Deconstructing Buffalo - Part I

***Update***

June 8, 2005

Two additional reclamation and re-use models have surfaced via Cyburbia!
This first one has a pretty cool environmentally sensitive twist. Check it out!

Hillsbourough, California
Bridgeport, Connecticut

Michele Johnson doesn't spend much time talking about getting things done, she does things! She has spent years and hundreds of hours tracking down the quasi-legal "flipping" of properties on Ebay. This resulted in her commitment and participation in the "Mayor's Task-Force on Flipping." Here's that news conference last month.

Now she has agreed to lead a group of activists, community groups and with the cooperation of some of Buffalo's most enlightened elected officals and possibly city employees to establish Buffalo's first building materials reclamation and re-use project.

This is the alternative to expensive demolitions and sending Buffalo's architectural heritage to a landfill in Pennsylvannia. More about the this story as it quickly develops and the call for volunteers to begin the deconstruction process.

Meanwhile, a quick posting to Cyburbia...the most innovative message board for innovative urban planning related stuff...yielded two models of successful "reclamation and re-use" projects located around the country.

• The Harmony Project - Charleston, SC - These items are as good as new, except they are used. These and so much more can be found at the Harmony Warehouse. They carry everything from toilets, full cans of paint, buckets full of doorknobs, and electrical switch boxes to desks, sofas and out-of-tune pianos. The most sought after items in the Warehouse are windows, doors, lumber, washing machines, shingles, siding and flooring.
  

• The Loading Dock - Baltimore, MD - The Loading Dock, Inc. is the nation's first successful, self-sustaining, nonprofit clearinghouse of reusable and surplus building materials. TLD helps improve living conditions for families, neighborhoods and communities while positively impacting the environment. Mission: We increase the supply and use of affordable building materials for housing and communtiy improvement by redirecting landfill-bound, reusable materials into productive use. Since 1984, TLD has saved low-income housing and community projects over 6.7 million and has rescued over 33,000 tons of building materials from landfills.
  

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