Buffalo City Hall

History

Previous buildings

In 1851, the city bought the property at the northwest corner of Church and Franklin streets in Buffalo to be used for the Mayor's office and other city offices. On this site, and constructed between 1871 and 1875, the city built a monumental granite structure designed by Rochester architect Andrew Jackson Warner (1833–1910). The building, now known as the Old County Hall, has four floors and a large, seven-story clock tower. It held offices for both the City of Buffalo and Erie County.

In 1920, the Buffalo Common Council decided, in light of the fact that the population of the city had quadrupled since the construction of County and City Hall forty-five years earlier, that a new building was needed to house the city government of Buffalo. Niagara Square was chosen as it is one of the central components of Joseph Ellicott's original plan of 1804, laid out for the City of Buffalo. From this location, one can see the waterways of Lake Erie and the shores of Ontario in Canada as well as the rest of downtown Buffalo. On September 16, 1929, construction of the new City Hall began and the building was ultimately completed on November 10, 1931 with the dedication taking place the following summer, on July 1, 1932, commemorating the city's Centennial celebration.

When the new City Hall opened and the city offices moved to the present building, the former 1875 County and City Hall became Erie County court offices. It is also the home of the Erie County Clerk's office, where important county records are kept. The former county and city hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

Construction

City Hall was built by the John W. Cowper Company, the same firm who built the Statler Hotel and the Buffalo Athletic Club, also on Niagara Square. The cost of building City Hall was $6,851,546.85 ($ in dollars) including the architect's fees, making it one of the costliest city halls in the country.

City Hall has 32 stories, 26 of which offer usable office space. The total floor area is 566313 sqft and the footprint of the site on Niagara Square is 71700 sqft. There are 1,520 windows from the first to the 25th floor. A practical design feature is that all of them open inward, making window washers unnecessary. There are eight elevators to the 13th floor and four to the 25th floor. Curtis Elevator Company furnished the first elevators, with additional elevators supplied later by Otis Elevator Company.

There are 5,000 electrical outlets, 5,400 electrical switches and 21 motor driven ventilation fans. Approximately 110 mi of copper wire weighing 43 tons, and 47 mi or 180 tons of conduit pipe, serve the building, as well as 26 mi or five car loads of underfoot conduit. There are either 138 or 143 clocks (counts vary) regulated by a master clock in the basement and 37 fire alarm stations distributed throughout the building.

It was originally equipped with 375 telephones and a master switchboard. External illumination was provided from dusk to midnight by 369 flood lights with an average candlepower of 350.

City Hall was designed and built with a non-powered air-conditioning system, taking advantage of strong prevailing winds from Lake Erie. Large vents were placed on the west side of the building to catch wind, which would then travel down ducts to beneath the basement, to be cooled by the ground. This cooled air was then vented throughout the building. Winds off the lake were usually strong enough to power air through this system.

In the summer of 2006, Buffalo City Hall started undergoing renovations from the 13th floor all the way to the top as the flood lights were replaced; three years later, it was the south wing that started undergoing renovations of its own. Renovations were completed by 2009.

In popular culture

In the American television series Avenue 5, Buffalo City Hall is the new White House.

Folklore

In 2018, an urban legend emerged, claiming that a fire broke out at City Hall at an unspecified time in the 19th or 20th centuries and all of the records that were housed in there at the time had been destroyed. Local historians later debunked the claim as false.

Gallery

Image:BuffaloCityHallfrom streeetlevel.jpg|City Hall viewed from afar Image:Buffalo City Hall, Buffalo, NY - IMG 3740.JPG|View of upper floors Art Deco details File:Buffalo City Hall - Council Chambers 2.jpg|Detail of the council chamber's stained glass Image:Buffalocityhall-reliefs.jpg|Relief sculptures over front entrance Image:Buffalocityhall-reliefsdetail.jpg|Detail of entrance relief sculptures Image:BuffaloEmblem.jpg|Relief of the flag of Buffalo next to the main entrance Image:Buffalo City Hall steps.jpg|Pillars at entrance with relief sculpture Image:Buffalocityhall-dodgemural.jpg|William de Leftwich Dodge mural in east side of main entrance hall Image:DSCN4468 buffaloclevelandstatue e.jpg|Statue of Grover Cleveland Image:DSCN4470 buffalofillmorestatue e.jpg|Statue of Millard Fillmore Image:McKinley Monument, Buffalo, NY - IMG 3702.JPG|William McKinley Monument Image:Buffalo City Hall - aerial view taken in 1971.jpg|Aerial view, 1971 File:Buffalo December 2024 41 (Buffalo City Hall).jpg|View from main entrance, looking up

References

References

1. {{NRISref. 2006a
2. DiNatale, Tony. "City Hall History". City of Buffalo.
3. "Ehrich Biography".
4. (1982). "Buffalo architecture : a guide". MJJ Press.
5. Claire L. Ross. (October 1998). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: New York SP Buffalo City Hall". National Archives and Records Administration.
6. (1993). "Buffalo City Hall: Americanesque Masterpiece". Landmark Society of the Niagara Frontier.
7. {{NRISref. 2009a
8. "Buffalo City Hall". DiDonato Associates Engineering and Architecture, P.C..
9. Brady, Erik. (17 February 2020). "Is the White House in Buffalo's future? On HBO, it is.". buffalonews.com.
10. Van Ness, Cynthia. (30 August 2020). "No, City Hall Has Not Lost Records in a Fire.". BuffaloResearch.com.