fixBuffalo

Woodlawn Row Houses...Still Wide Open

Once a month I take pictures of the Woodlawn Row Houses and document the "demolition by neglect" that happens when the city of Buffalo, the legal owner, has given up on its architectural heritage. In the last few weeks I've visted the site on numerous occasions and noticed only today evidence of vandalism and forced entry. I feel like I'm a physician who knows that his patient is going to die, no matter what he does. Here, I'm becoming convinced that city officials are only providing lip-service to preservation issues and the architectural legacy we have inherited. Again, these Woodlawn Row Houses were designated a "local-landmark" in 1982. Today, the rear of the building is still wide open to elements and vandals.

Here are the pics for this, the seventeenth month of documenting the demolition...

click to enlarge

Here is the evidence of forced entry, rear window and rear porch door.

Some people have told me, most notably Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, that we need new laws such as this, assembly bill A-06980, to protect our architectural heritage from "demolition by neglect." Sam Hoyt has sponsored this bill. Yet no one has convinced me that enforcing the Hoyt "demolition by leglect" law will be any easier than enforcing existing building codes. I wrote about this awhile ago, over here. Something tells me that the Wollenberg Grain Elevator won't get any help from new legislation either.

In fact, the case involving the Samuel Tredwell House in NYC, which Buffalo News reporter Mark Sommer described in the article introducing Sam Hoyt's bill a few weeks ago, and apparently completly foreign to Sam (I'll forward the e-mail from Sam to me), used existing building code enforcement to win the case against a negligent owner of historic property. I first started writing about that case from NYC last December, over here.

Sam, you know Mayor Masiello and Common Council President David Franczyk better than I do, so maybe you could help. Would you please call them and see if we can get the Woodlawn Row Houses properly secured. I've tried for 17 months. It's not Elmwood, I know and it is out of your district...but hey, you never know.

Meanwhile, please take a moment to sign the petition to help save the Woodlawn Row Houses.

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Artspace Archive • Annals of Neglect • BAVPA • Where is Perrysburg? • Broken Promises...
Writing the City • Woodlawn Row Houses • Tour dé Neglect - 2006 • faq • my flickr