For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: “It might have been!”
- John Greenleaf Whittier, “Maud Muller,” 1856
The Wagner & Nauland Block, a composition of two Italianate commercial structures at 742-748 Seneca Street, was demolished in the late 1990s. Was it necessary?

This photograph, taken at about 1979 by Black Rock activist Scott Glasgow, shows the block in its final iteration as Mindy’s Home Service, a used appliance store that occupied the site into the mid-1990s. The heritage structures, which would have finely complemented the streetscape of any city, were reportedly in good repair at the time of their demolition, only a few years before the 2002 rehabilitation of the Larkin Terminal Warehouse, 500 feet away, shattered misconceptions about the potential marriage of preservation and economic development in Buffalo’s “near downtown.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Cor Jesu High School in Malang town East Java was a historical building it was built in 1924, finished in 1926 during Netherlands colonial in Indonesia. Corridor between classroom still carefully although have ever experienced fired.

The ornament details on this building have an eccentric colonial design. One of the detail which is remain to defended as artistic object and still be functioned till now there are the Bell made from brass. 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 »

The history of the Hydraulics, Buffalo’s earliest manufacturing district, is about to get some national attention. Yesterday the New York State Historic Preservation Office recommended two applications, including the individual listing of the Kamman Building and a Multiple Property Documentation Form (MPDF) on the Hydraulics neighborhood, for nomination by the National Parks Service for the National Register of Historic Places.

With the recent passage of New York State’s Enhanced Historic Tax Credit Program, providing tax credits of up to 40% of the costs of rehabilitating heritage structures, the event is a watershed moment in the ongoing development and economic revitalization of the Hydraulics.

The Kamman Building, 755-757 Seneca, is now well on its way to listing on the National Register of Historic Places, making it eligible for historic tax credits being sought by Chaintreuil | Jensen | Stark to transform the structure into apartments and office space to the tune of $1 million. The Hydraulics MPDF (check it out here), prepared by Jennifer Walkowski of the Read the rest of this entry »