Newsletter of the
Preservation Coalition of Erie County (Home Page)

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June 1995

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AM&A’S, and What?

I think what downtown Buffalo needs is more parking. It should be free, too, like in the suburbs. Why do you think suburban malls are so successful? When are we going to wake up and get moving. Or are our leaders stupid?

- Brilliant Analyst of Urban Plight

Dear Brilliant Analyst,

I agree, our downtown leaders are stupid. But only based on listening to cerebrally-challenged people like yourself. You make the classic mistake known as the Teleological Fallacy.

Can we say something about retail driving demolition? NO ONE WITH A CAR USES DOWNTOWN FOR SHOPPING DURING WORKING HOURS. PEOPLE WHO SHOP DOWNTOWN ARE OFFICE WORKERS OR VISITORS WHO ALREADY HAVE STORED THEIR CARS BASED ON BUSINESS MATTERS.

To say what downtown needs for vibrant retail is more and cheaper parking is bunk, hokum, baloney. In fact, one could say the very definition of a dull and failing downtown or neighborhood shopping district is one where there is a great deal of surface parking. Cheeeez, let's keep the buildings we have.

Think about it. Do you go to downtown Toronto, Boston, or Manhattan because of the plentiful and cheap parking? When you go on the European tour, do you blow off Venice because St. Mark's Square doesn't have an All-Right parking lot? Do you like to visiting downtowns where all the little shop spaces have been systematically demolished for parking lots to support big shops and businesses? Do you think any retailer is going to locate in downtown Buffalo because we have parking lots? Donnez-moi une break.

Who the hell knows what to do with 300,000 square feet of windowless space?

1) There is no such thing as Free Parking. Perceived free parking, maybe.

2) Turning Buffalo into a police state in which everyone is a Disrupter.

3) The world is an onion, not a potato.

4) If you peel away the outer layers to get to the core, what do you have left. A kernel that won't sustain anyone, and a lot of tears shed.

5) Some people like onions. Others like potatoes. Most people like both but at different times. God made the potato so pathetic scribes would have an analogy for suburbs. They are bland, flavorless. Couch potato. People add things to potatoes to make them exciting. Like onions in homefries. You can have too much potato, even if you are a couch potato. This is called Potato Blight. It causes things like the Amherst Potato Famine. It causes victims to migrate en masse to places like Venice and Manhattan. They would just go downtown, but we've been busy taking all the flavor out. We need more parking, don't you see.

So, the Preservation Prescription: Save the AM&A’s warehouses. Restore the facades like the Washington Facade of the department store itself was restored. You have a much better chance of marketing four small buildings than one big one.

In terms of Main Street, nothing will happen until, at minimum, it is opened continuously to bus traffic, and where possible, to cars.

First floor frontage should open directly into street. The stores have to be small.
Anything that is a dead end won't work. So the second floor, although connected to Main Place, won't get any drift. Neither will the basement. This situation was seen in spades at the old Neisner’s store. Things that would work well there are destination-type services, record storage, museum space.
Core-to-window is large.

In fact, there is almost nothing you can do with these space except to turn them into offices for government employees, who for some reason think they have to tolerate lousy offices