstruction.
The once great sports and entertainment venue has been long vacant, leaving nothing but memories and barriers to potential. The Aud became a deteriorating, mold-riddled relic, a fate it didn’t deserve. What’s left now are its best parts, its glorious memories.
Last week, though, joy also greeted plans to demolish the Kensington Heights public housing towers on the East Side’s Fillmore Avenue, a complex of six-story and seven-story buildings shut down in 1980 because of lack of operating funds from the state.
In both instances, nothing was done to save or reuse the buildings while complaints rose from murmurs to an outcry. Along came a plan to build an outdoor store at the old Aud site and a continuing care retirement community, to be known as Heritage Heights, to replace the Kensington Heights towers.
In the latter case, Assemblywoman Crystal D. Peoples secured $5 million for demolition and site cleanup in 2007, funding that comes from capital funds through the state Dormitory Authority.
The Aud plans have received the most attention, especially given its importance as a key element in waterfront development. The two-story Bass Pro store planned for the site is supposed to anchor a $315 million, 20-acre Canal Side mixed-use redevelopment project expected to attract scores of visitors and residents.
Bass Pro has yet to sign a binding development contract eight years after discussions started, despite public subsidies offered for the store project. That’s cause for concern, but not for dismay. No such contract can be signed until a site environmental analysis is completed later this year, and meetings between government and the company have been ongoing and regular.
There’s reason for optimism, enhanced by the removal of an auditorium that, for all its past glory, has been crumbling for years. Its demolition, section by section over the past several weeks, has left only the foundations, and they too shall soon disappear.
The time capsule left at the Aud in 1939 featured a blueprint, newspapers, photos and coins. It conjured memories of the hope once held for the building that began as a convention center—just as the building’s demolition is part of hopes now held for tomorrow.
More narrowly, the hopes and memories of families that once resided at Kensington Heights will be replaced by those who hold their own family memories, and will see hopes realized for an equally important type of housing.
Demolition is a mark of progress, on both counts.
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