Letting Grain Elevators be Grain Elevators

Buffalo's Standard grain elevator in the First Ward district.

Two articles worth reading were posted on Buffalo Rising last week.  One of them is about Elevator Alley (the book), the other is about the possible demolition of one of Buffalo’s grain elevators- or at least a portion of it. The GLF is an elevator that I never really bothered with it, mostly because it’s in pretty sad shape. It looks as though it was once on fire and its crumbling concrete doesn’t make it appear to be the safest place to be inside. The motion-activated alarm system that’s rigged up on the property it resides on didn’t exactly encourage further examination either. Instead, I spent my time photographing the elevators further down the street, which for the most part, were relatively easy to access at the time and far more intact.

A rather gloomy-looking Street View of Buffalo’s GLF elevator.

The lengthy discussion taking place on the Buffalo Rising page makes for an interesting (and occasionally frustrating) read. While Buffalo isn’t the sort of place where preservationists and developers have a history of getting along too well, the city’s numerous grain elevators have always been a particularly polarizing subject. Part of this is because it’s often difficult to make the case that they’re aesthetically pleasing, especially when they’ve begun to reach states of disrepair. I’m quite fond of them myself, but I’ll be the first to admit that the well-weathered portions of  the GLF complex do make for quite an eyesore. The other problem is that without a good deal of planning, money and ingenuity, grain elevators are difficult to renovate for public use. For a place like Buffalo that’s still struggling with its finances and a constantly diminishing population, mending dormant elevators hasn’t exactly been a high priority. Even the city’s waterfront, despite decades worth of various plans and promises, remains woefully underdeveloped.