Thanks to residents with skill, dedication and vision, Buffalo, New York is getting a sophisticated demonstration of natural ecology on a site next to the city’s majestic but abandoned Central Terminal, now being restored.

As I have written before, Buffalo has struggled in recent decades but has a rich architectural legacy to build upon as it crafts its future. The art deco landmark Buffalo Central Terminal is certainly part of that legacy: built in 1929 to handle 3200 rail passengers per hour, the terminal with its 15-story office tower was closed in 1979. It fell into such major repair that it was repeatedly used as a site for episodes of the Ghost Hunters TV show.

It is now being restored under a master plan supervised by the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation, whose website describes its potential:

Besides being an instantly recognizable element of the Buffalo skyline and a cultural landmark, the Terminal could once again serve as a gateway to the city by utilizing the opportunities presented by its location and the current system of networks which pass through or near the structure. Through reactivation of these dormant systems, the Terminal could provide transportation for suburbanites to the city, welcome both domestic and international tourists to the city, and connect the east coast to [the] Midwest without delays, all from its existing site and without severe infrastructure disturbance or interruption.

The same historic reasons for locating the Terminal in its present location are still as valid today as they were a century ago. The structure’s proximity ( 2.5 miles or less ) to downtown and Larkin business districts, while being adjacent to a historic walkable neighborhood (Polonia), presents the Terminal with the opportunity to be the cornerstone of a renaissance.

As described in an article posted last year on the excellent blog Buffalo Rising, the Buffalo Urban Habitat Project and Classroom is being installed on three acres of unused property at the front door of the Central Terminal. The project is intended as a “living inner-city demonstration classroom that features habitat restoration, native plants, and sustainable site development/construction” that will help restore the Central Terminal and unify the community.

The first phase of the project is being completed this month. There will be large groves of pine trees, hawthorns, native shrubs, and vast meadows of grasses and wildflowers that have been specifically designed and selected to meet specific site criteria. The site will demonstrate biodiversity, native regional habitats, soil remediation, several plant communities, ecosystems that benefit birds, bees, various beneficial insects and an array of resident mammals that currently exist near the site.

A major feature of the project is control of storm water through green infrastructure that is designed not only to handle on-site precipitation but also to attract and process runoff from nearby areas. Project leader Dave Majewski is quoted in an article posted on Buffalo Rising earlier this month:

We have taken the [low-impact development] component a major step forward in that, rather than simply mitigating negative impacts on the site, we are reversing that by making the site better because of what we have done.

“This is a Western New York first – we are impounding approximately 320,000 gallons of storm water runoff from Curtiss Street and redirecting it in to the site via two adjoining large bio-retention cells. This project will be an example to municipalities and developers as to how real Sustainable Sites and Low Impact Developments can feasibly be undertaken with ecologically sensitive integrated planning and design.

Planted and seeded areas were specially selected for particular functions and benefits – while also demonstrating the plant communities that occur naturally in the region. The project “is intended to help make the Central Terminal a destination rather than a quick photo op,” says the article, and to leverage nearby green development projects as well.

Planning has begun on a second phase that will encompass the remainder of the site and include an educational gazebo, fencing and additional signage.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 14, 2011

Public Welcomed To Buffalo Central Terminal For Free Open House

Tours of Iconic Terminal Tower to be Conducted for the First Time

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation (CTRC) will host a free opportunity for the public to learn about Buffalo’s next great preservation success story. An open house at the landmark art-deco building is scheduled for Saturday, October 22nd between Noon & 4pm located at 495 Paderewski Drive @ Memorial Drive.

“We welcome all Western New Yorkers and out-of-town guests who are participating in the National Trust for Historic Preservation Conference,” said Central Terminal Restoration Corporation President Mark Lewandowski. “It’s our goal to continue to educate and excite the public about the progress being made at the Buffalo Central Terminal.”

The free open house will feature self-guided tours, meet and greet with executive leaders of the CTRC about the Terminal’s master plan and information about volunteer opportunities. The Terminal Store will be open for shopping and a selection of Buffalo’s gourmet food trucks will be on site offering unique delicacies.

In addition to the free open house, the CTRC will offer tours of the Terminal’s iconic tower. This will be the first time that the public will have the opportunity to climb to the Terminal’s 13th floor for a spectacular view of the Buffalo skyline. The “Tower Tour” cost is a $20 donation ($15 for Friends of CTRC members). Trained docents will take groups of ten to the 13th floor every 30 minutes beginning at Noon for this unprecedented photo opportunity. The last tour will leave at 3:30pm. Proper footwear and the ability to climb fifteen flights of stairs required (tower tour is limited to ages 16 and over).

The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation (CTRC) was founded in 1997 to oversee the stabilization and restoration of the New York Central Terminal in Buffalo, New York. The Terminal complex includes an 18-acre site that hosts an art deco office tower, passenger concourse and four-story baggage building. In 2011 the CTRC released its master plan that outlined various infrastructure needs and development opportunities. The mission of the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation is to ensure that the original grandeur of the Terminal is available to current and future generations.

“For over a century Buffalo, New York was a key player in powering America through the industrial revolution. Its natural wonders, like Niagara Falls, and its strategic location along the great lakes made it a powerhouse for the growing American empire. Don will get passed the gates, crawl into the dark tunnels and climb on top of its crumbling mega-structures to get a glimpse at Buffalo’s glory days. Just east of Buffalo he’ll unearth the ingenious engineering behind the Erie Canal. Among the sleeping giants of silo city, Don will explore the behemoth structures that line the Buffalo River-the concrete grain elevators. And Don gets exclusive access to a 100 year-old powerhouse, run by Nikola Tesla’s ingenious invention. Next, he’ll cross the icy waters to see how hardy men brought fresh water to Buffalo. And he’ll head into the hills outside the city to see a mysterious Castle built by the pioneers of modern health and wellness. Finally Don will enter the abandoned and crumbling ruins of the city’s Central Terminal. It’s a dangerous and exhilarating behind-the-scenes look at America’s forgotten city – Buffalo. TV-PG, CC”

Listen

The Town of West Seneca is donating 700 cubic yards of compost valued at over $21,000.  An additional $5,000 is coming from the Vogt Family Foundation and Katie Schneider.  Mark Mistretta from Wendel architecture and engineering donated the required site survey by the firm’s engineers valued around $3,500 that was completed last week (right).  To date, the total of in-kind products and services is over $80,000 – and growing.

This is a major step forward for the project which aims to establish a living inner-city demonstration classroom that features habitat restoration, native plants, and sustainable site development/construction while explaining the benefits of bio-diversity. It will encompass three acres of land on the Central Terminal site.  Dave Majewski and his team are on a mission to complete the project this year and have been busy meeting with potential supporters for the past few months.

Not only will the project be a big visual improvement, it also serves as a way to remediate the land and stands as a model for what shrinking cities can do with vacant lots. Majewski is more than excited for the project to begin saying, “This is going to invariably start the virtual domino effect, I’m anxious to see how National Fuel, HSBC, and M&T Bank respond to this. We also have other funding applications out there pending as well. This could be huge. After tomorrow, we may realistically start to approach significant funding plateaus that could help get this project in the ground sooner rather than later.”

The idea of the project as an education model is already taking hold in the area.  “I think significant here also is the news recently received from Marlies Wesolowski, Executive Director of the local Matt Urban Center, and from the County,” says Majewski. “The SNAP Program (welfare to work) will be able to provide their weekly employees on site to assist in building and also to receive training from myself and my staff.  We will then provide them with a certificate and also a professional letter of referral.”

The early funding has allowed the team to move forward with the first phase and beyond.  Work completed to date includes EPA-certified lab soil testing, professional site design and specifications development, tractor repair, trucking for the donated compost, and the site survey by Wendel Engineering.  Those advising the project include the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, Buffalo Audubon Society, Prof. Brenda Young, UB’s Brad Wales, and Tifft Farm Nature Preserve Ecologist David Spiering.

The budget has been re-tooled so that the physical progress made will only be in line with funding that is received. Majewski, Matt Dore of Buffalo Horticulture, and Yuri Hreshchyshyn and Paul Lang along with the CTRC UHP Committee discussed at length the significance of formulating a plan that will take in to account an “opt-out” plan if necessary, while being able to restore the site to a minimal and acceptable condition. The UHP, at every phase of development, will have a “Plan B” in case sufficient funding is not received. There will be no “hole in the ground” so to speak, after something is started and then funds are no longer available for a considerable length of time.

Also, with the recent media exposure, more and more volunteers are contacting Dave and the CTRC to offer services when building time begins – and also after the site is completed and needs to be maintained. Project organizers have briefed the Lombard Street Block Club on the developments and look forward to the local community’s leadership in assisting with the UHP.

UHP planners have spent time searching the web to see how other cities or regions have done this. So far, it has not been done to this scale or with these specifications. There are some somewhat similar projects in Chicago, Portland, Canada, but nothing of this scope and with these objectives. This could very well not only be a Buffalo, WNY and New York State first, it could also be a regional or even national first.

The UHP is still in need of major funding. Ideally, there is one generous and visionary philanthropist out there that would support this project and donate $100K to their city and environment to help foster bio-diversity, ecology, employment, training and education.  In the meantime, Majewski and his team are pushing forward.

Make a donation to the Urban Habitat Project!

Contact: Dave Majewski, 716.432.2960, email

Hope for Central Terminal

Multiuse proposal creates starting point for reviving our once-grand train station

Repurposing and refashioning old, architectural works of art into modern, usable space has become common practice around here, given the successes of private developers and individuals who have reclaimed the Darwin Martin House and are working on the Richardson Complex. So it is not a far reach to envision a restored Central Terminal put to a variety of uses, though there are obviously no guarantees.

This is exactly what the $75 million plan unveiled recently by the all-volunteer Central Terminal Restoration Corp. wants to see for the future of the 523,000-square-foot art deco tower, concourse and baggage room.

The plan calls for the tower to be designed as market-rate residential space of various degrees, historic elevators and lobbies refurbished to provide uninterrupted access from the parking garage and renovation of the former water tank room at the top of the tower to feature 360-degree views of the city and Western New York.

Additional plans involve everything from turning the baggage building into a green business incubator for small business and light industrial operations to resuming train service by tying into New York State’s portion of the high-speed rail system, and connecting with Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority light rail — if that were expanded.

We share the group’s hopes for a massive and magnificent structure on Buffalo’s East Side. Although it seems getting this project moving is akin to moving heaven and earth, whatever public-private buy-in is necessary would be well worth the effort. Indeed, what is the acceptable alternative?

There is new hope for the terminal in the welcome attention of Long Island-based developer Uri Kaufman, who seriously eyed the Statler Towers. Kaufman’s interest is piqued and that’s a good sign, as is the completion of a plan to map the future of the much beloved building.

Still, there are hurdles ahead. While we can stand back and, along with people all over the globe, admire Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House, that project required decades of time, millions of private and public dollars and strong leadership to achieve its glorious results. And the Martin House didn’t have to succeed with market-based apartments or retail. Its mission of restoration for tourism was clear.

We believe the terminal’s success will depend on two forms of leadership. First of all, public-and private-sector leaders not only have to recognize that the Central Terminal is worth their attention, they also have to act to get the project moving.

That, to a great degree, will depend upon securing the right combination of leadership that can handle such a task, including raising money.

Current volunteers have been toiling without much fan-fare but with an admirable ingenuity, bringing increased numbers of tours through the complex and fashioning relationships with the public and politicians. But it’s the announcement of a plan and interest by a private developer that hold the most promise.

Repurposing the Central Terminal will have to be taken in small steps and it will be a long and difficult task. But with cooperation, planning and public-private fundraising, the possibility exists that Western New York can wake this sleeping architectural beauty.

Buffalo Rising – Central Terminal to Release Master Plan

Buffalo News – The city’s coolest lofts?

WBEN – Interview with Marty Biniasz (audio)

WBFO – Central Terminal master plan unveiled (audio)

WGRZ – Buffalo Central Terminal: New $75 Million Plan

WIVB – Plans revealed for Central Terminal (video)

WKBW – New Plans for Buffalo’s Central Terminal (video)

WNED – $75 Million Mixed-Use Plan Unveiled for Central Terminal

YNN – Master plan for Central Terminal revealed

Moved by terminal spirits

Syfy channel’s ‘Ghost Hunters’ to host live Halloween show from Buffalo’s haunting, haunted art deco train station

By Mark Sommer, News Staff Reporter

Unseen voices. Sounds of footsteps. Mysterious human forms.

Those are some of the paranormal — some might prefer to just say “haunted” — phenomena Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson say they encountered two years ago at the Central Terminal.

Now, the hosts of the popular Syfy show “Ghost Hunters” are returning to host a live, six-hour Halloween special beginning at 7 p.m. Sunday, filming from the historic art deco train station that saw its last Amtrak car pull away 31 years ago.

“[The cast] will brave the cavernous halls of Buffalo Central Terminal where full-bodied apparitions roam the concourse, restless spirits hover on the third floor and female voices cry out for help in an elevator shaft near the baggage claim,” the “Ghost Hunters” Web site claims.

On Friday, as preparations got under way for Sunday’s marathon show, cast members Kris Williams and Barry Fitzgerald claimed they saw what appeared to be a man as they walked, flashlights in hand, past a debris-filled room on the third floor. Whatever it was vanished when they returned seconds later.

Tony Fedele maintained an apartment on that floor as owner of the Central Terminal from 1979 to 1986; he died in 1995. Williams suggested there could be a connection.

“All I saw was a black figure who looked like a person. I thought ‘Why is there a guy in that room?’ and Barry slowed down and looked confused, too,” Williams said.

“I thought it was a person. I’ve never seen that. I can only imagine what will happen on [Halloween].”

Fitzgerald took the alleged sighting in stride. “It’s not unusual, doing setup, to catch a glimpse before you have [testing] equipment,” he said.

Ghosts? The Central Terminal, haunted? Really?

Hawes, who grew up in Canandaigua and remembers going to the terminal as a boy, said he and Wilson were nonbelievers until personal experiences changed their minds.

“We never really thought about it until we got involved, and since then we’ve been trying to look for answers,” Hawes said.

The show’s hosts and the other team members who belong to the Atlantic Paranormal Society, which Hawes and Wilson founded, use various measuring instruments in an attempt, they say, to document their findings.

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Photo gallery: Ghost Hunters at Central Terminal

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Bristling at critics

Their array of gadgets and equipment include digital thermometers, electromagnetic field meters, thermographic and infrared vision cameras, hand-held and static digital video cameras, digital audio recorders and laptop computers.

Not that they always agree.

“When we were at the Central Terminal last time, we caught some amazing voices, and our thermal engineering camera caught a figure on it, while our infrared camera did not,” Wilson said.

“We also did have one possible interaction with a K2 meter [used to measure an energy field]. It seemed there was a woman waiting for a train. We don’t know if it was leftover energy, or an intelligent haunting trying to interact with us.”

Count Joe Nickell among the skeptics. The senior research fellow at the Amherst-based Center for Inquiry, who claims to be the world’s “only full-time, salaried professional paranormal investigator,” said there is no documentable evidence to prove ghosts exist.

“I have watched this phenomenon grow from practically nothing to there now being ghost hunters in every city, town and hamlet,” said Nickell, who was once the resident magician at the now-defunct Houdini Hall of Fame in Niagara Falls, Ont., as well as a detective. His books include “Missing Pieces: How to Investigate Ghosts, UFOs, Psychics, and Other Mysteries.”

“They don’t know what they’re doing, and I’m trying to be kind. They have no training, and they’re invariably not scientists,” Nickell said.

“They think taking scientific equipment means they’re doing a scientific approach. Scientists are just falling off their stools laughing at this.”

Hawes and Wilson bristle at critics who say the show is nothing more than show business.

“We were doing this long before a show and we’ll be doing it long after,” Hawes said. “Where is the incentive to fake it? Stop the rock-throwing and meet us in the middle. But they pretty much want to throw insults at us.”

Later, he added: “Pretty much, we’re happy all these questions come out. It seems there is a lot more awareness of the paranormal field in general, and we’re happy to be a part of it.”

A ghostly presence

Mark Lewandowski, president of Central Terminal Restoration Corp., said he and many other volunteers have experienced something out of the ordinary at the East Side landmark.

“There is something unexplainable at the Central Terminal. Everyone has their own experience, their own spin on what they’ve seen or experienced. It’s not always the ghostly presence, but there is something there,” he said.

The most common sighting, according to Lewandowski, although he hasn’t seen it himself, is a nicely dressed man wearing either a railroad uniform or suit from the 1940s. He’s always observed in the main concourse area, and always at a distance, Lewandowski said.

Others, according to volunteer Marty Slawiak, report seeing a man with a baseball hat and plaid jacket standing at the ticket office.

Slawiak, whose father once worked in the Central Terminal commissary, recalled one bizarre experience he had when he came into the station, alone, to polish a set of brass door handles.

“As I walked by the doors leading to the restaurant, I heard voices like when you open a cafeteria door. I couldn’t make it out, walked on, and then it became very loud, I mean, it was loud. So, I stuck my head in there and there was no one around.

“I turned the light on, still nobody, and ran straight through to the kitchen, and nobody again. Then I ran outside and there was no one in the parking lot, so that really made it pretty eerie,” Slawiak said.

“I wasn’t going to say anything, but then I told a guy who showed up later about the cafeteria voices, and he said he had previously heard the same noise from the same place.”

Unfinished business

Mike Fedele said Tony Fedele, his late grandfather, cared deeply for the Central Terminal, and had kept everything the way it was, unlike private owners who came after him and stripped the building of its ornamentations.

“My grandfather put a lot of heart and soul into that building. If you look at it from a person who is interested in the ghost-hunting thing, I guess you could say he had unfinished business there. But I don’t know either way.

“Still,” he added, “it’s kind of cool that it’s even brought up.”

Sunday’s filming is closed to the public.

msommer@buffnews.com

From WKBW…

Courtesy of Forgotten Buffalo

Click here to view the album

Local news reports and video on the falcons can be found below:

DEC Tagging falcons all over Buffalo – WIVB.com

Peregrine Falcons Call Central Terminal Home – WKBW.com

Falcons at Central Terminal – Buffalonews.com

Central Terminal is also one of the 5 finalists for the Artvoice Best of Buffalo poll for “Save this Building” and former President Mike Miller was nominated for “Best Individual Activist”. The awards are given out at their annual Bash at Town Ballroom on April 26th. Thanks to everyone who voted for us.

Some of the most beloved features of the Central Terminal – it’s various art deco lamps – are the most sorely missed by those who come back and see the building today. The CTRC regularly keeps track of artifacts that came from the building, and it’s been known for several years that some of our lamps ended up in a chain of restaurants called the Cafe Deco in Hong Kong. We’ve had several people visit the restaurants and take numerous photos and even measurements of the lamps to help us in their eventual recreation.

Yesterday, the Buffalo News ran an article entitled Scattered pieces of Buffalo near and far exploring, among other items, our lamps.

Cynthia Schwartz went to a mountaintop cafe on the other side of the world and found a piece of Buffalo.

As she looked through her camera lens on the lights that once illuminated the Central Terminal, she was stunned by the size and beauty of the frosted panes in silvery frames.

The staff at Cafe Deco in Hong Kong looked on as Schwartz snapped away.

“They all thought we were just lunatic tourists,” she said.

Since the boom times of the last century, Buffalo’s grand old buildings have been torn down to make way for the new, sometimes just a parking lot. While most demolitions disappear, often to landfills, some of old Buffalo has scattered and resurfaced — near and far.

The new owners of these pieces of old Buffalo say the city’s grandeur transforms their new addresses with soul and beauty — from the Hong Kong cafe to a room in the American Wing of New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art; and from a summer retreat in Fort Erie to a new home in Colden built with salvaged pieces.

“It surprises us how often we bump into a piece of Buffalo in some strange corner of the world,” Schwartz said.

Read the full article

Well set your DVRs, our episode will air next Wednesday, December 2nd at 10pm on SyFy (channel 38 on Buffalo Time Warner Cable).

Check out the trailer at SyFy: click here

Limited tickets still available for this weekend’s ghost hunt events! Detailed event information available here.

Hear Event Coordinator Ryan Willard on WBEN this morning talking about the ghost hunt.

Set your alarm clocks, because they’ll also be on WBEN 7:20am Friday, and finish up their Ghosthunt media tour Saturday at 9am on 1230am WECK.

Part 1 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHQwBurPblo

Part 2 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEbLHFPESnQ

BY EMERI KRAWCZYK

As we close in on “All Hallows Eve” and the boundary between the living and the deceased dissolves, spine-tingling stories abound — and sometimes the place where they’re told is even scarier than the stories themselves.

Ripe with ghostly encounters and strange occurrences that should lend plenty of atmosphere, two unique Buffalo locations — the Iron Island Museum in Lovejoy and the Central Terminal, will host two chilling events: “Spirits & More Spirits,” a wine tasting on Saturday in the museum and a joint event on Oct. 30 that will bring professional ghost hunters into the mix. Let’s visit — if you dare.

Read the full article

Detailed event information here