December 1995....TABLE
of CONTENTS
Unless its cast in...
By Timothy TielmanNotes collected while wondering whatever happened to the spirit of William Dorsheimer:
• The Buffalo Sabres have acquired the former Higgins Erectors property in and adjacent to the Cobblestone Historic District, including a large freight house and office building over 100 years old. The structures, between Columbia Street and Michigan Avenue, “will be down by Christmas,” according to a neighborhood businessman. If so, this would bring to five the number of blocks at Buffalo’s historic demolished by or for the Sabres since being awarded their NHL franchise in 1969.
• The City Streets Dept. claims it instructed the Sabres in writing that Baltimore Street could not be altered. This fact has not been verified. (Trust, but verify, said the great Gorbachev.)
• As the arena takes shape it is clear it isn’t going to win anyone the Pritzker Prize It will win awards from the Prefabricated Concrete Panel Institute and the National Institute of Consultants to Beleaguered Waterfront Cities
• If the Sabres do not introduce new uniforms next season to match the teal-and-blue color bands on the arena, I will eat this column raw.
• Why in Sam Hill did Wal-Mart not bid for the arena naming rights? Wall Mart would have been appropriate.
• The $5.4 million Congressman Jack Quinn recently appropriated for streets around the arena will mostly, if not all, on ‘phase 1’ streets, i.e. Main Street, Perry Street, and South Park Avenue (modern), and Illinois and Mississippi (landmarked stone streets). Other stone streets are planned for later stages.
• Buffalo would be a laughingstock if its cobblestone district didn’t have any ‘cobblestones.’ The Streets Dept. is still trying to argue the advantages of modern composition brick.
• There is not a person inside or outside City Hall who is not skeptical of the Sabres’ ever-imminent release of plans for parking ramps along Illinois street facing the Cobblestone District. With each passing week, the Sabres-imposed time-pressure on public review and revisions will increase.