The Brecker Building is a four-story, steel-reinforced concrete framed building constructed at 630 High Street in 1911 to house the J. M. Brecker's Department Store (google map). It is a very early example of steel-reinforced concrete construction, as early as it gets, and is an admirable specimen of progressive architecture in a seemingly unlikely location: the five-points of Genesee, Herman, and High streets.
The department store thrived through the 1910s and appears to have downsized in 1925 to a smaller location at 905 Genesee Street. In 1926, just in time for its September opening, the building was transformed into a vocational school for girls ages 14-17, who would attend the school one day a week to learn the "domestic arts" and various womanly trades, such as, among other things, how to work in a department store. The fourth floor of the building was set up as a model apartment for teaching the girls to learn how to be ideal housewives. The school moved to other quarters around 1937 and the building became briefly used as a large indoor market, Mammouth Market Centers, where a restaurant, meat markets, grocers, bakers, etc., set up stalls and sold their goods, but it was not a lasting venture: the building was listed as vacant, briefly, in 1940.
The former school was then taken over by the Curtiss Wright Aeroplane Division to house the Curtiss Wright Corporate Training School, a use undoubtedly linked to the war effort and one that may have lasted up to 1945. Chic Maid Hat Mfg. Co. had a good run in the building from 1946 to the early 1960s. From that point forward to the late 1990s, the building housed mostly warehouse functions. The Brecker Building was in sound condition as late as 2005, around which time the City took title for the building after a period of ownership by a notorious slumlord whose case was detailed in the Buffalo News. Around 2006, the City constructed a very nice curb extension in front of the building, a public investment that validates the inherent value of its location.
The building is a block from an Olmsted park, a block from an expressway exit, a mile from downtown, and is situated on arguably the next frontier of private reinvestment in the Near East Side. The building is adaptable, strongly built, is adjacent to vacant land available for surface parking to serve potential tenants, and is along one of Buffalo's most frequent bus lines, the #24, which links to the Buffalo-Niagara International Airport. Nearby, the former Weber's Furniture at 900 Genesee Street has recently undergone a complete restoration, and the former St. Mary of Sorrows R. C. Church, one block to the east, enjoys renewed vitality as the King Urban Life Center. Things are happening at Genesee-High, and future prospects seem bright. An argument for retaining the Brecker Building for future reuse, given current development trajectories, and existing site conditions, is very strong.
Currently, the Brecker Building is City-owned. It was recently targeted for a City sponsored demolition. The building's copper trim (see 2005 image) has been stolen and scrapped. The views here are simply stunning.
Additional images are available in the 630 High Street flickr archive.
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fixBuffalo flickr • the atlantic cities • shrinking cities • americansuburbX • copenhagenize
buffalo reuse • spacing toronto • infrastructurist
buffalo reuse • spacing toronto • infrastructurist
