Stay put, Buffalo! Turns out it isn’t necessary to get a flight to the Greek island of Aegina to secure a glimpse of the Temple of Aphaea. Though the original 2,500-year-old version is undoubtedly very interesting, it is possible to experience a hint of Greek temple life by standing outside the doors of a former box factory in the Hydraulics: the F. N. Burt Co. at 540 Seneca Street.

The 1926-27 steel-reinforced concrete extension to the F. N. Burt plant, designed by Plumer & Mann Engineers and Architects, is a confidently modern, functional structure with an unusually striking entrance of the Doric classical order. The entrance to the box plant, run by the formidable female executive Mary R. Cass from 1909 forward, is an example of industrial building design ennobled by a reference to classical origins.

Imagine, as a laborer, entering through these doors daily. The classical idiom awakens the sense of civic beauty that utilitarian structures rarely exhibit today. Even in this austere, straight-forward factory building, though beautiful in its functional simplicity, the idea of a small Greek temple framing one’s entrance to an industrial workplace must have struck the architecturally-conscious paper box maker as something noteworthy.

The Doric order’s connotations of high-minded primitive simplicity, noble sobriety, seriousness of purpose, and republican virtue were not always associated with factory life in the American city, but they are appropriated here by Plumer & Mann to communicate the permanence of the company, the importance of its work, and the strength and durability of its manufactures.

The imposing factory entrance is a nigh-perfect example of the Doric order. Two Doric columns stand directly on flat pavement (the stylobate) without a base. The vertical shafts, fluted with twenty parallel concave grooves, are topped by a smooth capital that flares from the columns to adjoin a square abacus at the intersection with the horizontal entablature they carry. The upper portion of the entablature (the plain section in the lower part of entablature is called the architrave) is marked by alternating triglyphs and metopes. The triglyphs, themselves a reference by ancient Greco-Roman architect to an even earlier, more primitive form of wood-beam temple construction, are decoratively grooved with three vertical grooves and represent the end-beams that would have rested on the architrave in the older, wood-framed temples. The unadorned spaces between the triglyphs are the metopes.

Plumer & Mann undoubtedly chose the Doric order intentionally. Unlike the more effeminate Ionic and Corinthian orders, whose columns were more slender and female-like in form, the Doric order is more stout and masculine in appearance. As the Burt example expresses, the height of the Doric columns are six or seven times the diameter at the base, giving them a thicker, more muscular look than Ionic and Corinthian columns, which have 8:1 proportions. The muscularity and sturdiness of the straight-forward Doric order appropriately conveys the strength of Machine Age factory labor in a male-dominated, but design-conscious and female-run, industrial plant.

Thankfully, as the cost of fuel rises and long-distance travel becomes less attainable, it is comforting to know that Greek architecture can be accessed by bicycle in Buffalo, and we can save money on that flight to the Saronic Gulf island of Aegina. Who needs to go to an island off the coast of Greece when Buffalo summers are so beautiful? Right?

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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.

The company, symbol of Buffalo’s progressive outlook at the early 20th century, made one particularly groundbreaking move in 1909 when it hired a female, Mary R. Cass, to be general manager of the plant – at a time when she was forbidden to vote in national elections and women were unknown in leadership positions at American factories. The fabulous Mary Cass, who almost single-handedly led the transformation of the small printing company to a manufacturing interest of world significance, was for the next twenty-five years one of the country’s leading business executives.

The plant was shuttered in 1959, the year the East Buffalo section of the Niagara Thruway opened and the company moved its factory operations to new facilities in suburban Cheektowaga. The complex, though vacant, is in sound and reusable condition, and is now owned by the Buffalo-based New Era Cap Co., one of the world’s leading baseball cap manufacturers.
A Buffalo Courier Express article printed September 21, 1952, has the plant’s story:
Burt Co. is world’s largest maker of small set-up boxes: Three to four million units a day

By Lee Griggs

Ever think twice about a box? Probably not. Boxes are so common that few people think much about them except the ones who make them. Boxes are everywhere. They’re convenient. There’s a box for every use, but there’s more to boxmaking than meets the eye.

The world’s largest manufacturer of small setup boxes operates right here in Buffalo. The F. N. Burt Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Moore Corp., Ltd., produces between 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 box units in every two-shift day. Burt operates a huge setup plant at Seneca and Hamburg, a folding carton plant at Main and Bryant, and a large warehouse on Babcock St., complete with rail outlet via the Pennsylvania Railroad.

All of Burt’s work is to custom order. Many customers renew their orders year after year, but colors, shapes and styles of boxes change constantly, presenting new problems for the company, which designs all of its own fully automatic boxmaking machinery.

Burt’s setup box volume is divided roughly into three equal parts. These categories are cigaret, cosmetic and pharmaceutical boxes, most of them specially designed. These are the basic types, but Burt boxes contain everything from face powder, mascara, pills and tooth powder to shoe polish, typewriter ribbons, fishing lures and phonograph needles. The variety is astonishing.

Some setup boxes are square or oblong. Others are round or oval. Burt is an extensive maker of oval and odd shaped boxes because no one has the ingenious machinery necessary to do it automatically, the only way it pays. In addition to making boxes directly to customer order, the firm also makes up drug boxes for resale to the stock drug trade.

F. N. Burt, founder of the company, went into business in August of 1886, but not making boxes. He was printing legal briefs at first and then expanded to include the printing of drug labels. When Burt finally got into boxmaking at 440 Main St. in 1896, his product was brightwood folding boxes, not the present setup type for which the firm is so well known today.

Five years later, the first of the Seneca St. units was built, facing Hamburg. This started a long line of expansions on that site, finally completed in 1927 to provide six floors and 400,000 square feet of space. The Main-Bryant plant, occupied in 1935 to accomodate customer demand for folding cartons, offers another 100,000 square feet.

Miss Cass becomes manager

Burt sold the business to the Moore interests in 1909 and retired the following year. His successor was Mary R. Cass, who served as general manager for 25 years and was considered one of the country’s most able business women.

Prior to World War I the big box item was cigarets. The company devised special machinery to turn out automatically some 250,000,000 of these hardwood boxes before excise taxes and the advent of the cup package killed the market. Now boxes are coming back strong. The public has accepted enthusiastically the Regent and Parliament type of cigaret box, which either opens from the top or slides out. Burt makes millions of boxes for both of these manufacturers.

As the cigaret business fell off in the 20s, cosmetic and pharmaceutical box demand took up the slack. Burt began packaging face powder in solid round and square setup boxes. The cosmetic trade soon supplanted cigaret boxes as the biggest production item. Today Burt is still the largest supplier to the cosmetic industry.

Many modern cosmetic boxes have transparent cellophane exposure panels. Others are decorated with Burt’s extensive lamlac finish. Powder boxes have transparent drums fitting inside the box’s base walls to prevent the powder from shifting, just one of the challenges Burt had to overcome to meet successfully the precise packaging demands of customers.

Materials arrive for processing from all parts of the country in rolls or flat sheets. Stock is then lined to specifications, after which specially designed and built machines for manufacturing do the glueing, labeling, stamping and assembling at tremendous speeds.

Paper, board and glue are the chief boxmaking ingredients. All these are subject to the effects of moisture, but Burt controls the conditions of manufacture so closely that parts can be fitted within a 64th of an inch.

The folding carton business at Main and Bryant comprises from 15 to 20 per cent of the total sales volume, depending on the trends of business. The plant offers a high grade lithographing service for cartons, producing a better quality than the letter-press method used by competitors.

In addition to making boxes, Burt will also furnish any prospective customer with a special consultation service to help work out effective designs, colors, print and type matter for merchandising. Manufacturers for the retail trade know the value of an attractive package as a stimulant to produce sales, and many concerns call on Burt’s know-how, born of long experience in box designing.

Machinegun parts

During World War II, Burt made a direct contribution to the war effort as a sub-contractor producing machinegun parts under government order. The company also produced 1,000,000 special cartons a day for the Medical Corps.

But there was another contribution. If Burt hadn’t come up with wartime paper substitute cartons for metal tins used to carry thousands of products during peacetime, many manufacturers might have been hard pressed to continue in operation.

Burt made jar caps from cardboard to replace metal ones, and even threaded them. Millions of asprin boxes, usually made of tin, were produced from paper. So were tooth powder containers as the Seneca St. plant worked around the clock. Brass was short and millions of paper lipsticks were made.

Pension plan for employes

The company has always prided itself on good labor relations. The product is light, clean and easy to handle, making work more enjoyable. Burt was the first box company to set up a fully funded pension plan for employes. As a result, turnovers have been slowed. Nearly half the Burt workers have been with the company more than 15 years, 15 per cent of them over 25 years and a rugged handful over half a century.

Today the trend is toward ever more efficient machine production. High labor costs have made machine production necessary to profitable operation. Manufacturing speeds have been increased steadily over the last 15 years as Burt continues to improve the quality of its vital service to retail manufacturers throughout the nation.

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O, boy, what an amazing door! The Larkin O Building, constructed in 1907 as one of multiple additions to the sprawling Larkin factory complex, contains an odd second-story door that appears more like one that would have opened out onto a ground-level sidewalk.

It’s not only an appearance. The door did once face onto a street – the Van Rensselaer Street viaduct, in fact. Until a couple decades ago, this section of Van Rensselaer Street from Roseville to Seneca streets was an elevated viaduct allowing the passage of trains underneath, along the tracks of the Erie Railroad that have since been removed.

Huge cargo trains once traveled under the shadow of the viaduct directly into the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, where they would efficiently load and offload products to and from interior freight elevators without worry of exposure to the elements – an ingenious innovation of Machine Age warehouse engineering that dramatically sped the pace of Larkin’s shipping operations.

At the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, in fact, when Graphic Controls purchased the building in 1967, the pedestrian entrance at Van Rensselaer Street was not at the first story but on the second. Ditto at Larkin Building O, whose “ground-level” door several feet in the air is fascinating evidence of rail infrastucture in the district that has long since disappeared.

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The Larkin District represents the “skyline” of the Hydraulics. The image of Larkin factory and warehouse buildings towering over the neighborhood is stirring, particularly from rare roof perspectives. The following images, taken recently while peeking through the roof portals (sorry, no public access!) of Larkin Building N at 701 Seneca, communicate a post-industrial agglomeration of prodigious scale, signifying the old and new Buffalo simultaneously.

The reemergence of the Larkin District as an important center of activity is an exciting development. The Larkin Terminal Warehouse, shown above, is at the heart of its ongoing rejuvenation as a preferred location for creative professionals and knowledge-based industries.

The Larkin District’s edgy industrial character is now an economic asset, fueling new investment in an area increasingly considered an extension of downtown. Smokestacks (like the stack of the Larkin Power House, above) no longer represent unsavory aspects of industrialization, and now make for inspiring backdrops on an economic development canvas. Here’s to a great view of the past – and the future!

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The small space, set aside for late-night chill time and crack-of-dawn cups o’ Joe, is like the sacred communal ground of the building’s so-called Arts Floor, home to a community of art studios, furniture manufacturers, and Buffalo’s leading set designers. Ugly chair + tall ceilings + exposed brick/concrete walls = Urban Cool.

Seneca Industrial, the former factory complex of the Larkin Company, is a center of gravity in the district’s evolution as veritable beehive of start-up firms, art studios, and creative industries. Affordable, adaptable, incredibly cool space has been the formula. The edgy scene and cheap rents are literally West Broadway, SoHo, 1975. The Larkin District: the next urban frontier…

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Plastic, suburban houses create the foreground for a massive factory complex. The houses seem to say: “See, aren’t you fooled? This isn’t the old Buffalo. This is just like suburbia. Don’t look at those smokestacks or the man behind the curtain!” The same scene can be eyed in neighborhoods all over Buffalo where dense, immigrant enclaves have given way to grassy fields and the occasional surviving house – or, as in this case, to new houses that seem to reflect a more rural or suburban character, opposite that of the historical city. The houses depicted here are fine houses, very well maintained by caring owners, but say much about a trajectory of urban planning that favors suburbanization of the city.

Buffalo is a hearty town, full of survivors, but there also seems to be an immense insecurity in local culture about how the city is perceived by the world. The above scene appears to mask over post-industrial realities, revealing an identity crisis in a city still hurting from the collapse of steel and grain. It indicates a city that is eager to become something it has never been. It also belies an increasing awareness of the economic and cultural value of the city’s traditional neighborhoods and industrial landscapes.

As industrial heritage assets only now begin to fuel economic development and heritage tourism in the city, the painfall fallout of the city’s deindustrialization appears to be wearing off. Artists, developers, apartment-seekers, office space hunters, all seem to celebrate this industrial legacy now. The suburban lifestyle is losing popularity, and in-town living is in vogue like never before… but as older building stock continues to be demolished and replaced with “vinyl victorians” in down-on-their-luck neighborhoods all over the city, one wonders when it will finally be okay for Buffalo to be itself again.

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