Preservation Site Ready!
J. N. Adam & Co. / AM&A's department
Store Complex
By Martin Wachadlo
The Coalition is so concerned about the possible loss of the remarkable AM&A's
complex that we are devoting our entire issue to its architectural history, a story
that few know in its entirety. óEd.
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(A, B, C) |
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(C, B, A) |
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(H) |
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(G) |
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(F) |
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(D) Detail of 1935 Starret & Van Vleck façade for J.N. Adam Co., showing Kasota stone below and brick above. |
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(D) |
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(D), (E), (H), (I) |
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The Main Street Buildings
Founded in 1881 by James N. Adam, a native of Scotland who chose Buffalo as the ideal place to start his new dry goods store, J.N. Adam & Co. first occupied the ground floor of the original White Building at 298 Main Street, north of Swan. In ten years, success allowed Adam to move into a new building at 387-389 Main Street (1891-1892), occupied entirely by his store (B).
The six-story structure extended through to Washington Street, and had identical
façades of brick,
terra cotta and cast iron on both streets. The light coloring and restrained
classical detailing marks this building as one of the earliest examples in Buffalo
of the American Renaissance, and it stood in stark contrast to the heavily detailed,
dark-hued picturesque eclecticism then dominant in American architecture. The architects
were Green & Wicks,
who had also designed Adam's home in 1882, their first Buffalo commission. (The house
still stands, in an altered state, at 17 Tudor Place.) Green
& Wicks were designing the Market
Arcade at the same time.
Business continued to grow, and in 1895-96 the store expanded to the north into a
new structure at 391-393 Main Street (A). This was six stories high, designed in
the Flemish Renaissance style
by Green & Wicks,
and featured a façade of cast iron and golden brown brick trimmed with white
terra cotta,
and surmounted by a gable roof
of red Spanish tile. Unlike the first building however, the Washington Street façade
was a simpler design of red brick, capped by a flat roof highlighted by a row of
stylized brick triglyphs. The
additional cost for two elaborate façades was apparently not justified.
Why two completely different buildings for the same store? Adam's firm did not own
the property, but instead leased it from different owners who had commissioned distinctive
structures. Additionally, the load-bearing wall construction between the buildings
also provided a measure of fire protection. Fire was an important consideration,
as a massive fire had destroyed the buildings north of the Adam store in 1893.
As J.N. Adam & Co. continued to expand in the first decade of the 20th century,
offering an ever-increasing variety of products, the need for more space became critical.
In 1909, another new building was erected to the south at 383-385 Main Street (C).
This building was designed by Esenwein
& Johnson, one of the most important local architectural firms of the early
20th century. The façades were characterized by vertical piers with recessed
spandrels rising the full
height of the building. he Main Street façade was enlivened with terra
cotta details of classical derivation, while the Washington Street façade
was not.
The Washington Street Buildings
The store also expanded to the east. In 1912 a new
five-story building was built at 369-373 Washington Street, at the northeast corner
of East Eagle Street (H). Also the work of Esenwein
& Johnson, this was a steel-frame structure sheathed in bright white glazed
terra cotta
tiles, with stylized classical ornamentation at the cornice. Esenwein
& Johnson were simultaneously using this medium in the recently renovated
Root Building at 70-86 West
Chippewa Street, and in the General
Electric Tower at 535 Washington Street, now known as the Niagara Mohawk Building.
This new construction was essentially an addition to the circa 1886 building
to the north at 375-377 Washington Street (architect unknown), the oldest structure
in the complex (G). Originally occupied by the Ideal Furniture Co., this building
retains its richly patterned façade of brick and stone, as well as all but
one of the original first floor cast iron piers, but was painted off-white long ago
to harmonize with its white terra
cotta neighbor to the south.
The loft building at 379-383 Washington Street (1906-1907) was not built for J.N.
Adam & Co., but was later used by them as a warehouse (F). The original occupant
was the Iroquois Rubber Company. This steel-frame loft was designed by Esenwein
& Johnson simultaneously with the Calumet
Building at West Chippewa and Franklin Streets. It shares several of that landmark's
features, including thin vertical piers with similar caps that pierce the roof line,
some of which do not continue down to ground, imparting a sense of suspension.
The Art Nouveau terra
cotta of the Calumet was
replaced here by patterned yellow brick set against an orange-brown brick background,
serving to emphasize the vertical and horizontal elements of the composition, another
important example of Esenwein &
Johnson's polychrome experimentation.
A further addition to the complex was a massive seven-story
warehouse at 210 Ellicott Street (1912-1913), a concrete-frame structure similar
to many industrial buildings of the period, with spare classical details at the cornice (J). Designed by Colson
& Hudson with a strong vertical emphasis, it appears even larger now that it
is surrounded by parking lots. Colson & Hudson would later design the Hollings
Press / Washington Building at 501 Washington St., now being renovated for apartments.
Thus, by World War I, J.N. Adam & Co. had developed a notable group of structures
on parts of two blocks in the heart of downtown Buffalo and had become one of the
leading department stores in town. The three buildings between Main and Washington
Streets housed general merchandise, house furnishings, apparel, and accessory departments,
while those on the east side of Washington Street contained grocery, meat and music
departments as well as the general offices and warehouse. There was even a dispensary
with a free doctor-provided medical service available to all employees. Spacious
underground tunnels connected all the buildings in order to facilitate the movement
of merchandise.
During the 1920s, J.N. Adam & Co. purchased all the buildings it occupied, as
well as the building to the south along Eagle Street, thus setting the stage for
the major developments of the following decades.
Modernism Comes to Buffalo
In 1935 a new $700,000 six-story building was erected
by the store at the northeast corner of Main and Eagle Streets (D). The new façade
was also extended across the three earlier buildings, conveying the impression of
a single large new building on Main Street. (The original Main Street façades
were removed.)
It was "Buffalo's most extensive building program since the start of the Depression
[and] embodied the newest ideas in American architecture." The storefronts and
entrances at the base were framed with polished dark granite, while the second story
was faced with "honed-finish, yellow Kasota Veine stone, famous for its durability
as well as its beauty." From the third floor to the roof the material was brick
in "eight different tones of buffs and tans, laid in modified Flemish bond,
with flush belt courses of
double size brick in the same shades." This intentionally stressed the horizontal
rather than the vertical lines of the 382-foot-wide façade. The emphasis on
form, mass and material, with little traditional detail, made this one of the earliest
examples of Modernism in Buffalo architecture.
This was a central advertising point in the announcement of the store's completion
in October 1935: A special section in the local papers compared pictures of ships,
airplanes, trains, and even dress of earlier times with those of the modern day as
evidence of the continual simplification of modern design, the same technique used
by the Swiss architect Le Corbusier in his book Towards a New Architecture,
first published in English in 1927.
The architects for the new work were Starrett & Van Vleck, a major New York firm
that served as in-house architects for the Associated Dry Goods Corp., of which J.N.
Adam & Co. was now a part. (Adam sold his store to that company in 1906.) Starrett
& Van Vleck was "preeminent in the country in department store designÖ since
it set a new mark in originality of department store design with the famous Lord
& Taylor department store in Fifth Avenue, New York City," in 1913, and
had also designed the main stores of Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdaleís.
The interiors of the three original Buffalo buildings were extensively remodeled
as well, but the fine Washington Street façades were left intact above the
first floor. Starrett & Van Vleck were also the architects for the 1938 remodeling
of another unit of the Associated Dry Goods Corp., Hengerer's department store at
465 Main Street, now Lafayette Court.
In 1946-1948, a twelve-story, $4,000,000 building of compatible style and materials
to the 1935 work was built at the northwest corner of Washington and Eagle Streets,
integrated with the earlier buildings (E). Starrett & Van Vleck were the architects
once again, and the new and remodeled interiors were the work of famed industrial
designer Raymond Loewy. The new amenities included the Magnolia Terrace Restaurant
on the eighth floor, a popular dining destination for generations of Buffalonians.
Modernism in architecture, with the notable exceptions of Sullivan
and Wright, has been
largely unappreciated in Buffalo, and constitutes an important chapter in the architectural
history of the city. The J.N. Adam additions of 1935 and 1946-48 constitute one of
Buffalo's best remaining examples of this period. Architectural historian Robert
Craig has defined Modern architecture as
The final reflection of a gradual abstraction in architecture marked by both a complete independence from historic precedent (although its structural rationalism derives from classicism) and (in its purest form) a rejection of color and ornament, those very decorative elements that had been the mainstay of Art Deco. Characteristics of the Modern style included steel and concrete frame construction (including pipe columns and pipe railings bounding flat roofs, balconies, and terraces), glass enclosures (giving Modern buildings a volumetric rather than massive formal character), and planar surfaces (devoid of both Deco incisions and colorful inset panels, PWA classical friezes and pilasters, and streamlined streaks and curved corners). The Modern aesthetic found beauty in functionalism ñ the ability of the building to serve directly its intended purposes. (Craig, 21-22)
Although today Modern architecture is often associated with concrete, steel and
glass construction, much earlier American Modernism utilized traditional materials,
such as brick and stone, in new, non-historicist ways, as in the J.N. Adam Store.
AM&As Takes Over
J.N. Adam & Co. continued to be profitable through
the 1950s, but in 1959 the parent Associated Dry Goods Corp. of New York decided
it was not in their best interest to have two large department stores in Buffalo,
and closed J.N. Adam & Co. in favor of Hengerer's. The entire store complex was
sold to the Adam, Meldrum & Anderson department store, one of whose founders
was J.N. Adam's brother. In 1960 they moved from their old store on the west side
of Main Street, the American Block of 1867. That building and many others were subsequently
demolished for the Main Place Mall. AM&A's made only one major architectural
change to the exterior of the complex, the construction of a three-story warehouse
at 34-42 East Eagle Street in 1965 (I). The unfinished appearance of the façade
was intentional, as plans called for two more stories and to extend the façade
across the adjacent older buildings, but this never occurred.
AM&As Departs
AM&A's, the last locally owned department store,
was sold to The Bon-Ton in 1994. In 1995 they closed the downtown store, ending the
department store era in downtown Buffalo. Richard Taylor of Toronto purchased the
buildings in 1996, but his attempt to open an upscale department store on the ground
floor of the Main St. building in 1998 was unsuccessful. In 2003, the Buffalo
News announced that Taylor would sell the complex to Uniland Development, which
intends to demolish the five western buildings between Main and Washington for a
new office building. (Uniland recently informed the Coalition that it currently has
no plans for the eastern buildings.)
This plan to create a "shovel-ready site" has the backing of Mayor Masiello
and County Executive Giambra ñ who both intervened to prevent these buildings from
being used as a charter school ñ as well as the Buffalo Niagara Partnership. It was
hailed by the Buffalo News as "Good news for downtown." Although
millions of tax dollars would be necessary for the demolition in order to make the
project feasible, it has gone unsaid in the press that those same tax dollars combined
with preservation tax credits could make renovation practical. The former L.L. Berger
department store complex at 500-518 Main St., built between 1893 and 1948, is being
renovated as apartments, and the former Hengerer's department store at 465 Main St.,
begun in 1903, has been converted to offices, demonstrating the feasibility of department
store reuse.
Every surface parking lot in downtown once contained useable old buildings, demolished
over many decades to create "shovel-ready sites" for development that has
yet to occur.
All of the buildings in the J.N. Adam & Co./ AM&A's complex are worthy of
preservation on their individual merits. Taken together they represent a cohesive
group, rare in Buffalo, which demonstrates the architectural evolution of a major
urban institution over several decades. There is now a good chance that the entire
complex will be wantonly destroyed for purposes that are questionable at best, and
the city will be architecturally poorer for it. Reuse, not destruction, should be
the fate of the J.N. Adam/AM&A's Department Store complex.
Martin Wachadlo is a longtime member of the Preservation Coalition. He received an MA in Architectural History from the University of Virginia and has a BS in Historic Preservation from Roger Williams University.
Principle Sources
"New Building on Main Street." Buffalo Express (July 26, 1891);
"One More Store." J.N. Adam & Co.ís Store News 1 (Feb. 3-10,
1896); "J.N. Adam & Co. Plans $500,000 Store Building." Buffalo
Evening News (April 11, 1935); "The Store of Today that is Designed in the
Tempo of Tomorrow!" Buffalo Courier-Express (Oct. 29, 1935): Special
Section; "Expansion Program at J.N. Adam & Co." Buffalo Evening
News (Feb. 21, 1948); "Second Suburban Hengerer Store ëVery Possible.í"
Buffalo Evening News (October 10, 1959); Robert M. Craig, Atlanta Architecture:
Art Deco to Modern Classic, 1929-1959 (Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing Co., 1995);
"Uniland to acquire former AM&A's store." Buffalo News (Aug.
9, 2003); "Good news for downtown." Buffalo News (Aug. 18, 2003);
"State money expected for AM&A's site. Buffalo News (Feb. 19, 2004);
"Use of public funding for AM&A's site decried." Buffalo News
(Feb. 20, 2004); "Developer asks state money for AM&A's site." Buffalo
News (Feb. 29, 2004).
Update
On March 15, 2004, members of the Preservation Coalition
of Erie County met with Uniland Development Co. to discuss the fate of the former
J.N. Adam & Co./AM&A's Department Store Complex. Uniland proposes to demolish
the Main Street buildings and erect an 8-story office building on the site. Uniland
claims that the interior configuration of the present complex, filled with numerous
supporting columns, is inappropriate for the intended client, who requires a clear
span floor plate. They also state that the wood construction of 30% of the interior
is another impediment. Uniland further declared that the present buildings are deteriorating
through lack of maintenance, and without this project, their condition will only
get worse. It was also noted that Uniland would own only three of the five buildings
east of Washington Street, and has no plans for those at present. They did tell the
Coalition that they are willing to consider an adaptive reuse.
The proposal to use tax dollars to assist this particular project did not sit well
with Buffalo's other developers, who alleged that Uniland was given an unfair advantage.
In response, the County Executive proposed that the Erie County Industrial Development
Agency (IDA) buy and demolish the buildings, and then take proposals from all local
developers for the site. IDA board member and former Coalition Chairperson Susan
McCartney considers it absurd to use tax dollars to demolish useable buildings. But
hers is a lonely voice of reason. The Coalition has also sent a letter to the County
Executive asking that his request for proposals from developers include the reuse
of the complex and that the money that would go for demolition be used for building
rehabilitation. So far there has been no response.
The Coalition has also been in touch with the State Office of Historic Preservation,
which has stated that the complex is eligible for the National Register of Historic
Places. This means that state money cannot be used for its demolition without an
extensive environmental review.
City and county leaders have declared that downtown Buffalo is lacking in "shovel
ready sites." This seems odd in a downtown that has had so much vacant space
for decades. Many still remember the urgency behind the city's demolition of the
Chamber of Commerce Building at Main and Seneca in 1986, a botched job that resulted
in the demolition of the adjacent Bank of Buffalo three years later. This unnecessary
destruction provided yet another "shovel ready site" at which nothing has
been done. The money for the Adelphia project, a portion of which is to be used for
the Uniland proposal, was originally intended for an office tower to be built on
vacant land. Three blocks away at Main and Swan is a parcel the same size as the
AM&A's site that has been empty since the 1960s. If the former J. N. Adam &
Co. AM&A's Department Store Complex is not suitable for the proposed new use,
then a new building should be built on one of the many vacant sites in downtown Buffalo.
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See also The
J. N. Adam & Co. / AM&A's Department Store |
Newsletters ..... Spring 2004 Newsletter
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