Buffalo Central Terminal

MODEL OF CENTRAL TERMINAL IS A MEMORIAL
November 14, 1997
by: DAN HERBECK

At 82, Willard Lehner recalls when the Central Terminal on Paderewski Drive was the hub of transportation in Western New York.

Now that the terminal has been closed and badly vandalized for almost two decades, Lehner wants to help other people remember it the way he does.

That’s why he spent about 3,000 hours over the past three years building a detailed scale model of the old rail terminal out of balsa wood, construction paper, Plexiglass and other materials. He put the final touches on his work in his home this week.

“If I knew at the start how much work it was going to take, I probably wouldn’t have tackled it. But now that it’s finished, I’m glad I did,” Lehner said. “My father worked on the Pennsylvania Railroad for 47 years. This model is a memorial to him and other railroad men like him. They were dedicated workers.”

A beaming Lehner Thursday gave the first public “tour” of his model, a painstaking creation of the city landmark. The model is 43 inches long, two feet wide and 14 inches high.

The replica is so realistic that, looking at it from above, one might imagine they were flying in an airplane over the terminal in its heyday. The model includes depictions of the 15-story terminal tower and 5,818 windows of all shapes and sizes, all made by hand and some no bigger than the head of a nail.

There’s a good explanation for that attention to detail. Lehner remembers the scene from his boyhood, when trains brought thousands of people to the big, bustling facility every day.

“Around 1935, the place was buzzing with activity,” Lehner said. “There were people everywhere. I remember the concourse, all the stores, the spiral staircases leading down to the tracks. They had a big board with all the schedules on it. They were running 200 trains a day, in and out of there.”

The model was built on a scale of one inch for each 20 feet of the terminal. It is illuminated from the inside with 42 carefully-placed Christmas tree lights. There is a story behind the fact that all eight clocks in the model show the time at 9:05.

“My dad (Fred Lehner) was a fireman, and later an engineer, on the Dominion Express train from Buffalo to Washington, D.C.,” Lehner said. “And that train left Buffalo every night at 9:05.”

A retired draftsman and aircraft engineer, Lehner grew up on Watson Street, a little more than a mile from the terminal. He could see the big tower from his home as the facility was being built in the late 1920s.

The idea of building a model struck him one day in late 1994. He had gone over to the terminal to take a nostalgic look, and was depressed by the condition of the building.

“It looked so bad, it would break your heart,” Lehner said. “Everything of value had been stripped out of it, and the place was loaded with trash of every kind — old tires, refrigerators, fencing, you name it.

“There was a history buff down there that day, and we got to talking. I asked him if there was a model anywhere of the terminal. He said he didn’t think there was anywhere in Western New York.

“I don’t know why, because I’ve never built a model in my life, but the inspiration just hit me. I was going to build that model!”

His wife of 58 years, Rita, thought many times he was crazy for taking on such a project. But for the energetic Lehner, it was a labor of love.

Executing the idea was no easy job. Lehner estimates he spent at least 1,000 hours — that would be 25 40-hour work weeks — at the site itself before he started the actual construction.

“I spent many, many days down there taking measurements of bricks and floor tiles, making scale drawings,” Lehner said. “The Buffalo police would pull up and say, ‘What’re you doing, fella?’ l’d tell them what I was up to.

“One time, an officer told me to be careful in there. I said, ‘Why, because of junkies?’ He said, ‘No, falling cement.’ I was careful.”

His wife said she was impressed by the great patience, precision and dedication her husband displayed in finishing a job he started at age 79.

“But he makes beautiful stained glass windows, too, so I’m not really surprised,” Mrs. Lehner said. “You watch, he’ll be onto another project soon.”

Lehner hasn’t yet decided what to do with his model. He has thought of offering it for display at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society or perhaps in the Buffalo schools.

“I’d like people to see it, but I’d like it to be somewhere where it isn’t going to be vandalized or broken, like the real terminal,” he said.

On Wednesday , the Common Council moved to hire a contractor to secure the terminal from vandals.

Like many history buffs in Buffalo, he would love to see the once-beautiful terminal restored someday. The terminal has been closed since 1979. Lehner said his hopes were raised in August, when it was announced that the Central Terminal Restoration Corp., a non-profit firm run by a preservation group, had bought the building and was getting some federal money toward restoring it.

“I noticed recently that someone had gone in and cleaned up a lot of the mess,” Lehner said. “I’d still love to see them do something with that building. It’s worth the effort.”

Copyright ( C) 1997, The Buffalo News Record Number: 9711150009