Cleveland-Buffalo 2017: Buffalo - Canalside, City Hall, Martin House

After spending two full days touring Cleveland, Ohio, we scheduled two days in Buffalo, New York before heading back to Toronto.  Our plan was to visit the Albright Knox and Burchfield Penny art galleries on the first day, take the tour of the City Hall and wander around downtown on the second day, and then visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House on the third morning before driving home.  Unfortunately we did not realize until we arrived that our first day was actually the Columbus Day holiday and most things including the art galleries were closed.  We could not move our tour of the Martin House, for which we had to pre-purchase tickets, and we could not move our City Hall tour since it was also closed for the holiday.  So we were stuck looking for something to do.  Our hotel suggested that we visit "Canalside", Buffalo's burgeoning recreation and tourist area along the Buffalo River.

Canalside is a waterfront district that historically was the western terminus of the Erie Canal.  It is now a developing recreation area that features skating, curling and ice boat rentals in the winter, and boating, kayaking, concerts, festivals and entertainment in the summer.  The stadium where the Buffalo Sabres play is located in this area.  There are plans for further development with more shops, restaurants and a large pavilion still to come.  Unfortunately we were visiting at a time that was too late for the summer events and too early for the winter ones so the area was relatively quiet and empty.  But it was still fun to walk around and look at all the sculptures and outdoor art pieces.  I was surprised to see a statue of Tim Horton, who I always considered to be a Canadian icon and a Toronto Maple Leaf, forgetting that he also played for the Sabres.  The most whimsical and fun sculpture was Casey Riordan Millard's "Shark Girl", featuring the body of a girl in a blue dress with her legs primly crossed, with the head of a shark.  Appearing in all of Millard's works, Shark Girl represents the embodiment of the term "Fish Out of Water".  We walked on the wooden boardwalk along the pier where we came across a fooze ball and a pool table, as well as a sandy play area and could imagine how much busier it would be in the summer.

Further along the pier, we came across the Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park, which is home to some decommissioned US Naval vessels, tanks, and aircraft, as well as war memorials and sculptures.  The highlights of the collection are the Cleveland-class cruiser USS Little Rock (CL-92), the Fletcher-class destroyer USS The Sullivans (DD-537), and the unfortunately named submarine USS Croaker, after the croaker fish as opposed to the slang term "to croak".  Still it would be a bit creepy being underwater in a vessel with this name.

On our way back from Canalside, we wandered through the downtown area looking at the shops and restaurants, street art and murals.  We passed by the Shea Performing Arts Center which specializes in hosting touring Broadway musicals as well as special events.  We were quite impressed with the lineup of upcoming shows, including recent Best Musical Tony Award nominees such as Something Rotten from 2015, and Hamilton, School of Rock and Waitress from 2016.  While Hamilton will be coming to Toronto in 2019, we were not sure that we would ever get the chance to watch Something Rotten (a musical comedy set in the time of William Shakespeare).  We decided that we would buy tickets to watch this show on a Saturday matinee in March, driving over for the day and returning home that evening.  Hopefully there will not be a massive snowstorm on the day to hamper our trip.

The next day, en route to our guided tour of the Buffalo City Hall, we walked through the blocks that were home to a series of gorgeous Art Deco-styled heritage buildings.  We had actually walked past most of these during our 2012 visit to Buffalo, when we took an Architectural Walking Tour  with the heritage group Preservation Buffalo Niagara.  But on that occasion, we only had time to see most of the buildings from the outside and the walk finished too late for us to take the daily tour of the City Hall at noon.   We planned to take more time with some of these buildings on this trip.  We went into the lobby of the Electric Building and saw some beautiful Art Deco features including an ornate mailbox and elevator.  The Prudential/Guarantee building has added a little museum that describes the history of the building and the details of the architecture.  We learned that this building had installed the first passenger elevators in Buffalo, had its own power generator, indoor plumbing including 2 private bathrooms (including baths), a barbershop, and a shoeshine stand.  We saw examples of the terracotta used to clad the steel frame of the tower.  We admired the decor in the Hotel Lafayette and stopped for a cold drink in their chairs that resembled baseball mitts.   It was interesting to see the art decorating the public washrooms including of Robert Redford, Clark Gable and James Dean in the ladies room and pinup girls in the men's.

The Buffalo City Hall is a 32-storey, 378 feet tall Art Deco masterpiece built in 1931 by architects Dietel, Wade and Jones.  It was one of the tallest and most expensive city halls at the time, costing $6.8 million.  The stone friezes on the building's exterior were carved by Albert Stewart and featured topics including electricity, chemistry and healing, architecture and poetry, education and culture, building and growth of the city, transportation, and the Family unit.  Limestone sculptures decorating either sides of the windows represented each month of the year.  For example, the September sculpture is holding corn and vegetables from the harvest, while the October sculpture is covered with leaves.  Bronze sculptures of US Presidents Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore stand on the north and south sides of the building respectively.  Cleveland was sheriff and then mayor of Buffalo in 1882 while Fillmore founded the library system, the heritage society and the Buffalo university.

Our guided tour of the City Hall started on the ground floor where there was so much art and ornamentation to look at.  The bronze doors elevators are decorated with two rows of chevrons with flowers in the middle, surrounded by a trim of smaller chevrons and then a thicker green marble trim.  At the top of each elevator is a carving of an eagle.  Four towering sculptures depict the characteristics of good citizenship and are labelled Fidelity, Diligence, Virtue, and Service.  Our guide pointed up the designs of the tiles on the ceiling.  He indicated that they looked like backward swastikas, since originally,  this was an Indian and Asian symbol of good luck and well-being until Hitler inverted the symbol and subverted its meaning.   The guide gestured at one symbol in particular that was accidentally oriented in the Nazi fashion.  There were multiple elaborate murals by William de Leftwich Dodge, including one titled "Frontiers Unfettered by Any Frowning Fortress", which highlights the proximity of Buffalo to the Canadian border and the importance of the US-Canadian relationship.  The mural depicts the angel of peace holding a warrior in each arm, with the one on the left clutching an American flag and the one on the right holding a Canadian flag (the one before the Maple Leaf version that we currently use).  Other murals depict the Buffalo economy, railways, and stockyards.

When it was built, the Buffalo City Hall had no air conditioning, instead using the winds from Lake Erie to cool the building.  We were taken to the Mayor's Office, currently occupied by Bryan Brown.  The outer office houses the City Hall's gallery of past mayoral portraits including one of James Griffen, the longest serving mayor in office from 1978-1993.  Griffen was credited with organizing a resurgence in downtown Buffalo and its waterfront, and famously quipped after a 1985 blizzard "Go home, buy a six pack of beer, and watch a good football game.", earning him the nickname "Jimmy Six Pack".  There were various memorabilia in the display cabinets, including the marriage certificate of Baseball great Ty Cobb.

We were next taken up to the 13th floor to visit the Council Chambers.  We were stunned by the magnificence of the semi-circular stained glass sky light decorated as a sunburst of brilliant red and gold rays against a blue background representing the skies or the heavens above.  Due to the use of prismatic glass in the sunburst, no shadow is thrown anywhere in the room.  Each section of the seven rows of seats has a curved continuous wooden back, mirroring the shape of the skylight.  A  stone ceiling beam encircles the chamber, continuing the rounded motif.  Twelve stone pillars topped with identical figureheads support the circular beam, each with vertical lettering spelling out a desired virtue for the council--Justice, Courage, Prudence, Wisdom, Concordia, Patriotism, Charity, Achievement, Knowledge, Industry, Fortitude and Philosophy.

Finally we were taken to the 25th floor (the highest accessible by elevator) and then walked up three flights of stairs to reach the Observation Deck, where we found a panoramic view of the city.  The deck  is free of charge and open to the public from Monday-Friday 8:30am-4pm.  We saw many of the Art Deco heritage buildings that we had seen from the ground and also spotted the Canalside harbour area that we visited the previous day.  We took note of the Statler Hotel, once a luxury hotel with 2084 rooms that was built for the Pan American Exposition of 1901.   The hotel was closed in the 1980s and changed hands several times through the years.  The most recent renovations seem to have stalled as the building has sat empty falling further into disrepair as time goes by.  It is a beautiful building that hopefully will eventually be restored to its former glory.

The Darwin D. Martin House is starchitect Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece in Buffalo, built around 1905 for his friend Martin, who was Corporate Secretary for the Larkin Soap Company. It is built in Wright's "Prairie School" style architecture, known for its simple, solid construction, craftsmanship and ornamental restraint, focusing on horizontal lines and flat roofs with overhanging eaves that integrate with the surrounding landscape.  The structure is laid out as rectilinear, horizontally-oriented structures linked by crossing axes forming the shape of a cross.  It uses structural piers instead of load-bearing walls in order to support elongated horizontal sections that are covered with a band of windows that provide panoramic vistas of the surrounding landscape.  The house was built using structural steel and reinforced concrete and decorated it with a variety of materials including stone, glass, wood, terracotta, ceramic tile, and bricks.  Also built on the property was a cottage for the Gardener, a carriage house for the horses and carriages, and a separate smaller house called Barton House which was built for Martin's sister Delta.

Wright used custom-made yellow Roman bricks that are 4-inches longer and wider than normal red bricks.  He created 16 different abstract patterns for his windows that featured more than 750 pieces of intricately patterned clear, translucent and coloured glass separated by brass-coated zinc bars.  Wright created decorative designs that illuminated and cast interesting shadows and reflect the colours of the window onto the floor and ceiling of the interior.  In his most famous window design called the "Tree of Life", he reduces the image of a wisteria tree to its most elementary geometric form.  He uses a square for the roots, simple lines for the trunk and chevrons for branches, with gold, red, and green glass pieces representing the leaves. This iconic design has been reproduced on many other products including textiles, pillows, mugs and more.  The bronze light scones are comprised of circles set within squares.  The stone chimneys emanating from the flat roofs were inspired by Japanese birdhouses.  Wright, who spent time in Japan, was particular to Asian influences, as shown by not only the chimney design, but also some of the artwork and wood cut prints that hang one the walls inside the house.  It is telling that Frank Lloyd Wright influenced the interior decor and furniture of the Martin House, as opposed to Darwin Martin or his wife Isabelle.

Our tour started in the Visitor's Centre designed by Toshiko Mori, with an encircling glass facade from which views of the Martin House and property can be surveyed.  Rows of glass cases provide interpretive information about Frank Lloyd Wright, Darwin Martin, and the house that was built for him.  We signed up for the extended 2 hour tour of the house, which does not allow interior photos except for in a few limited sections.  There is a photography tour which does allow photos of the interior to be taken, but unfortunately that tour is offered very infrequently and was not an option for the days that we were in Buffalo.  So I had to be satisfied with taking photos of some of the displays in the Visitor Centre exhibits and also found some images on the Internet that I can use as memories.  The first stop of our tour was the quaint, relatively modest wood and stucco box-shaped cottage with wood trim that was built as lodgings for the gardener Reuben Polder, whose job it was to provide fresh flowers daily for every room.  The Martins were obviously very close to their employee since he was provided with a gorgeous house that had many of the decorative features of the main house.  Polder was allowed to marry his wife in the Martins' living room.

The open concept free-flowing interior of the Martin House is absolutely breathtaking with its long, linear sight lines, organic design and use of natural materials.  One of the most stunning spaces is the reception room with the gilded sunburst arched fireplace.  Wright designed not only the architecture, but also the decor and furniture in the house, including the semi-circular barrel chairs and the high-back dining room chairs.  His unusually shaped dining room table in the form of a thick letter "I" was a pain for Isabelle Martin, who complained that none of her table cloths would fit on top of it.  Wright specifically created low seating that guides the eye towards the windows and the landscape outside. 

The hot water heaters and mechanical controls were surrounded by beautiful pillars and hidden behind Quaker-styled cabinetry with two layers of secret book shelves inside. The house had an enormous kitchen (a status symbol), with several ice boxes, white cabinetry over a bar sink along a bank of windows overlooking the back yard, and massive wooden cabinets with brass hardware designed by Wright and many drawers, including spice drawers that had locks on them because spices were expensive at that time.

The two interior areas where photos are allowed are the Pergola and Conservatory.  The Pergola is a 100ft long covered hallway that runs from the entrance of the Martin House to the Conservatory, which is a greenhouse area built for growing plants.  The Conservatory features a glass and metal roof supported by brick piers and has a built-in watering system activated by the turning of a valve.  A plaster sculpture of the Winged Victory of Samothrace (aka Nike), the Greek goddess of Victory stands at the entrance of the conservatory and can be seen from afar as you walk down the pergola.

The Carriage House was built as a stable for horses and storage for a horse drawn carriage.   Eventually it was used as a car garage with an upstairs apartment added on.  Today the property houses the Gift Shop, but you can still see evidence of its original usage, as the horse stalls are still in place, as well as a hayloft that is accessible via a metal ladder leading to an opening in the ceiling.  The carriage house, as well as the pergola and conservatory were actually destroyed in the 1960s and have been recreated through an ongoing restoration project that also includes reviving the second floor bedrooms and the Barton House.   The gift shop offers many different items emblazoned with Frank Lloyd Wright's signature designs.  We bought a pillow and a mug to go along with our Christmas Story Night Light that we picked up in Cleveland.  Having visited several Frank Lloyd Wright houses now including ones in Arizona and Chicago, I think the Martin House is one of his best works and well worth visiting.