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October 1995

Church Saved as Talk Begins of Tearing Down Grover
By George Anderson

The Plymouth Methodist Church on Buffalo's Lower West Side, for a decade a focus of preservation concern, has been taken off the critical list by a combination of hard work and its residue, luck. But at the same time, some voices are being heard calling for the total or partial demolition of adjacent Grover Cleveland High School, the former State Normal School. Both buildings are on Porter Avenue, which, as part of Frederick Law Olmsted’s park system, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

First, the good news. The Plymouth Methodist Church, designed by Cyrus Porter and Sons in 1911 and landmarked in 1989, has been purchased by a California real estate developer and manuscript collector David Karpeles. According to preservationist Larry Bartz, who has been hired to oversee renovation, Karpeles is to use the church to store and display part of his collection through a not-for-profit institution set up for the purpose. Karpeles reportedly has similar projects in other cities. Proximity to the Peace Bridge and the Toronto market appealed to Karpeles, said Bartz.

Plymouth Methodist, occupying a prominent triangle of land bordered by Jersey, Porter and Plymouth street (originally 12th Street and renamed for the church), was the first target of the Preservation Coalition of Erie County's Making Monuments program. The program was designed to train members and the general public in historic research and to systematically designate significant structures. The church's status as a designated landmark was crucial at several points in ensuring the structure's continued existence and integrity.

The Coalition research team on the project included Research by Paul Maine, Hilary Sternberg, and Nancy Barrett. Trina Larson was the photographer.

In the past year, however, concern was growing about the effects of overflowing gutters on the masonry and vandals on the windows and interior. A fortuitous conversation by Buffalo Philharmonic cellist Joel Bechtel while visiting a Karpeles manuscript exhibit in Santa Barbara eventually led to Karpeles purchase of the church, which is one block west of Kleinhans Music Hall.

Bartz, a hands-on preservationist if there ever was one, has restored several houses in the area, including the the red brick Plymouth Methodist parsonage, built at the time of the second Methodist church on the site, in 1889. Bartz expects to have the church, which contains over 30 rooms and halls, in condition to open in January 1996. The building was in remarkably good condition despite years of disuse. Masonry work is being done now and tons of debris have been removed from the interior. The immediate goal is to renovate the main auditorium, which will be used for displays, and repair and replace the electrical, plumbing, and heating systems.

Across Porter Avenue, the initial volleys in what may be a long campaign to replace Grover Cleveland High School have been fired. Over the summer Andy Garcia, the head of Buffalo Columbus Hospital, voiced concern over lack of maintenance and facilities and called for a new consolidated West Side High School. The School Board member representing the West District, Tony Luppino, has put the issue at the top of his building agenda.

Over the years the building has become the symbol of Buffalo's Lower West Side. Visually and psychologically, there is likely no other building which so dominates the West Side. It would be unimaginable to a broad cross section of the community, to say nothing of neighbors and current and former users of the building, to have such an emotional symbol disappear or be abandoned to fate.

A poster and postcard originally distributed in 1985 and just reissued in an updated format, printed above, begins to relate just how ingrained the building is in Buffalo's physical and mental fabric.

Bottom-lining it, those who would blame the building for its students' academic achievement or potential and psychological well-being will have to answer why, if the age of the building is at issue, why City Honors High School (in terms of student achievement, the number one high school in Erie County, according to a recent Buffalo News study) and Nichols School, not to mention Oxford, seem to have better academic success with aged facilities. Plato and Socrates managed just fine under a tree.

Instead of tearing Grover down for what it isn't (i.e., new), we should restore it and renovate it for what it is: an inspiration in architecture, civics, and democracy.

Your chemistry lab not up to snuff?

1)Ernest Rutherford did not have better equipment,

2) remodel.

Basic face-to-face interaction hasn't changed since Plato and Aristotle lectured under a tree in Athens.

Buffalo was very fortunate it missed the wave of building in the 1950s. 60s and 70s, those low-ceilinged, small-windowed, asbestos-impregnated machines for enforcement.. (with the unfortunate exception of such instate correctional institutions as McKinley High School and the West Hertel Academy.) Think of the poor suburban slobs who had to go to Grand Island Middle School, St. Stepahn’s school, and church, only slightly more inspiring than the eastern states Penitentiary. Doty Hall v. Geneseo HS, which looks a lot like a missile-hardened military outpost on the edge of town. The ebb and flow of the year. Football team out on the lawn. What more American image could Peace bridge travelers get than the football team practicing on the front lawn of an Independence Hall-inspired building with the flag whipping in the breeze, set among streets lined with beautiful wood and brick 19th century houses?

So there's a melting pot? what's new about that? Would a new building change anything on that score? (Yes, I clearly recall how the architecture of the school shaped my attitude toward race relations). Does Yale say let's chuck those buildings on the green?

It is an architecture of respect and dignity. The building has history, tradition, pride. Character, individualism, personality. You can't get rid of society's problems with a bulldozer. But you sure can get rid of a lot of its achievements. Peeling paint. quel horreur!

How many colleges use the silhouette of their old main to connote enduring quality? How many private High schools. Nichols. When was the last time you heard people complaining that the age of its building was an academic problem?

It is merely edifice envy and jealousy.

Maybe its too much junk food, too much TV, the disintegrating family, the zero maintenance.

It is like Vermont/New York border. Life goes on, but it is diminished. You know you live in a less favored land.

Grandma Moses quality. You say there's murder and mayhem and—gads—peeling paint. How is a new building going to change that. School 16 not good enough for classes, but suddenly good enough for luxury apartments?