Buffalo Central Terminal

Before our trip to Buffalo I reached out to a few people asking for any hot tips on abandoned spots to explore. There's a tendency in the "urbex" (I hate that word) community to keep spots secret, which annoys me even though I logically understand the reasoning. The Buffalo Central Terminal came up in conversation and while I was researching, I discovered that—while it has sat "abandoned" for some time—it's been owned and cared for by the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation since 1997. Once a month they offer tours for $15 and we were lucky that the tour fell on our last day in town (although we did have to leave early, ironically, to catch our train).

Although the idea for Buffalo Central Terminal was in the works for more than 40 years, construction began in 1925 and the terminal officially opened in 1929. The 17-story, Art Deco-style station was designed by the same architect that designed Grand Central Terminal, Alfred T. Fellheimer. The complex comprises several interconnected structures, including concourses, an office tower, baggage building and mail building. A Pullman Company service building, an ice house, a coach shop and a power station were torn down over the years to lower property taxes. 

The terminal hosted trains from the New York Central Railroad (its owner) as well as from the Canadian National Railway, Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway. Right after opening it was servicing 200 trains daily, although almost immediately the Great Depression and the rise of the automobile led to a decline in train traffic. In 1956 the terminal was put up for sale for $1 million. 

With the creation of Amtrak in 1971, service was restored to Niagara Falls and Toronto via the Maple Leaf, but the station was simply too big and expensive to maintain. In 1979 Amtrak opened the much smaller Buffalo-Depew station, and the last train departed the Central Terminal at 4:10 am on October 28, 1979.

The terminal was sold to Anthony T. Fedele for $75,000, but when he defaulted on his taxes in 1986, the property was put up for auction and sold to Thomas Telesco—the only bidder—for $100,000. He had plans for a banquet hall or to return train service to the building, but those fell through and the building transferred hands once again. Anything of value was taken from the structure and sold for scrap, aiding in its decay. The building wasn't secured and vandalism was rampant. At the beginning of the tour, our guide asked people to raise their hands if they'd previously visited the terminal, and when he asked "how many of you came here when you weren't supposed to?" most of the hands stayed raised. 

The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation has done a lot over the years to rehab the terminal, but a lot of work remains. In 2005, the concourse clock was found in an antique shop, purchased thanks to a public fundraising effort and returned to the terminal in 2009. Repair and restoration of the roof was completed in 2015, signs are being repainted and fixtures are slowly being found and returned.

In 2016 the terminal was a backdrop to both a Goo Goo Dolls music video and scenes from the movie Marshall, the production of which contributed $90,000 in cosmetic improvements to the concourse. While I would have loved to explore it on my own back when it was truly abandoned, I'm always happy when a grand old ruin gets a second (or third, or fourth) chance.

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Buffalo Central Terminal
495 Paderewski Drive
Buffalo, NY 14212

Abandoned Church

Before we explored the abandoned Wonder Bread factory in Buffalo, we started the morning by going to church. I wasn't raised religious and I've only attended church services a few times with my grandma, but the chance to explore a grand, crumbling abandoned church is something I obviously couldn't pass up. 

It wasn't immediately obvious what denomination this church was built for—at least not to me, someone who knows absolutely nothing about religions. I always try to research the buildings we explore afterwards, and I discovered that this was a Roman Catholic Church. The parish was founded in 1908 in an area heavily populated with German Catholics. The Romanesque style church, modeled after the Cathedral of Aachen in Aachen, Germany, was built from 1911-1928 with Ohio sandstone. 

By 1914 the congregation had nearly 1,500 members and the 170-foot-tall church could seat 1,200 people. Changing neighborhood demographics caused membership to decline through the years, and the last Catholic mass was held here in 1993. In 1998 the building was sold for $22,000 to World Wide Bible Deliverance Inc., a religious group that neglected—and eventually abandoned—the building.

Beginning in 2006, the church was sold or acquired by several different people over the years, during which anything that could be ripped out of the building (radiators, copper flashing from the roof, etc.) was sold for scrap. The church has been listed in the city's yearly tax auction for several years, but remains for sale. 

Because the church has had such a tumultuous ownership history, there isn't much left inside, but it's still a beautiful building to explore (and surprisingly light on graffiti). There are a few small stained glass windows that remain partially intact and large plaster angels stand guard from the edges of the domed ceiling. A beautifully hand-painted safe stands to the left of the altar in a side room, only remaining because it was obviously too heavy to think about moving.

The choir loft is still accessible and has one remaining wooden pew and the remnants of an organ. There is a skinny, rickety wooden ladder that looks as if it could deposit you onto the roof or into the bell tower, but the stairs were caked in mounds of pigeon droppings so we decided not to risk the climb.

A lot of the abandoned buildings and properties we explore are technically for sale—either by private owners or the city—but I always wonder if any of them eventually sell and avoid demolition or collapse. The optimistic real estate listing for this church claims that this property "has amazing possibilities!" and that it "could be converted for use as community center, apartments or office space." It concludes with a warning to not "let this wonderful example of architectural history pass you by!"

Abandoned Wonder Bread Factory

When David and I were in Buffalo recently, we had great luck exploring two abandoned spots in one day—an abandoned church in the morning and the Wonder Bread factory in the afternoon. The 180,000-square-foot Wonder Bread factory opened in 1923 on Buffalo's Belt-line. In addition to bread, the factory also produced Hostess brand snacks.

Wonder Bread was one of the first breads to be factory sliced and the company guaranteed freshness in every slice or your money back. Hostess introduced the Twinkie in 1930, and since then they've only been absent from store shelves for ten months—from November of 2012 until July of 2013—when Hostess filed for bankruptcy. Despite their reputation as a post-apocalyptic snack, Twinkies actually only have an official shelf-life of 45 days.

The East Buffalo factory was shut down in 2004 and the building has been for sale for $800,000 since 2010. Abandoned factories aren't high on my list of places to explore because they're generally sort of boring and often heavily vandalized. I didn't expect much from such a well-known spot, but it's relatively secure and still has a lot of stuff left inside.

I think the fact that it was not just a bread factory but Wonder Bread specifically, is what made it such an interesting place to explore. There's just something so optimistic and American about Wonder Bread and there are enough remnants of the brand scattered around the factory that you can almost imagine the smell of baking bread. 

The mostly-intact employee locker rooms add a human touch, with stickers and handwritten messages still decorating some of the lockers. Sometimes it's hard imagine these buildings when they were operational, but notes like "The torture is over!! I'm free!!" or "Prison life would have been easier," really give a sense of what the workers' lives were like (I'm guessing not great). 

Visible from the roof is a smokestack with "Ward's Bakery" spelled out in contrasting brick—the Ward Bakery empire included three independent companies: General Baking, Ward Foods and Continental Baking, makers of Wonder Bread. But the crowning jewel of this factory is its rooftop sign, constructed of huge, red metal letters that once announced to everyone passing that Wonder Bread was produced within—a fact that surely their noses had already suspected.

Buffalo: Frank Lloyd Wright

I was surprised on our recent trip to Buffalo to learn that the city has the highest concentration of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings outside of Oak Park in Chicago. A few of them have sadly been demolished over the years—including one of his first commercial commissions, the Larkin Administration Building. Darwin Martin was an executive at the Larkin Soap company, and in addition to the administration building, he commissioned Wright to build two houses in Buffalo—a primary residence, and a vacation home on Lake Erie.

The Martin House complex comprises multiple structures, including a main house connected via pergola to a conservatory, carriage house with chauffeur's quarters and stables, gardener's cottage and the Barton House, which was built for Martin's sister. All of these are done in Wright's Prairie style of architecture and are considered to be some of his best examples of this style.

Before the house was designated as a landmark in 1986, it was in a sorry state of disrepair, and three of the original buildings were demolished (they have since been expertly rebuilt). There is still ongoing restoration work, especially in some of the interiors, but it's a beautiful, sprawling complex that seems just as visionary and modern today as it must have felt when it was built in the early 1900s.

The Greycliff Estate was the Martins' summer home, and is in an earlier state of the restoration process than the Martin House. Most of the interior is gutted, and after the Martins died their family sold the house to the Piarist Fathers, an order of Roman Catholic Priests from Hungary. The lakefront backyard has fallen victim to a receding shoreline, but it's not hard to see why the Martins were smitten with the view.

Greycliff reminded me somewhat of Falling Water and Kentuck Knob in its connection and consideration of the surrounding landscape. You can see that even in the 1920s Wright had begun to experiment with his corners of glass that he would perfect for Falling Water.

Of course everyone knows FLW for his houses and commercial structures, but I had no idea until our trip that he also designed a mausoleum. The Blue Sky Mausoleum was the last of four Martin commissions. It was conceived between 1925-1928, but wasn't built when Darwin Martin died in 1935. In 2004, Forest Lawn Cemetery finally realized Wright's vision with help from his notes, drawings and a Wright-trained architect.

Like most things Wright designed, the mausoleum is not a traditional "box" structure, but instead is integrated into the sloping landscape. It appears as if only two people are currently housed in the mausoleum, which includes twenty-four, double-tier crypts. After having a transformative experience at Falling Water, I wasn't sure it was possible to respect FLW's portfolio any more, but finding out that he dipped his toe into the world of cemetery architecture definitely makes me even more of a fan.*

EDIT* I had no idea when I posted this that today is FLW's 149th birthday - HBD FLW!

Lake Effect Diner

On our way out of Buffalo, we made one last stop—breakfast at the Lake Effect Diner. The Lake Effect is a Mountain View Diner (#446) from 1952 and was moved from Wayne, PA to Buffalo in 2001. The Mountain View Diner company was founded near Mountain View, NJ and manufactured more than 400 prefabricated dining cars from 1938 to 1957. The diners made their way all over the country, and you can still find them in operation today.

I lament daily the rapid loss of diners I love, and unfortunately a lot of Mountain View Diners are gone or abandoned. Best case scenario is that they are moved and rehabilitated, like the Lake Effect. The West Taghkanic Diner in upstate NY is also from the Mountain View company (#399), as is the Airline Diner (#441) in Queens, Cafe de La Esquina (formerly the Relish Diner) in Williamsburg and the closed Blue Sky Diner in Long Island City.

The Lake Effect was featured on Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives," but don't hold that against it. Although I'm sure it wasn't called the Lake Effect during its life in PA, the neon sign (complete with blinking sparkles / snowflakes?) is a perfect example of how to do something new that remains true to the aesthetic of the classic diner (although the waitress's skirt length—or lack thereof—is mildly concerning).

The inside is beautifully restored and seems mostly original. I'm obsessed with the pale pink and blue color scheme, and it's a lovely change from the red/silver I usually see in these diners. The boomerang-print table tops are probably new, but they fit in perfectly with the curved pink ceiling, decorative metal walls and ribbed trim—everything I dream about in a diner.

The padded booths were a really interesting shape, with cushions extending into the curved corners which I loved. They make their own bread and cure their own meats—the food was definitely notches above standard diner fare and the portions were huge. I'm so glad the Lake Effect's days didn't end sadly in PA, but that it was able to live on—I can only hope other Mountain View diners are so lucky.

Buffalo: Forest Lawn Cemetery

Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY was founded in 1849, 11 years after Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery. The two are very similar—designed during the rural cemetery movement—which is why it was suggested that I should definitely see Forest Lawn during our recent trip to Buffalo.

One of the first monuments you encounter upon entering through the main gates is dedicated to the only child of Mr. and Mrs. John Blocher, who died after a year's illness. The elaborate, glass-enclosed memorial features the Blochers dressed in their Victorian best, standing watch over their son, who looks as if he's just fallen asleep while reading. An angel hovers above, and although it's all rendered in beautifully white stone and everyone looks serene, the cumulative effect is still unnerving.

Like Green-Wood, Forest Lawn is very large—269 acres—and I feel like I could go back several times and barely scratch the surface of all there is to see. It's still an active cemetery, and a lot of what we saw looked like newer burials, with ample space to continue accepting new residents for years to come.

Forest Lawn has it's share of famous (and "famous") inhabitants, including 13th president (and Buffalo resident) Millard Fillmore; Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first female architect; Aretha Franklin's mother; Irving Berlin's wife; many former Buffalo mayors; Civil War generals, and Rick James (

bitch

).

But the best find of all is definitely this tombstone, belonging to Timothy Switala, who died in 2002. It's the only one I've found so far in all of my cemetery exploration that is a modern stone, carved in the style of the 1700s stones that I love so much. I can forgive the modern depiction of the atom because that winged skull is so very wonderful. I've long wondered why designs like this went out of favor and wished that they would make a comeback. I'm sorry for the Switala's family loss, but I'm so grateful to have found his incredible stone and to know it's entirely possible to render the classic designs with modern materials—here's hoping I see more of these in my future cemetery travels.