Nostalgia & History > Fascinating Pictures from today of Buffalo Central Terminal

While a lot of people want Amtrak to return to this Terminal after you look at the pictures you may want to think twice

http://galleries.buffalonews.com/default.aspx?id=8363#/70

Grand indeed.....Wish they could fix it up...This reflects the state of our Country.. once grand... now crumbling....

Where is a wreckers' ball when you need one?

bluesboyst Wrote:
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> Grand indeed.....Wish they could fix it up...This
> reflects the state of our Country.. once grand...
> now crumbling....

Very sad to see. But photos 59 and 62 tells part of the story. NYC built the station far from downtown, not convenient to the residents and businesses. But photo 61 shows that it's adjacent to the main line that skirts downtown, so it was a station that was built to be convenient operationally. Michigan Central Depot in Detroit is the same, built out of downtown in order to provide access to the Detroit River tunnels. Both built as monuments, too large for the passenger travel of the time, and certainly far too large for passenger travel today. What do we do with places such as these? Very sad to see.

Can it be re-purposed for a few millions?
Does anybody care anymore?
Sad.

Hard to see repurposing--the surrounding neighborhood isn't very attractive to visitors.

Wow! Great art deco beauty in places and overwhelming decay in other parts of the structure.

march_hare Wrote:
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> Hard to see repurposing--the surrounding
> neighborhood isn't very attractive to visitors.


The state of the surrounding neighborhood actually closely resembles the inside of the terminal...

That's an awesome slide show! I wonder if they can save just the concourse?
It's crazy that all those covered platforms survive, but so many active Amtrak
stations have had theirs torn down! Duh!

Was it a terminal or was it a thru station?

If the arches look familiar, the architects were Fellheimer and Wagner, the same group that designed Cincinnati Union Terminal.

I'm as supportive of historic preservation as anyone, but the odds of this terminal (or Detroit's terminal) being totally renovated and occupied are a thousand to one against. The renovation to today's codes and today's expectations would be astronomically expensive, even if you could find tenants who want to be in that isolated area. And without knowing how the terminals were constructed, it's hard to say that removing the upper floors while retaining the ground floor would be feasible, either. I suspect that well-meaning preservationists are just delaying the inevitable.

RNP47 Wrote:
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> Was it a terminal or was it a thru station?


A through station that went by the name "terminal".

While we like to define terminals as large stub end stations, when it comes to naming it basically is whatever the builder chose at the time. So we have two big terminals in Boston called stations (North and South), while Buffalo and Cincinnati to name a couple have big stations called terminals. Atlanta even covered all the bases by having a Terminal Station.

Dave

I would say that the situation looks terminal.

Purely from the armchair standpoint, while the photo essay was well done, either it paints too bleak of an outlook, or folks focus on the negative too much. After looking at the photos, and then searching out information about the history of the terminal, it feels like if it will ever have a future, it is in the right hands right now with the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation ( http://buffalocentralterminal.org ). While the redevelopment goals seem lofty and are talk at this time (and Stinson is no longer involved), it does sound like other parts of Buffalo have undergone a revival recently ( http://buffalonews.com/2016/12/03/central-terminal-may-take-village/ ). Whether or not those plans come to full fruition, it does look like the group working to preserve and restore the terminal has been doing a yeomen's job as the certain areas are restored nicely and see use at least monthly through the year for events. Again, the photo essay I think does a good job of portraying the mantra of urban decay, but I think it failed to accurately capture the revival spirit the dilapidated baggage terminal and broken glass photos seemed to dominate. However, there were a number of photos that show the cleanup effort to at least organize the chaos, facilitating whatever revival may spring up.

A look at a few photos that show a more positive aspect of the current terminal, as well as some neat photos from it's former glory days:

http://buffalocentralterminal.org/about/photo-gallery/

A nice summary on the trials and tribulations of the monolith. The last 80's and early 90's were not kind to the ole girl...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Central_Terminal

Cody