Buffalo in the ’80s: MetroRail ‘unpaves the way’ to downtown revitalization

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

In 1981, the Ansonia Building at Main and Tupper was being considered for a $500,000 facelift with the thought that locations along the coming MetroRail route would be increasing in value.

Buffalo News archives

When this photo was snapped, the officer parking his Dodge Coronet police car would have to hike a block or so south on Main Street to get to the Third Precinct house in the old Greyhound bus terminal. An officer parking there today would only have to walk to the opposite corner of Main and Tupper to the new B District headquarters building.

Traffic returned to the block several years ago, after decades of being an auto-free zone.

 

Torn-down Tuesday: Before it was Buffalo’s most confusing intersection …

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

If you’ve ever tried to get to the 33 from Main Street, you’ve probably wondered who designed it. The Main Street/Humboldt Parkway/Kensington Avenue intersection, meant to act as an access point for both the Kensington and Scajaquada expressways, is a nightmare.

Buffalo News archives

It’s a tightly nestled compound intersection with one traffic light and several stop signs with at least 14 head-spinning different ways to legally move through it.

City and state traffic engineers have acknowledged that this area of Main Street between Sisters’ Hospital and Canisius College is poorly designed and doesn’t work well, but citing cost, the same folks failed to make fixing it part of the 2003-09 reconstruction of Main Street from Humboldt to Bailey, as well as the coming redesign and downgrade of the Scajaquada Expressway.

 It wasn’t always that way, though. In the days when Kensington Avenue was known as Steele Street, there was a toll booth near that intersection, collecting money to help defray the cost of paving Main Street from downtown Buffalo to the Village of Williamsville.

The intersection became somewhat more complicated with the addition of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Humboldt Parkway, but not too much for most folks to handle.

This 1930s photo shows the intersection from Kensington Avenue. The spaces occupied by the gas station and the home owned by generations of the Culliton family are now occupied by MetroRail stations.  The large building was the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Joseph for more than a century. It’s now filled with Canisius College offices and classrooms.

Buffalo Stories archives

By 1951, the gas station had come down to make way for a Robert Hall clothing store.

Buffalo News archives

While the Robert Hall building and small house next to it are gone, the larger brick building still stands with the same billboard structure in place—although Laube’s Old Spain is no longer being advertised there.

It was the 1960s construction of the Scajaquada and Kensington expressways, with Route 198 running under Main Street and leaving a series of bridges and overpasses in its wake, that left the intersection unwieldy to motorists, pedestrians, cyclists and anyone with common sense.

Buffalo in the ’70s: Barry Lillis said it would be like this!

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

With a smile and personality more reminiscent of a Vaudeville comedian than a meteorologist, Barry Lillis’ ceaseless efforts to make Buffalo smile while offering the forecast through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s have made him one of Western New York’s most loved all-time television personalities.

Buffalo News archives

Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Lillis grabbed his first broadcasting gig at WGGO Radio in Salamanca in 1963. After spending a decade all around the TV dial and all around the country as a weather anchor and children’s show host, he came back to Buffalo and WGR-TV in 1976 as the weather anchor alongside newsman Rich Kellman and Ed Kilgore on sports.

Barry left Channel 2 in 1981 for Pittsburgh, but two years later, he was back and hosting the cult classic all-night movie show “Barry’s Cat’s Pajamas.”

Had he just spent parts of three decades as Buffalo’s favorite weather goofball, it likely would have been enough. But what really endeared us was his heart—tearfully on display in the raw, as he became synonymous with Channel 2’s Muscular Dystrophy and Kids Escaping Drugs telethons.

Buffalo News archives

Since leaving Channel 2 in 1996, Barry has run for Pomfret town justice, was ordained as an Orthodox Catholic priest, and has opened a wedding chapel helping hundreds through their wedding vows.

He’s also helped hundreds through addiction. Lillis marked Dec. 21, 1984, as the day he began his own recovery from alcoholism.

In 2014, Barry moved Western New York’s hearts again as he made public his battle with late-stage cancer.

From the BuffaloStories.com archives, this is a 1976 Barry Lillis weather forecast, taking you around foggy downtown Buffalo and out to the airport, offering up a healthy serving of Barry’s standard zaniness as well.  Rich Kellman is at the Channel 2 newsdesk.

Torn-down Tuesday: A ’30s look at Larkin Square

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

For most of recent memory, the Seneca and Swan intersection in the Hydraulics neighborhood has had an undeniably industrial feel.

Even with the small businesses and taverns which dotted Seneca Street well into the ’90s, the area’s presence was dominated by the buildings that were built as the Larkin factory and warehouse.

Buffalo News archives

Those buildings were just as large in 1930, but the surrounding buildings offered much more of a neighborhood feel.

20

By 1955, the buildings on the Y between Swan and Seneca had been torn down to make way for Buffalo Fire’s new Engine 32/Ladder 5 house, which replaced an older fire house just out of the photo.

Over the last decade, this area has seen a renaissance precipitated by Howard Zemsky’s development of the Larkin Terminal Warehouse property into offices and a veritable city within a city, hosting music, entertainment, and food truck Tuesday events.

Buffalo in the ’50s: Tradesmen toil in anonymity

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Bill Dyviniak was a colorful, gruff photographer who spent almost 50 years taking often colorful, gruff photos of everyday life in Buffalo for The News and The Courier-Express.

His style and his subject matter were a reflection of our city through the 20th century: a place where blue-collar people worked hard to get the job done.

Buffalo News archives

“BY DYVINIAK” is scrawled across the back of this 1958 photo, like thousands of others he took through the years. The caption that appeared under the photo when it appeared in The News seems to tell the story of the blacksmith, all the hard working tradesmen and laborers who made Buffalo great, and maybe even Dyviniak himself.

Buffalo News Archives

“Buffalo master of a dying art, with more business than he can handle with ease, prefers to remain anonymous.”

Buffalo Stories Archives

In the 1955 Buffalo City Directory,  only five blacksmiths are listed– perhaps this man in the photo was among them.

Torn-down Tuesday: Gas station behind City Hall

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

It’s been the site of a parking lot for most of recent memory, but in 1951, as you left City Hall, walking up Niagara Street towards the West Side, an interesting little gas station was among the first buildings you’d encounter.

Buffalo News Archives

The gas station, which was on Niagara Street, is long gone, but the building next door on the very short piece of West Mohawk Street still stands.

Buffalo News Archives

Buffalo in the ’80s: Delivering one last Courier-Express

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Do you remember the red and white delivery wagons of the Courier-Express? Maybe you go back even further to remember when they were green?

(Buffalo News Archives)

It was 33 years ago this month, in September, 1982, that the lights went out and the press went cold at Buffalo’s other great newspaper, the Buffalo Courier-Express.

Absentee ownership of the Courier, a staff of journalists unwilling to compromise the integrity of their newsroom, and the fact that both the Buffalo Courier-Express and The Buffalo Evening News were losing money as Buffalo’s economy continued to erode were all among the final straws that broke the paper’s back. The final edition was prepared Sept. 18, 1982.

Longtime News Editor Bob Dearing was among the last reporters to file a story for the Courier-Express when it closed.  His summation of the colorful history of the Courier-Express didn’t make it into that final edition as planned, but it was printed in The News on the 25th anniversary of that last edition of the Courier-Express’ making a thud on stoops for the last time.

Courier’s last story finally goes to press

Bob Dearing – BUFFALO NEWS STAFF | September 16, 2007

Editor’s Note: Reporter Bob Dearing worked his regular Saturday shift on the last working day at the Buffalo Courier-Express. It was Sept. 18, 1982.

His assignment: Do a quick history of the newspaper to run the next day for the newspaper’s last edition. The story never ran but Dearing saved it all these years anyway. A quarter century later, we present the Courier’s final story.

Today’s last edition of the Courier-Express ends a colorful chronicling of Buffalo’s daily life that began in 1926 when the Buffalo Courier of William J. “Fingy” Conners merged with the Buffalo Morning Express.

The newspaper’s ancestry, though, stretches way back to 1834 when publisher James Faxon launched his Western Star, the first daily newspaper published in the booming Erie Canal town.

Just two decades earlier, the entire village of Buffalo had been burned to the ground by the British in the War of 1812.

Now, it was a growing and expanding city and its residents needed to be informed.

“Friends, patrons and readers,” wrote Faxon in Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Star. “Our object is profit and at the same time to present you with that which will be interesting, instructive and amusing . . . Should it be your pleasure that we make our daily bow before you, we shall spare neither time nor labour to do it in such a manner as to deserve your patronage.”

Four months later, the Western Star changed its name to the Daily Star, which then morphed into the Daily Republican. But the new newspaper nearly went bankrupt after the 1840 presidential election when it alienated much of the city with its vigorous endorsement of Martin Van Buren for a second term as president over William Henry Harrison, the Whig candidate who ultimately triumphed.

The newspaper changed hands in 1841, becoming the Daily Mercantile Courier & Democratic Economist. The newspaper, under new publisher Joseph Stringham, underwent three name changes and finally, after merging with another newspaper, became the Daily Courier & National Pilot. Soon, the name reverted to the simpler Buffalo Courier.

The daily Courier was a strong force in Buffalo journalism throughout the late 19th century and it began a Sunday edition in 1875. Another string of ownership changes culminated in 1897 when Conners purchased it.

Conners, a tough product of Buffalo’s tough First Ward, was born in 1857, quit school at the age of 13 and went to work on the docks of the city’s waterfront. He turned his toughness — his nickname refers to the loss of a finger as a youth — into a small fortune lording over the boisterous commercial world of Great Lakes shipping. He plunged into the newspaper business with a series of acquisitions that culminated with his Courier purchase.

The Morning Express, his merger partner in 1926, was established in 1846 by printer Almon W. Clapp. It’s best remembered for Mark Twain, the American literary genius who purchased part ownership in it in 1869 and graced its pages for two years here as its editor.

It was the 1926 merger of the Morning Express and Conners’ Buffalo Courier that created the newspaper we’re saying farewell to today: The Buffalo-Courier Express.

In 1930, the Courier-Express opened its impressive journalism building at Main and Goodell streets. It was given landmark status in 1978 by the city’s Landmark and Preservation board, a designation city officials hope will prevent any plans for demolition. Plans for the future of the building are uncertain. (Editor’s note: In fact, the building, now known as the Catholic Center, still graces the site.)

After two competing newspapers, the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser and Buffalo Times, ceased publication in the late 1930s, only the Buffalo Evening News, a newspaper founded by Edward H. Butler Sr. in 1880, was left to compete with the Courier-Express.

Conners handed over the leadership of the Courier to his son, William J. Conners Jr., who in turn, would turn over the operations to his son, William J. Conners III.

The Conners legacy at the Courier-Express was marked by sometimes bitter feuds with The Buffalo Evening News. The generally scrappy Democratic newspaper was often at odds with the staid Republicanism often found on the editorial pages of The News during the 1960s and 1970s.

And who can forget the fabled domed stadium fight of the late 1960s when The News pushed for a suburban location while the Courier advocated a downtown site?

The Conners era ended in 1979 when it was sold to the Minneapolis Star and Tribune Co., which is now the Cowles Media Co.

Executive Editor Douglas L. Turner — later to become The News’ Washington Bureau Chief — was replaced by Joel Kramer and Roger P. Parkinson was named publisher.

New features were introduced, more reporters and editors were hired and new supplements were added to the Sunday newspaper, in a bid to better compete with The News’ Sunday edition, which was launched in 1977.

But both newspapers were losing money and Cowles officials announced Sept. 7 they were closing the newspaper on Sept. 19 if new owners could not be found. A tumultuous and ultimately unsuccessful effort by Australian publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch and his News America Publishing Co. to purchase the Courier-Express was the final chapter.

The Sunday Courier, when it began publishing in 1875, started the longest continual Sunday newspaper run in the history of Buffalo.

Sadly, that run ends today.

Dearing still works for The News — today, he is the lead wire editor, selecting the state, national and international stories that appear in the paper.

Buffalo in the ’50’s: Does football trump the important stuff?

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Bruce Shanks, the first of three Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonists for The News, was wondering 60 years ago this week if Buffalo was paying too much attention to football and not enough to the events that shape our world.

It’s easy, perhaps, to see parallels all these years later, but like most things in life, it’s a bit more complicated than it was 60 years ago.

The idea of sports has grown both as a big business, but also plays a much larger role in our community’s idea of civic pride. Politics, meanwhile, has become more difficult to talk about as more Americans on both sides of the political spectrum become more extreme in their ideas and more entrenched in that extremism.

In our social media-driven world, saying “Go Bills” might help you gain friends, while saying “Go Candidate X” might get you unfriended or unfollowed.

Millard Fillmore Hospital: Buffalo excitedly tears down what it excitedly built 50 years ago

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

As Buffalo waits with great excitement for the implosion of the Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital on Oct. 3, 2015, and controversy swirls about what might be built in its place– 50 years ago, additions onto the old Millard Fillmore Hospital were ushering in “an era of great change in healthcare,” just as the abandoning of Gates Circle for the Medical Campus did several years ago.

Torn-down Tuesday: Buffalo’s hope that parking lots will save downtown

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

On Tuesdays, BN Chronicles will look at buildings or structures that are no longer standing, and look at what stands there now.

Hundreds of downtown Buffalo buildings were lost to the automobile, either with ways to move them more efficiently or to park them once they got there.

Images all appeared in The Buffalo Evening News in 1955.

Highways like the Niagara Thruway and the Kensington Expressway caused the loss of some downtown structures, but the planned Elm-Oak elevated highway – which was never built – still precipitated the wholesale demolition of every block between Oak and Elm, between the 33 and the 190.

At the same time Buffalo thought these highways into the heart of the city would “save downtown,” something had to be done with the cars once they got there.

Most look back with sadness or frustration at the fact that entire blocks were lost to civic parking ramps, and many other buildings were demolished to make way for private lots.

But as this was happening 60 years ago, the obviously good-intentioned hope was that given some place to park – perhaps the biggest beef about doing anything downtown at the time – that people would come.

That hope can clearly be seen in the advertising of downtown department stores 60 years ago this week.

The Downtown Merchants’ big two page ad touts the pleasure of downtown shopping with two new ramps open with room for 37,000 cars daily.

Many stores were running their own ads as well. Kobacker’s, Hengerer’s, and JN Adam’s all paid to tell the people of Buffalo that “parking’s a breeze” at their downtown stores.

JN’s ad reminds: “Shop all day, if you’d like. Your car’s safe from based fenders, parking tickets, and all the other hazards of the bad old days!”

All that parking didn’t help JN Adam’s. The store closed in 1960, and AM&A’s took over its location. The building with 37,000 parking spots only steps away was vacant for more than a decade. As reported by Jonathan D. Epstein in May 2015, the building is now being converted to a hotel catering to Chinese tourists.