DC architecture sucks. Sorry. The old federal architecture has heavy fachist tones. The 1950’s era brought in a lot of lifeless, slightly-soviet (ironic) buildings, and now everyone in the private sector builds the same exact cliche glass/metal structures that have the exact same height as the building next to it.

There is one building that sticks out though…

The World Bank Headquarters on Pennsylvania Ave. It’s designed by KPF out of NYC which also designed the Buffalo-Niagara airport and the soon-to-be-built [crosses fingers] Federal Courthouse on Niagara Square.

I’m in the DC area for a few weeks now until the next semester starts, so I’ve been enjoying the economic prosperity and lack of in-depth Sabres coverage for a bit.

It’s funny how you live somewhere for 10 years and you never really pay attention to the way things are, you just kind of go with the flow and live it. After remembering how to live in Buffalo, DC sure seems like a different creature to me.

Basically, when I come accross something of interest I’ll put it up here so instead of “All Things Buffalo” this will be like “Some things DC-Area”…catchy ain’t it?

I don’t really watch TV…but my mom does. So she tells me to watch “Trading Spouses” this week because its about a family from the East Side of Buffalo and a family from South Beach in Miami.

Obviously, throwing a Miami Beach socialite into a East Side neighborhood makes for some interesting times but the best part is when the wives find out how they split up the $50,000 for their families.

When the Buffalo woman comes back and reads how their money has been split up she sees something slightly uncommon…

$3,500 contribution to the Mayor of Buffalo

She…EXPLODES. A five minute tirade, a good chunk devoted to how she would never give money to the mayor…EVER. It was great.

That’s what you can get if you come up with a name for the new “small-unnamed-department-like-store” in Rocco Termini’s Ellicott Commons. It’s $200 so its worth the time it takes to come up with a name of a downtown store that you’ll be able to take credit for.

Looks like Waterfront Village is finally ready to grow as planned before I even knew how to count.



*Thanks to WCP for all the pics

Another one of those infamous BR comment battles is taking place as we speak. Some say the design sucks (I agree), some say that those people should shut their mouth because any development is good development, and a bunch of other remixes of those opinions are thrown in there as well.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you think but it’s obvious that Ellicott Development planned this place in the 80’s and wanted to market itself to people who would perfer to live in Clarence or OP, isolated from society and noise except Clarence and OP don’t have a waterfront.

So it’s good that we get some land to market ourselves to a wealthy clientele that otherwise wouldn’t live near downtown. That’s great. Problem is that as Waterfront Village continues to come through with its vision we will look back one day and say “Wow, our waterfront outside of ‘Canal Side’ is a pain to get to from downtown, has nothing, and is exclusive to its residents.” Right now that isn’t much of a problem because it’s great to see some new development on the waterfront, but if our waterfront/downtown/city ever become a thriving place we will regret the way this place was planned.

And that’s just the planning. The architecture? Not so great. Ellicott Devel. isn’t really known for having awesome looking structures, but they always fit their clients well. It looks like a generic condo tower. Could be a seaside condo in Florida, or just another condo to add to the new cluster of them on Rockville Pike in suburban Maryland. Vernacular architecture is clearly not on the agenda here.

Some say “Well if you don’t like it…don’t live there.” I won’t live there, but everytime I’m downtown, or see pictures of downtown anywhere, this 13 story structure to go along with the Admiral’s Walk tower will be predominant because it’s right on the waterfront…a photographic gateway of sorts to the rest of the city…everytime you watch Channel 4 news-thats the picture you see.

We have some beautiful tall buildings in the CBD, why not on the waterfront too?

Allow me to be a Debbie-Downer today by telling you about all the awesome crimes that have occured in the last week in the part of Buffalo I walk around constantly
1. Minnesota Ave (my old street). Last week. Three girls who live on North Campus met two lovely gentlemen who demanded their purses. They said no. So the gentlemen proceeded to beat them up for $10 and a cell phone. TOTALLY EXTREME!
2. Two mornings ago on Winspear, two streets behind Minnesota, a man was shot early in the morning. Super.
3. Main and Fillmore, 2600 block of Main (Intersection I go by to get to work). Woman from Cheektowaga on her way to visit her mom at 1:30 PM…1:30 PM…gets kicked and beaten by two dudes.

And as a side note, keep your eyes out for these two guys on the east side who wear army coats and rob people with AK-47’s.

So yeah. This is why I like to focus on downtown.

I am determined to get that Dragon Express window fixed. So I emailed Buffalo Place and told them about it. I got a response from a woman named Peggy to take it up with City Hall. She was very helpful and sent me a step by step list of things to do on the City website to get it fixed.

So I did today and got a Service Complaint # and the site said they would get back to me.

I WILL GET THIS WINDOW FIXED.

Oh and just for the record, I have an active social life…in case you were wondering.

It’s not even like these plans are amazing its just that after all these years…something really good is going to happen on the waterfront. This “Canal Side” plan is just perfect.
1. Removal of an ugly office buildng
2. Removal of surface lots (thats multiple)
3. Mixed use buildings
4. Retail downtown
5. Most of it is ALREADY FINANCED !$!$!

I know a lot of the older Buffalonians can easily look at this and be like “Oh its just another waterfront plan. This is Buffalo, things don’t get done.”
But it’s different this time. The money is in place, the developer is in place, every aspect of this plan is thorough. In 2010 we should see a lot less surface lots by the HSBC Arena, a nice new metro station that replaces the current one by the Aud and the “Special Events” one as well, nice retail and residential options all around our historic Inner Harbor.
And the best part about this is that a lot of downtown is growing already…with or without this plan which means that all these pieces of the downtwon puzzle are going to come together to form a place where everyone will want to visit, work, live, hangout, whatever.

The momentum thats occuring is amazing. I know a lot of this Canal Side project is public money but unlike the outer harbor plan, this part of downtown is extremely accessible and already has some good things around it, meaning the private investment shouldn’t be to far behind.

Took these pictures on Saturday with Newell…its lookin good, and keep in mind that Rocco Termini will have retail incubators on the 1st floor

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago but there hasn’t been much visible difference since then…

The first component of the pedestrian bridge is in, the new museum is really taking shape and this whole part of the Inner Harbor will be done in the summer…it’s definitley gonna be a cool place in downtown