How can the Hague meeting two million square feet of additional living space? That was the question on March 5 in theaters on Spui was made. A debate, following the successful photo exhibition living in The Hague, had to give an answer. The invited speakers had their opinion. The executive sat with head nodding.
- Proposal for Conservation Black Madonna by Archipelago Designers.
“Living in The Hague” is a cartoon created by the nomadic house that seeks a complete picture of the Hague housing situation. Now, after realizing the three-VINEX locations: Wateringseveld, and Ypenburg Leidschenveen, a clear picture which emerges from the deficiencies of the fourth policy paper, seized the opportunity the current demand for housing in an intelligent way to deal with. Read the rest of this entry »
The former Larkin Building U is being cleaned out by Rogers Foam Corp., the automotive parts manufacturer that bought out the now defunct Par Foam Products, Inc., a competitor. Par Foam Products, which occupied the historic factory complex at 237 Van Rensselaer Street for more than two decades, was closed late last year and its assets are now reportedly being shipped to other plants or discarded.
Larkin Building U is now getting closer by the day to a clean slate, a cleared, highly adaptable structure poised for a new economic purpose. While the future of the building is unclear, its potential becomes even more vividly apparent as the building is vacated. Read the rest of this entry »
Did you know the largest manufacturer of small paper boxes in the world was in Buffalo? Consider yourself now in the know! The F. N. Burt Company, whose sprawling factory complex at Seneca and Hamburg streets churned out upwards of four million boxes a day, was one of the largest employers in the Hydraulics and one of the shining lights of Buffalo industry.
F. N. Burt, an innovator in graphic design, was one of the most respected box manufacturers on the planet. Renowned for the glamour and sophistication of its manufactures, the company experienced tremendous growth in the early 20th century that coincided with, as well as contributed to, the emergence of the stylized box as an advertising vehicle for mass-produced consumer goods. Its prodigious, 400,000 sq. ft. factory complex is entirely intact – every building it ever constructed on Seneca Street from 1901-1927 still stands, a miracle by any standard in industrial heritage preservation. Read the rest of this entry »
A 1929 proposal by the Larkin Company to establish a “Larkin Square” at the corner of Seneca and Swan streets was shelved by a reticent Common Council and assailed by the Socialist council president Frank C. Perkins as a corporate give-away that “smelled to the heavens.”
The public square proposal would have seen Van Rensselaer Street cut through Seneca Street to Swan Street to relieve traffic congestion (yes, there was traffic congestion!), setting aside a triangular plot of cleared land for a public space honoring the company’s late founder, John D. Larkin.
The Larkin Company at the time was running the Larkin Department Store and the Larkin Food Market at full tilt, filling the entire ground floor of its massive factory complex at 701 Seneca Street with a shopping wonderland for discount foods and household goods. The company desired to create the square to rationalize traffic flow that had been bottled up as a result of the store’s opening and to establish an attractive gateway at the front lawn of the Larkin District. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s urban scene of the week (er, scene of the month?) brings us to 567 Exchange Street, an alluringly spare, rustic loft building at the banks of Buffalo’s most historic and longest-enduring rail line, the Buffalo & Attica, first built in 1843 and later subsumed into the New York Central rail empire that connected the city to New York, Chicago, and the vast reaches of the continent beyond.
The four-story structure was not constructed at this site in 1900 for no reason. The Buffalo Lounge Co., for which the building was erected, chose this precise location because of the geography of the Hydraulics at the intersection of several rail lines, including the Erie and New York Central. The Buffalo Lounge Co. was directly linked to both lines via a rail bed that once existed behind the building. Read the rest of this entry »
