3/25/2006

Midtown Masterpiece

As the consciousness of "New Buffalo" slowly slides towards the East and embraces the extraordinary architectural heritage of the City's near East Side, you can't imagine what it feels like when people are beginning to talk about your own neighborhood, a neighborhood that's been neglected for so long and is now getting the spotlight. The new Frank E. Merriwether Jr. Library is almost ready to open and ground will be breaking soon on the 28 million dollar Performing Arts High School Project and the 15 million dollar Artspace project. More about the local architect who just purchased the three houses over on Coe Place. A small group of "Friends of Coe Place" met with him last week...

In the past few days a recent post over at BuffaloRising has received 50 + comments about another place in the neighborhood. Chicago based architect, David Steele writes about the struggle and opportunity presented by the decaying buildings in the St. Vincents Complex located at the corner of Riley and Ellicott Streets, and just around the corner from Main Street. Here's the map. And here's David Steel's piece about St. Vincents.
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I had the chance this afternoon to take some addtional pics of the buildings and grounds around St. Vincents. Here's the flickr slideshow.
An Elmwood artist suggested that this location would make an excellent Charter School for the Elmwood Village. When I was walking around the grounds today, I imagined the same thing...

St. Vincents is close to the meet-up point for this summer's Preservation Coalition bike tour, arrive early and explore this part of Midtown on your own. And don't forget to check out the two neighborhood planning documents by Chris Hawley and Stevan Stipanovich detailing additional Midtown residential and commercial opportunity.
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Artspace ArchiveAnnals of NeglectBAVPAWhere is Perrysburg?Broken Promises...
Writing the CityWoodlawn Row HousesTour dé Neglect - 2006

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