December 1995....TABLE
of CONTENTS
Do you believe?
Participants on a Preservation Coalition tour of downtown Buffalo got an emphatic Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) of the City Court building one recent afternoon. The tour guide, between pointing out the glories of Old County Hall, City Hall, and the small pleasures of the old City Court building, minced no words about the 1974 new City Court, which he deemed emblematic of the decline of Western civilization, to say nothing of Niagara Square.
Relating an eyewitness account of one of the building’s principal architects telling a county legislature committee that the building has no windows because “the judges didn’t want them,” the tour guide offered two opinions: 1) It was a tad presumptuous on the architect’s part to assume he was only answerable to judges and 2) Who the heck are these judges, not wanting to look out upon those they sit in judgement upon?
Naturally, a sitting judge, unbeknownst to all, happened to be passing behind the tour guide and took umbrage to the latter remark Severe umbrage. He did not dispute the opinion that the building was unspeakably awful: “It’s horrible. Everyone hates it.” Rather, that the judges had anything to do with the design. “That is absolutely not true,” said the livid jurist. “The architect’s brother was a judge.”
Ahh—so maybe it was a question of political connections and bad taste.
The tour continued, the guide launching into a discussion of City Hall and Hugh Ferris’s Study for Maximum Allowable Mass Under the 1916 Zoning Law. Suddenly, Arthur Bremmer-like, a purple frocked woman appeared and pointed a finger at the guide, saying, “Are you leading this tour?” No, I’m a meat puppet (thought the guide).
Purple Frocked Woman then proceeded to excoriate the guide with a dull knife, saying everything he said about judges was, in so many words, utter tripe. The guide, seeing it impossible to get a word in with a hammer and maul, let the woman speak her piece. She identified herself as the “clerk of the court.” She then turned heel for the City Court building, from whence she came, her duty apparently done.