Urban decay and demolition by neglect is present in all urban settings. All buildings have a story, a history, a life, and a death. Industrial factories rust. Office buildings slowly crumble. Residential buildings are reclaimed by the elements. It is a rarity that these building evolutions are witnessed by those outside their walls. Sean seeks to go where many have gone in the past, but few go today. To explore, embrace, and bring sight to these spaces and environments from which others avert their gaze.
To document that which once was kinetic, but now lies dormant and decaying; Even with man-made objects, death is a part of life and has its own beauty.
Roofing and window repairs on the former Transfiguration Catholic Church are about 75 percent complete, and efforts are under way to obtain government funding for interior renovations, the principals of the effort said Wednesday.
Court proceedings involving the 19th century structure were delayed again Wednesday.
Paula Nowak, a retired special investigator for the federal Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C., and her son, Buffalo attorney William F. Trezevant, said the repair work is expected to be completed by the end of this month. read the rest...
I've archived various posts and information about this place - Transfiguration Archive - and will be keeping an even closer eye on the work and latest court date.
14 years is a long time...
Buffalo’s plan to sell property it owns in Perrysburg to a logging company has been voided by a state appellate court.The 649-acre site, once home to Buffalo’s tuberculosis hospital, has been the focus of a three-year dispute. Preservationists have battled plans by Buffalo and the state to allow Trathen Land Co. to acquire the former J.N. Adam Developmental Center.
Trathen has promised to manage the woodlands “responsibly” through sustainable logging. read the rest...
The “friends of JN Adam” have claimed a court victory in stopping of the sale of the JN Adam property in Perrysburg. Who is this victory for? The residents of Perrysburg? The residents of the City of Buffalo? The taxpayers of the State of New York?The on line petition of the “friends” has 113 valid signatures. 8 of these signatures are from residents of Perrysburg and the surrounding communities. Several are from out of state, most are from Buffalo or Depew or Amherst. read the rest...
Road tripping soon, for updated pics. Meanwhile here's January 2005 flickr slide show.
Dave Feehan, who heads the International Downtown Association, is here to tell us how downtowns have defied predictions and come back strong. David has devoted more than 35 years to rebuilding and revitalizing cities, directing downtown programs in Des Moines, Detroit, and Kalamazoo, and neighborhood development programs in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis.
Also with us is Dennis Maher, a sculptor working in Buffalo who brings new life to abandoned buildings by using the waste of other restoration projects. Dennis defines his work as "afterlives, the attempt to renew and to give another life to the wasted remains of a city." Dennis is an adjunct professor at the University at Buffalo.
Seven twenty-two Sycamore Street looks like a patch where the very idea of property has been voided. Its vacancy is the sign of something larger than deeds. It resembles a Midwestern field where the stand of crops shows odd variations: the sign of a buried well or a bulldozed farmhouse or soil where there once grew a border of crabapple trees. This lot was Indian territory. It was part of the Great Northwest, a wheat growing region, the breadbasket of a very young nation. It was part of the rise of Buffalo. It was all the things it has been since those long ago days. Now 722 Sycamore Street lies fallow. - The Last Fine Time, p. 202
Update...11/20/07...931am If you're arriving here because of a link in the comment stream of a recent Buffalo Rising story - make sure to click through the Sycamore Village Archive and here or here, too. Some chilling foreclosure action in a few blocks adjacent to the Sycamore Village site. Like who wants to spend 180-200K and be saddled with a big mortgage when you could scoop up a new house for 13-20K?? Further signs of a stable neighborhood, huh?
The Coalition for Economic Justice (CEJ) has launched a Partnership for the Public Good (PPG) to promote a community-oriented vision of a revitalized Buffalo. CEJ is joined in this effort by other groups such as PUSH Buffalo, Buffalo ReUse, the Homeless Alliance of Western New York, and Buffalo First, as well as by faculty from Cornell ILR and the University at Buffalo Law School. PPG is a "think-and-do" tank that will perform research and advocacy and will support the efforts of the broad array of organizations working to revitalize Buffalo.Various policy briefs are archived, here.
