Central Terminal clock stirs timeless memories 5/11/2005
Central Terminal clock stirs timeless memories
By MARK SOMMER
News Staff Reporter
5/11/2005
The flick of a light switch illuminated the long-lost art deco clock on Tuesday, officially returning the gold metallic timepiece to the Central Terminal.
For many present, including Ann Peck of Buffalo, gazing upon the 14-foot-tall, four-sided clock once more turned back the hands of time.
The East Side resident recalled it was by the concourse fixture that she looked for her future husband, Ambrose, when he returned home on furlough during World War II.
“I used to come here and wait for him. The whistle of that train, as it neared this beautiful architectural building. . . . Here we were, standing by this clock, and tears would start pouring out of my eyes,” Peck said.
Politicians, railroad enthusiasts and schoolchildren, along with several veterans of World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War who remembered departing from the station, were on hand to celebrate the clock’s return. It was sold in the 1990s after the shuttered station fell into private hands.
Speakers at the unveiling forecast the clock’s return as a harbinger of things to come for the landmark, which opened in 1929 and operated as a railroad station for 50 years.
Since 1997, the volunteer Central Terminal Restoration Corp. has owned the building, which is on the national and state registers of historic places. The group has pursued the dream of restoring the building while preparing it for occupancy, having secured funds to stabilize and seal the building, remove 300 tons of debris and relight the building’s exterior.
Council President David A. Franczyk, a longtime supporter of the Central Terminal, predicted a bright future for the building.
It was Franczyk who discovered the clock on eBay about five years ago. Then, in the fall of 2004, a fund-raising effort spearheaded by WBEN radio returned it to Buffalo. The M&T Bank Foundation paid the full $25,000 purchase price to a Chicago architectural salvage store, and an additional $14,000 was raised by radio listeners to repair, maintain and display the clock.
Franczyk said he has been told some items from the Central Terminal may have wound up in Hong Kong. He also heard items turned up in a Woody Allen movie.
“I keep looking at eBay. Maybe I’m going to find more of this stuff,” Franczyk said.
Dan Harter, of Amherst, remembers leaving Buffalo on a sleeper train as a serviceman during the Korean War. He said he hopes someone with deep pockets will help the building forge a new future.
The Central Terminal Restoration Corp. has brought a flurry of activity to the former railroad station in the past two years, including tours that have allowed many people to go inside for the first time.
A student art show was held last weekend, and on May 21 photographer Spencer Tunick will return, in association with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, to unveil photos taken during his nude photo installation last August.
