The Washington Street side of Ellicott Square is missing a little something.

The storefronts are really starting to take shape now. Should be ready to go in April, maybe even end of March. Pretty pumped to have some respectable retail downtown.

Although I think its sad to see that these new builds are fakes, in a sense, mocking the infamous Genesee Block just footsteps away, dying to be redeveloped into something like…the Ellicott Commons.

Perhaps with the future success of this community of sorts constructed by Termini it will trickle down to the corner of Genesee and Chippewa.

If this isn’t architecture at its finest…

Seriously, it looks like this is where you store plow trucks or salt or dirt or something like that. Not even ONE window. Sweeeet.

I took these today in Waterfront Village. Couldn’t quite squeeze the HSBC tower AND HealthNow in the same photo…I’ll try again another time. I know its not the greatest 21st century building but man that glass skyline really breaks up the masonry monotony that is the sklyine of our fair city from Lake Erie.

I have so much material to post on but I’ve been so busy lately, sorry the posts have been weak lately. Spring Break though, so I should have ample time to catch up. I got stories.

This Saturday you can catch a lecture downtown about modern skyscrapers and then later a walking tour of the examples we have in Buffalo. Sounds good. I was thinking Jack Quinan would be doing it or someone I really enjoy hearing from. But no, its my architecture professor, Irene Ayad from last semester who put all 300-something of us through hell. Never worked so hard in a class before, and never got so low a grade either.
But she is a nice lady (I guess) and knows her skyscrapers. Enjoy, because there is no confusing/impossible exam afterwards.

There is a career fair going on at UB today. I looked at the list of employers that will be there and only HSBC and an architecture firm is from the city of Buffalo. There are more companies from Syracuse than there are from Buffalo at this fair but Amherst does have a pretty solid representation. Companies from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are even here and Buffalo is barely noticiable for its’ own major university job fair.

Tells you all you need to know.

Whenever someone thinks of the skyline of Buffalo, the Lake Erie view comes to mind, but its a very boring look at the skyline if you ask me. The HSBC tower sticks out like a sore thumb, dwarfing everything else while being far away from it all. You usually just notice the four main skyscrapers (City Hall, Main Place, Liberty, HSBC) and thats that.

THe view from the East side of Buffalo however-is stunning. I remember the 1st time my dad drove me downtown on the 33 and I felt an incredible sense of awe looking at the crazy variety of buildings downtown had, all clumped together in a tight cluster. The Key Towers seem just slightly shorter than the HSBC tower, and City Hall is much more humble in stature from the angle. The Rand building gets more recognition too.

This isn’t quite from the 33, its from a parking garage by Roswell Park but I intend on going up the hill on Goodell Street when the skies become clearer to take the best shot of Buffalo.

Someone at WGRZ was like “Wow. 15 dead in a tornado. Thats a tragedy….maybe to entice readers we should put a graphic OF A TWIRLING TORNADO. YEEEEEEAH MAN!”

Graphic pretty much speaks for itself. Love the Buffalo mainstream media.

Continue Reading Digg it

Its pretty much official now. The new Federal Courthouse will be under construction by Labor Day this year!
Its quite exciting to see these modern buildings popping up amongst a sea of structures no more recent than 1970. Although each one I can think of (airport, public safety campus, hauptman-woodward, bio-informatics school) is all public $$ I’m just happy to see this city architectually evolve with everyone else…which is something that couldn’t be said in the 90’s.

Here’s to not living in a time capsule!