Citizens Against Downsizing Buffalo to Death
Saving historic Great Northern to save jobs
By Fred Emmer
200 people gathered in the chill afternoon of March
14 to voice support for the Buffalo's historic Great Northern grain elevator and
to scorn its owner and would-be demolitionist, Archer-Daniels-Midland. ADM several
years ago bought Pillsbury's Buffalo assets.
The Preservation Coalition was joined by Local 1286 of the Longshoreman's union,
Grain Millers Local 36, Teamsters, and the Coalition for Economic Justice. Joining
together to save heritage and jobs, the groups formed a coalition called Citizens
Against Downsizing Buffalo To Death. ADM wants to demolish the Great Northern and
abandon another elevator to build a new one with the express purpose of eliminating
jobs.
The unions claim the Great Northern was closed because Pillsbury lost outside contracts
on its Standard elevator, and shifted Great Northern work there because its legs
were faster and the plant manager didn't get along with the people working at the
Great Northern.
Further, ADM wants to build the new elevator to eliminate the trucking jobs, elevator
jobs, and scoopers jobs by accommodating self-unloading ships. About 50 people work
in three shifts at the mill. It is the largest of some 30 mills producing Pillsbury
products -- and work would likely continue no matter what happens with the elevators,
according to union officials, while demolishing the Great Northern would set off
a process leading to the certain loss of 18 trucking and elevator jobs, and a reduction
of 34% of scooper work.
The Great Northern opened with 3 towers (the movable steel structures which house
lifting apparatus), but lost 1/3 of its lifting capacity when only two legs were
replaced after a wind storm toppled all three in 1922. Adding a third leg or modernizing
the other two would make the Great Northern as fast as any elevator, according to
the men running the Standard.
Citizens Against Downsizing Buffalo To Death welcomes individuals and organizations
to participate in its events. Call 888-8888.
The historic importance of the Great Northern
The Great Northern is unique. It is the only 'brick box' storage and transfer elevator
in the United States. It represents an important advance in the application and aesthetics
of elevator technology and a touchstone in Buffalo's social, cultural, and economic
history.
It was begun and virtually completed between February and September 1897ñan astonishing
pace for an elevator that was briefly the world's largest, with a capacity of over
2,500,000 bushels.
The Great Northern and the Electric elevators (demolished in 1984), both built at
the same time, were important not only for their use of electricity as a power source,
but for cylindrical steel bins for grain storage. Prior to this, probably all of
the grain elevators in Buffalo consisted of square wooden bins sheathed in corrugated
metal or wood.
A typical wooden bin could hold 5,000 bushels of grain. The Great Northern's primary
bins could hold 74,000. In addition, wooden elevators had the disturbing habit of
burning down, often within only a few years of being built.
Steel bins, apart from the odd structural defect, can last considerably longer: those
in the Great Northern are original. They can, however, deform in the heat caused
by fires. The Great Northern's narrow cylindrical bins were an important engineering
advance that would determine the ìclassicî shape of grain elevators all over the
world.
The first steel elevator in the U.S. was the Washington Ave. elevator in Philadelphia,
with square bins. Steel wasn't seriously considered again until after 1895, when
the Bessemer process was mature and defect-free sheet steel was cheap.
Then, the Electric and Great Northern were built in 1897, both of steel, both powered
by electricity (It is believed the Electric went on line first).
The Great Northern is the last of Buffalo's major ìworking houseî elevators, in which
the storage bins, work spaces, and conveying apparatus are all located within a single
structure. In this respect it was much like the old wooden elevators.
The Great Northern has 30 bins, 38 feet in diameter, placed in three rows of 10,
and 18 bins, 15.5 feet in diameter, placed in the interstices of the larger bins.
The bins can withstand stresses of 17,000 pounds per square inch. A 30-inch thick
brick wall encases the bins.
The brick skin serves strictly as weatherproofing and does not carry the weight of
the cupola or the grain bins.