The Livery

Last week, an old Buffalo building began to crumble and fall. It wasn’t hit by lightning or a Cessna – it began to crumble from its own weight due to years, if not decades’ worth of neglect from the owners, who had it on the market for $400,000 – a price that the market evidently couldn’t bear. There aren’t too many people around in town who can throw down $400 large for a building and then invest a like amount to shore it up, much less renovate it. So, as usual in Buffalo, another building bites the dust.

Also as usual, a band of reactivists gets vocal, files for injunctive relief, and decries how the demolition of the building would ruin the city, “destroy the fabric of the community”, etc. Too late for all that now. Unless you have the scratch to buy it and fix it yourself, it’s probably coming down. Yes, the owners should be required to pay for the demolition. In a perfect world, they’d pay for the neglect that was the proximate cause of the demolition. But in Buffalo, the basic shoring-up work needed to keep an allegedly $400,000 building standing isn’t done. It’s permitted to crumble, because there is no incentive not to.

The grassroots effort to save the building has a website here. I find it pitiful and despicable that a group of regular citizens has to raise money to help save a building privately owned by a tone-deaf owner who is wealthy and doesn’t seem to give a crap. The photo used above is taken from their website.

Buffalo Geek and I spoke about this on Friday, and his notion is that the preservationist community, which is seen as somewhat of a joke outside the Elmwood/Buffalo Rising bubble, would do itself a lot of favors if, instead of just being loud and obnoxious, it took action once in a while. His idea is that they should solicit some like-minded local charities and otherwise raise $1 million per year, and select up to five buildings to save every year. They could not only make their point, but actually do the work. How? Well, maybe the city takes the buildings by eminent domain and transfers title to the preservationist non-profit for one dollar. The work is done, and the building is marketed as a fundraising vehicle for the next round of rehabilitations. It’s one thing to hold rallies and hold up signs after it’s too late. It’s another to actually do it. Like, say, Buffalo ReUse does. There are tax credits and other incentives available for these rehabs. If the preservationists don’t know how to get them, no one does.

So, the bubbleistas hold up signs decrying the newest pair of demons, Nina and Bob Freudenheim. They allege that the couple, whose company owns the Livery Building, should be required to pay for the demolition. Yes, and they should have been required to maintain the building to code, too. They’re right, of course, but it’s too little, too late.

The allegation that the demolition of the building will ruin the “fabric of the community”? Well, I’d argue that a neighborhood and the people in it make up the fabric of a community – not buildings, no matter how old or pretty. But when the Elmwood Hotel at the corner of Elmwood and Forest was being proposed in 2005, Nina Freudenheim, who lives on tony Penhurst and (one would surmise) is a person of some means who could have afforded to do the very bare minimum to shore up the Livery building, was among the plaintiffs who sued to block the hotel. The argument given by hotel opponents also echoed the “fabric of the community” arguments we often hear when this sort of thing goes on. It’s all somewhat ironic.

The renovation of these beyond-help old buildings which teeter between demolition for safety and preservation for history, would happen far more often if we had an economy that worked. If we had more and more widespread wealth, we’d have more people willing and able to do this kind of work. If we had a growing population and more vibrant economy, the preservation of buildings like the Livery would be a foregone conclusion.

Whatever happens to the Livery, one hopes that it might be a wake-up call to loads of people. There should be protests and placards against dumb policies, laws, and politicians who help perpetuate this state of affairs in which we find ourselves. If buildings are worth saving, then action trumps reaction.

It’s not so much about the buildings – it’s about the people.