Buffalo Central Terminal

Every year, M&T’s Telephone Banking Center runs a creativity contest using marshmallow peeps. It never ceases to amaze me as to how creative our employees can be with these puffy little sugar ball dioramas.

This year, the CTRC and I were the subject for my friend (and CTRC Friend’s Member) Tracy Jaroszewski’s team.

You just know that you’ve “made it to the big time” when you’ve been immortalized as a peep!

PS – that’s me at the bottom of the tower.

A couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to get a tour of one of the beautiful European style churches in the Broadway Fillmore District, St. Adalbert’s. I took this photo of the magnificent altar:

This basilica is in danger of being closed and has some good people who are trying to save it, as diligently as we are trying to save our terminal. You can read more about the history of the basilica and the efforts to save it here.

This photo was taken last night by long-time CTRC member, Adam Vester, and is probably the BEST night shot I’ve ever seen of the terminal. You can check out the full size version here on Flickr.

While we were working at the Buffalo Federation of Women’s Clubs fundraiser at the terminal a couple of weeks ago, founder of the Breast Cancer Awareness Garden (in the Memorial Drive traffic circle) Pat Klebes told me a great story. A couple of weeks prior, Pat, Carole Mc Dade and Mary Ellen Glynn were doing some weeding in the garden and community volunteer organizer, Ms. Elizabeth Triggs, brought a group of local teens by to see if they could help.

Pat’s first impression, based on the new jeans and sneakers they were wearing, was that the kids would be more of a hindrance than help. And it was true that these kids had little or no experience with gardening, but after a little coaching, the kids really got into it. One of them asked Pat, “who pays you for doing this?”. When Pat replied that no one did, it must have made a lasting impression on these kids.

Ms. Triggs later called Pat and said “I don’t know what you said to them, but you touched their hearts. They call you the “Hope Ladies”!”. Pat told me that she cried when she heard that, and indeed, had tears in her eyes as she told that part of the story. I think those kids were touched by the fact that these ladies would actually volunteer their own time and money to make their neighborhood a little prettier.

Ms. Triggs returned with the kids the following week with about a hundred dollars worth of new flowers and mulch. The kids felt that the garden needed more flowers. And the best part, Pat told me last night that she, Mary Ellen and Carole had attended a couple of the kids’ graduation ceremony the night before, as special guests. The “Hope Ladies”, indeed. They brought hope to a generation that didn’t have much experience with hope.

Thank you Pat, Carole, Mary Ellen and all the regular volunteers of the BFWC who tend the Breast Cancer Awareness Garden. You touch all of our hearts!

Here’s a story I wrote for Buffalo Rising:

When passenger rail service declined throughout the ‘50’s, ‘60’s and ‘70’s, the majority of America’s magnificent old train stations were rendered obsolete. In Buffalo, we know the dire consequences of this decline as experienced at our own magnificent Art Deco masterpiece, the Central Terminal. Cavernous train stations are a difficult fit for many adaptive reuses and due to the quality of the original materials and levels of decay experienced by many of these great stations, restoration can prove to be very costly.

Entering the picture last year with an intriguing solution is my friend, colleague and CTRC team member, Nick Kraus, who wrote his master thesis on the use of federal transportation funding sources such as SAFETEA-LU, which was the subject of a public meeting held Monday at Medaille College, as facilitated by Congressman Brian Higgins. In Nick’s thesis, he explains how Worcester, Massachusetts successfully used a combination of federal transportation funding sources (preceding SAFETEA-LU) to finance approximately 80% of the 2000 rehabilitation of their beautiful Beaux Arts Union Station from a decaying shell to an intermodal transportation facility.

You can read the whole story here.