I am confident that the CTRC’s collective experience and vision as a team will continue to work towards the same goals that Russell had strived for during the last decade. We all wish him the very best personally, as well as in his future endeavors on the Preservation Board and as a new board member of the Broadway Market. I am certain that his drive and passion will be of great benefit to these efforts, as well as to the entire city of Buffalo.

Effective immediately, I will assume the duties of President, Mark Lewandowski will remain our Treasurer, as well as assuming the duties of Vice President, and Sara Etten will remain our Secretary. Kate Resetarits, Yuri Hreschyshyn and Ed Werick also will remain on the board of directors. We will be looking to fill 3 vacant board positions before the end of the year.

As we eagerly look forward to another busy season of great events, I would like to take this time to remind everyone that restoration and preservation progress also continues. If you’ve driven by the terminal recently, you may have noticed that several Plexiglas window coverings in the tower have been blown out at different times during our blustery Buffalo winter. Given the tower’s raised prominence, it is frequently subjected to sustained winds that make the replacement of these windows from the inside quite a dangerous time-and-resource consuming task. While the majority of missing coverings have been reinstalled, completion remains a priority and efforts will continue as conditions and volunteer resources permit.

Also continuing is our collaboration with BOCES on the construction of restroom facilities within the former waiting room area, repairs to interior drainpipes that were affected by the winter freeze and the ongoing maintenance and preparation of the concourse, its peripheral rooms and the surrounding acreage for another event season. Continuing our annual tradition, the public is invited to once again participate in our 11th annual Spring Clean Up on Saturday, May 17th, from 9am to 1pm. As always, free lunch and beverages will be provided to all volunteers.

I would also like to announce a few new projects for which we are currently assembling resource requirements:

· The renovation of the restaurant area for use as a small event or conference facility

· The preparation of the 4th floor of the tower for use as a model for redevelopment

· The preparation of an upper tower floor for use as an observation floor

This is a pretty challenging agenda for our relatively small group of unpaid volunteers, but we believe that we are up for the challenge as we have proven in the past. If you would like to help us reach our goals, please contact us at volunteercoord@buffalocentralterminal.org or visit our website at www.buffalocentralterminal.org. We are always looking for extra help with everything from building trades, to event staffing and administrative skills. Everyone is welcome!

Finally, I’d like to thank our many supporters for their donations of time and money. Without you, the city of Buffalo would have lost an important and historic landmark. Your continuing support will be, as always, greatly appreciated.

We firmly believe that it is no longer a matter of if the Central Terminal will be restored, but rather of when it will be restored. Thank you for your belief in this project and in us. We look forward to seeing you all this season!

Sara and I met with Mike Quinniey and Tyrone Christopher of the Western New York Minority Media Professionals on Saturday to establish a partnership with them that will hopefully help us both in our restoration efforts. They are just beginning efforts to restore the beautiful old Sattler Theater at 512 Broadway. You can read more about it in today’s Buffalo News.

Mike and Tyrone are great guys and we are looking forward to working with them!

By Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman

TRENTON — The city’s vision to revitalize downtown Trenton began with the renovation of the historic Broad Street Bank. As such, it was only natural for the residential high-rise to host the “Central Terminal” documentary yesterday for Day 2 of the Trenton Film Festival.

The film’s producers, Scott Richardson and Kirsten A. Jahn, were in town to debut the documentary here, which they completed about a year ago as Canisius College Video Institute students in western New York.

“Central Terminal” is a 29-minute film about a train station in Buffalo, N.Y., that was a thriving hub in the 1920s which closed down in the 1970s.

Then the Central Terminal, much like the Broad Street Bank, underwent decades of blight and deterioration until area residents intervened in an effort to save it from destruction.

“I think it’s a nice fit that a building like the Broad Street Bank — that has been renovated — is the host of a film about a building in Buffalo, N.Y., that everyone is hoping to be renovated some day,” said Dr. Barbara Irwin, who mentored Richardson and Jahn as director of the Canisius College Video Institute.

Production of the film began shortly after Jahn contacted the Central Terminal Restoration Corp. in 2006 to see if they’d be interested in having a documentary made on their efforts to save and renovate the terminal.

But filming during the brutal winter months was challenging to the filmmaking duo.

“It was really cold. That was the major problem,” Jahn said yesterday following the documentary’s screening to more than 20 attendees.

“The terminal building is not heated,” Richardson told The Trentonian yesterday. “We were shooting in February and March. The president of the Central Terminal Restoration Corp., we shot his interview at the terminal in the middle of March, and we were freezing.”

Marilyn Campbell, a fourth-time volunteer with the film festival, said the event is always a blast. “They’re great films,” she said. “It’s really nice to see films that aren’t the usual movie theater films.”

David Henderson, president of the Trenton Film Festival, said he was happy to have the opportunity to showcase the “Central Terminal” documentary in the Broad Street Bank. And he noted the film festival is going to be even bigger as it concludes tonight with a showing of “The Flyboys” at the Masonic Temple on 100 Barrack St. following the 7 p.m. awards ceremony.

“Trenton is the center of the international film world for one weekend,” Henderson said.

And for the two Canisius students, they arrived in the city yesterday morning as participants in Trenton’s fifth annual film festival.

After months of research and filming, Richardson and Jahn said they started to get emotionally involved in the restoration effort of the Central Terminal.

“We got very connected,” Richardson said. “The group that is working to restore the building is very tight-knit. We actually ended up in their Dingus Day parade,” he said, referring to the Polish holiday.

“It’s a big Polish neighborhood around there. They ended up putting us on a float in the back of the Dingus Day parade, so we became pretty connected,” Richardson added.

“I had never actually been inside the building before we started working on the film, and by the end of it I was ‘farrah, save the terminal.’”

The Trenton Film Festival always brings in creative artists like Richardson and Jahn to showcase independent motion pictures.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for our students to have their work shown at a venue like this,” Dr. Irwin said.

I never really thought about it before.

Today, I was walking my dog and happened to notice the color. The sky was shades of gray with white blue swirls. There were sunbeams peeking out from the clouds and the birds were flying overhead. Even with the chill in the air, I felt warm. All around me there was color and life. I never really thought of it before.

This is the property surrounding the Central Terminal. I live in her shadow.

Since I moved here 15 years ago, I’ve watched the evolution! When I first moved in, there were mounds of dirt and garbage. The tire piles were huge. You couldn’t walk around the parking lot, there was too much trash, crumbled pavement and broken glass; walking around was considered unsafe. There were many nights of fire, with flaming invoices from years long past, billowing out the windows. The sound of vandals screaming from the towers and breaking glass was nothing new.

Then something happened. Someone showed they cared. Crews of volunteers started cleaning up the property. Then the roof got fixed. The windows were patched. The towers were magically lit. The clocks restored. New pavement. New trees. Old trees carved into new treasures! Daffodils! I even think I saw a cherry tree in full blossom today!

Every day, one of my dogs and I take our walk. My puppy is in training, so he gets unleashed; I only hope that he’ll remember to pay attention to me when I call. He’s so busy chasing bunnies and birds and smelling all the good smells of spring that he forgets himself! My other dog has short legs and tries her best to keep up, but she always stops to smell the flowers.

The three of us treasure this building. We are thankful for all the love and hard work that has made this such a wonderful place to walk and enjoy.

I’m noticing new faces. I’m noticing other people walking their dogs. I’m noticing other people walking the concourse. Just yesterday, I saw a little boy clutching his grandfather’s hand as they enjoyed the scenery. Grand dad was pointing to something high in the tower; it was probably the family of hawks that are living in there. On Fridays, if I’m lucky, I’ll even get to watch Cousin Kelly work on his tree carvings! (more…)

If you feel inspired to lend a hand, check out the volunteer page.

BEST Assn., along with the Lombard Street Block Club will be planting trees on Koons, Miller, Titus, Goodyear, Empire also Saturday. Meet up will be at Family Dollar or St. John Kanty parking lots @ 9 am.

The Lombard Street Block Club will meet with the Central Terminal’s landscaping committee at 7pm Monday at the Polonia Hall (Adam Plewacki Post on Memorial and Paderewski) to discuss collaborative efforts and cleanup on May 17.

Please come on out and support these neighborhood efforts!

Russell Pawlak steps aside after 10 years as volunteer

Ten years ago, Central Terminal was an uninhabited and dilapidated relic in danger of the wrecking ball.

Today, the 17-story art deco former train station on the East Side is still a long way from full restoration, but it has become a popular site for community and offbeat artistic events.

The surprising transformation wouldn’t have happened without Russell Pawlak, the former pitchman, marketer and, some people contend, visionary who grew up on Milburn Street, in the shadow of Central Terminal.

Now, after a decade of volunteer involvement, including the last eight as president of the Central Terminal Restoration Corp., Pawlak is hanging up his conductor’s cap.

“I’m very proud of the role I’ve played in the project, no matter how small or large you want to consider it to be. We proved a band of creative, dedicated people could make a difference,” Pawlak said.

Mike Miller, the organization’s acting president, credits Pawlak with giving the public the chance to reconnect, or experience for the first time, one of Buffalo’s architectural icons.

“Had it not been for Russell’s hard work in the last 10 years, we wouldn’t even be on the map,” Miller said. “In the early days, he had to really fight for attention because we were told no one would want to come to the East Side.”

Central Terminal opened in June 1929 at Paderewski Drive and Curtiss Street, an example of the art deco movement so popular during that decade.

The station, which in its heyday saw 200 passenger trains daily, was closed 50 years later when the last Amtrak train pulled out in October 1979. City of Buffalo negligence, followed by a succession of private owners and vandalism, resulted in the building’s being stripped of its decorative ornamentations.

Pawlak became involved with saving Central Terminal through an annual cleanup of the station grounds, just before the nonprofit Central Terminal Restoration Corp. had formed and purchased the structure for $1.

The group secured a grant to repair and light the four exterior bronze and glass tower clocks and the crown of the tower, both of which Pawlak called a “good symbolic gesture.”

Then, it received a $1 million grant from Erie County to stabilize the building and seal it from the elements and intruders.

The grant also paid for the removal of more than 350 tons of debris, 1.5 million gallons of water from lower levels, roof repairs and the enclosure of 4,000 windows.

The event that really turned heads came in 2003, when an estimated 4,000 people waited in line, some for hours, to get the first public look inside in nearly a quarter of a century.

In recent years, thousands of people have showed up at a time to attend a wide array of events, from Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center’s “Artists and Models” event to this year’s second annual Dyngus Day celebration.

Eva Hassett, chief of staff for former Mayor Anthony M. Masiello during those early years, praised Pawlak’s efforts. “He has shown amazing instincts at knowing how to connect the building to the community, which is how I think buildings get saved.”

Pawlak believes the group’s steady approach, with concrete gains at each step, proved to the public that something could be done with the building in a city where projects often fail.

Pawlak said he needs a break after going full steam ahead for so long. He hopes the day comes when the building finds the mixed-use tenants he believes will ensure its long-term viability and wishes the volunteer organization continued success.

“When I think about the Central Terminal, I think of the [poet] Delmore Schwartz’s line, ‘In dreams begin responsibilities,’ he said. “We had a dream for a building; in order to execute it there are a lot of responsibilities.”

msommer@buffnews.com

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for Russell’s many years of dedication and service to this project. Had it not been for his unyielding determination in those early years, the project would not be enjoying the successes that have been seen in recent years.

The Central Terminal Restoration Corporation has appointed Michael Miller as interim President, Mark Lewandowski as interim Vice President in addition to his responsibilities as Treasurer and Sara Etten will remain as Secretary. Ed Werick, Yuri Hreschyshyn and Kate Resetarits will also remain on the board.

We are looking forward to another busy and fulfilling series of events at the Central Terminal this summer!

I drove my Crown Vic down Fillmore Avenue. Winter in Buffalo. Things were quiet. Fillmore was lightly peopled, everyone behaving. Salty cracks veined the street’s asphalt surface, parallel to the curb. An old cop once told me the cracks were from buried trolley tracks. The crackle of the department radio broke the silence.

“Dispatch to Detective Devoe, what’s your 10-20?”

I grabbed the mic, “Devoe north on Fillmore at Broadway.”

“Proceed to Central Train Terminal Memorial Drive, breaking and entering reported.”

“Copy that, Devoe enroute.”

Read the rest…

You can read the whole story here. Congratulations to Kirsten Jahn, Scott Richardson and Dr. Barbara Irwin!

Note: the documentary will air on WNED again on Wednesday April 30 at 10:30 PM and on Sunday May 4 at 4:30 AM and 4:30 PM.

If you haven’t already, sign up on our volunteer mailing list to be notified of all upcoming volunteer opportunities.

Each student was allowed to create their own piece without conceptual restraint, so the exhibit is as varied as the students creating it, and is the culmination of a year of research and studio work. This unique show deals with varied aesthetic and conceptual themes ranging from U.S. foreign policy to self-exploration, from identity to humor. The wide array of resources available at UB’s department of Visual Studies, along with the professional knowledge and support of the department professors, and the generosity of the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation, has allowed students to organize this exhibition collaboratively, from public relations to curatorial, opening, and installation. The combination of talented young artists and the striking landmark structure of the Central Terminal in the midst of restoration aim to help creatively revitalize the Buffalo, New York area.

Source: ubVS News

“Well, I beat the bushes around UB and, yes a few people remember seeing the molds. However, perceptions of time passed are the same for most of us and “seems like yesterday” turns out to be a decade or more. After talking with a few directors of various departments and them having their people look, the consensus is that the contractor who cast the UB bison, did indeed pick up the molds from UB. After the new bison was put in place, the contractor did not return them. Nobody recalls enough about the contractor except when someone eventually did try to track them down, they were out of business. Paper work is gone.

I was a bit hopefull after one of the conversations about 2 weeks ago, but today ended the quest on a sour note. Que sera sera, Sara !

Regards,

Brian P. Rawson”

Dyngus Day Parade Benefit Party

Saturday, February 23, 2008 from 7 to 10pm at Dnipro Ukranian Centre, 562 Genesee Street (7 blocks from downtown)

$10.00 admission – ALL proceeds to support Dyngus Day 2008

Featuring a sampler of Dyngus Day at the Central Terminal:

- Music by the Buffalo Bells

- Beer by Flying Bison

- Cidre by Chateau Buffalo

- Food by Ulrich’s Tavern, Bistro Europa, K Sisters, and Melanie’s Sweets

Additional sponsors:

- Martyn Printing, Duch’s Builders

Tickets available at participating vendors and at door.

For information, please visit: www.dyngusdaybuffalo.com

PS - the $10 admission includes all the beer, hard cidre and food that you can consume until it runs out!

Congratulations to Scott Richardson, Kirsten Jahn and Dr. Barbara Irwin of Canisius College for their nomination for best film in the 2008 Buffalo Niagara Film Festival.

It’s truly a professionally produced film and it deserves recognition. Best of luck to you all!

You can purchase the DVD of this documentary at our webstore.

Keep your eye on it as we have a few more things in the works. See you later this year!

Graffiti vandalism leads to jail
By Matt Gryta
Buffalo News NEWS STAFF REPORTER
01/15/08

Buffalo graffiti vandal Christopher Fargo was sentenced Monday to up to nine months in jail on his latest graffiti-related arrest, which violated the probation he was granted two years ago.

State Supreme Court Justice Penny M. Wolfgang warned Fargo, 24, of Linwood Terrace, that he faces “much longer” time behind bars if he gets in trouble again.

Fargo was arrested in the Central Terminal on Nov. 11 while allegedly with a group of other graffiti suspects. He has been in jail since his Dec. 13 arraignment.

One of the first vandals seized in a multi- agency crackdown on graffiti throughout the city two years ago, Fargo spent 35 days in jail then before pleading guilty to felony criminal mischief for defacing the Ferguson Electric Construction building.

He was placed on five years’ probation by Wolfgang on July 17, 2006, prohibited from carrying paint cans or shoe polish and ordered to pay Ferguson $360 in restitution.

Assistant Erie County District Attorney Thomas D. Kubiniec, the county’s chief graffiti vandalism prosecutor, said the jobless Fargo pleaded guilty Monday to the probation violation count of failing to lead a law-abiding life and that he still owes the $360 in restitution.

Fargo apologized “to the court, the city and everyone I have harmed.” He said the court-ordered substance-abuse and mental counseling he has been receiving since his Dec. 13 arraignment has helped him accept responsibility for his actions.

But the judge sternly told him that after having given him “a break” two years ago, her fear now is that he “will try to do the same thing again and destroy the property of other people.” Should that happen, she guaranteed he will be sent to state prison instead of the Erie County Correctional Facility, where he will serve out his latest jail term.

Eugene P. Adams, Fargo’s court-assigned attorney, told the judge Fargo remains “despondent” over his latest graffiti- related arrest.

Adams said he has found since representing Fargo that, while graffiti vandals are generally perceived to be hell-bent on just destroying the property of others, there seems to be something of an emotional “impulse” on their part to find a way of “being recognized by society.”