The Baroque city palace in the St. Johanns-Vorstadt in Basel has proved in the recent restoration, treasure chest. Under centuries-old layers of the original substance came to light and revealed a surprise: The house is older than previously thought.

The architectural design interested visitors will quickly establish in Basel, the city known as architecture capital of Switzerland, not only promotes modern building, but also maintains a careful handling of their historic buildings. Obvious example, the facades: Where dominate in other cities long ago modern and functional window shutters – which most historic buildings is visually detrimental unfortunately – in Basel, the original glazing and shutters kept and restored. “It is indeed the case,” said Dr. Thomas Lutz, Adjunct conservator of Basel, “that we promote the protection zone in the preservation of old windows and Vorfenster. But even with the population there is a tradition of preservation and care, so many historic districts are very well preserved. ” Read the rest of this entry »

The handsome three-story commercial structure at 738 Seneca, now vacant but secured, was the longtime home of the Hydraulics branch of the Marine Trust Bank, which occupied the building in 1919. The building, constructed in 1900 to house Henry Schaefer’s grocery, was designed by architect Joseph J. W. Bradney. Architecture firm Mann & Cook headed up the building’s expansion in 1919 when Marine Trust moved to into its first story, and in 1954 the storefront was re-clad in polished stone and a bay window on the second story was removed. For years, a billboard Marine Trust installed in 1927 on top of the building was a landmark of its own accord.

The branch’s establishment at 738 Seneca in 1919 was no coincidence. John D. Larkin, president and founder of the Larkin Company, was also on the board of Marine Trust Bank and almost certainly had a hand in this choice of location to provide an amenity for factory workers and shoppers at the famed Larkin Store. The bank was a fixture in the neighborhood into the 1990s, though under different names. Marine Trust became Marine Midland in the 1960s and then became HSBC in the 1990s. Read the rest of this entry »

The commercial building at 860 Seneca Street is a stand-out, a real keeper. It was built circa 1890 to house Jacob Duchmann’s Carriage Manufactory, a building use that was unusually prevalent on Seneca Street in the Hydraulics.

Carriage factories (“factory,” by the way, is the linguistic stub of “manufactory” and derives from the Latin factor, meaning doer or maker) dotted Seneca Street for a very good reason. Seneca Street, dubbed the Buffalo & Aurora Road, was a veritable highway for carriage traffic from the farming country of southern Erie County into the city. Farmers destined for wholesale groceries and food markets of Buffalo would find convenient respite in taverns, barns, harness stores, and carriage factory and repair shops along Seneca Street. 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 »

This just in! The January emergency demolition of the Sacred Heart School at 198 Emslie Street not only broke hearts, it also broke the bank.

The emergency demolition of the landmark building reportedly cost taxpayers a cool $125,000. Economic return on the investment? Zero. While few doubt the necessity of the demolition in light of its collapsing brick facade and the imminent threat the building posed to human safety, fewer still believe the school’s “demolition by neglect” was inevitable. Read the rest of this entry »