Demolition viewed from the Swan Street side. The building pier, center left, survives today. Image source: BECHS
The artifact I chose is a photo of the demolition of the Larkin Building in Buffalo, NY from 1950. In 1904, Frank Lloyd Wright built his first major public work in Buffalo, NY; an administrative building for the Larkin Soap Company. John D. Larkin wanted to consolidate his office departments into a single administration building that met his desire for a humane working environment. When the building was completed in 1906, it contained many employee amenities that were not found in other Buffalo companies at the time. Those amenities included air conditioning, day lighting from a large 6-story window, and large floor space. It also had a massive structure with floors ten inches thick supported by twenty-four inch steel girders.
The spectacular building didn’t last very long. By 1947, the building was a wreck. It had been abandoned due to bankruptcy and had not fared well since. Every double-paned window was shattered, the entrance gate was toppled, and the iron fence topping the brick wall around the structure went into a wartime scrap collection. Twenty tons of copper plumbing and roofing, along with anything else of value, were also stolen. It became a site where neighborhood children would play among the rubble. In 1950, the building was finally demolished and turned into a parking lot for the factory building next door. The demolition took 5 months because the building was “built to stand forever.” The leftover concrete and brick rubble were used to fill in the Ohio Basin creating what is now Father Conway Park. The 24 inch girders are now shoring up coal mines in West Virginia.
How could our society allow such a magnificent building to be demolished? University of Buffalo’s Jack Quinan said it plain and simple, “Nobody cared. It was a time when people didn’t place a value on those things. There wasn’t much of a preservation movement in the United States at that time.” For now, all we have left of the building is a single pier at the edge of the property. I will be further investigating the reasons for demolition in the Upstate New York region and comparing them to the Larkin Building.
Sources:
http://wnyheritagepress.org/photos_week_2011/larkin_demolition/larkin%20demolition.htm
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