Buffalo Architecture Series

[biker]

I don't know how widely known this series is, as the Historical Society emailed a notification to members only two days before the first session.

The Landmark Society and Historical Society are putting on a series of Saturday morning lectures called "People, Parks and a Gallery Too!"

They are begin at 10:30 AM and run for two hours. The cost is $10.00 for the general public and $8.00 for members.

The remaining schedule is:

March 1: Larkin 101; The Larkin estate
March 11: Architecture of Lincoln Parkway
The Architecture of Esenwein & Johnson
March 18: Buffalo Society and the Rumsey Family
Presented by David Rumsey
March 25: Architectural Significance of the Albright-Knox
April 1: History of the A-K and its collections

These also seem to be training sessions for decents on Buffalo walking tours.

They also mentioned presentations at the Old Editions Bookshop (Huron and Elm) to be held on Wednesday evenings
March 8 "Ecology and Waterfront Development"
March 15

These will be held at 7:00 PM and the cost is $2.00

[biker]

2006 is also the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Larkin Administration Building.

In recognition of this, they're planning a "Premiums Exhibition" on August 4th at the LCO building. They did something like this a couple of years ago, apparently. It attracted 400 visitors, mainly out of town.

The spokesmen said it was going to be like "Larkin Disney World" in the Chautaqua Cafe in the LCO.

[buffy]

Originally posted by biker
2006 is also the 100th anniversary of the opening of the Larkin Administration Building.

In recognition of this, they're planning a "Premiums Exhibition" on August 4th at the LCO building. They did something like this a couple of years ago, apparently. It attracted 400 visitors, mainly out of town.

The spokesmen said it was going to be like "Larkin Disney World" in the Chautaqua Cafe in the LCO.

We seem to be missing something here...
like the building

[buffy]

the fact that it was demolished, or that we HAVE this included in an architecture tour

The Larkin "Building"

[WestCoastPerspective]

Larkin products and gifts are collectors items- lots of interesting things on E-Bay all the time.

Has anyone seen the exhibit at LCo- I haven't, but I hear they have a room in the lobby explaining the history of the company and the 'campus' of buildings on Exhange and Seneca Streets.

Some photos of the LCo building-

http://www.cityviewbuffalo.com/history/default.htm

[300miles]

Originally posted by buffy
We seem to be missing something here...
like the building

SHHhhhhh... Maybe they won't notice...

[biker]

I can't get worked up over the demolition of the building.

And neither could Daniel Larkin, the grandson who was there today.

Oneof the first questions the audience asked was, "What was the family's reaction to the demolition of the Administration building." He answered, laughingly, "A lot less than that of the general public. That building was endless problems." He also made a comment that the building had been long dead by the time of demolition. Was it abandoned?

Daniel was not the presenter. Mr. Larkin was there for Q&A.

The presenter also showed some other Larkin buildings. Like the Johnson Wax Building. And didn't mention the constant problem with roof leaks, that they still have to this day.

I think this protection of Wright at all costs is detrimental to his legacy. He was pompous and probably felt that "constructive criticism" was a term mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. He was adventurous in his designs. Some worked and some didn't.

One exchange in the Q&A was interesting. Someone asked about the air conditioning system. I don't remember if Daniel or the presenter answered. They remembered a rather complex system with air being forced first through a pool of water to filter it and then wet fabric.

This tells me that this was pre-freon and was using an evaporative process to cool it. It might have been experimental in 1906 and was by-passed quickly by electric refrigeration. If the mechanicals of the building were built around this, it was definetely technologically obsolete within a couple of decades of its construction.

[biker]

I also felt the presenation did a dis-service to the City.

There was no mention of the efforts that the City made to find a buyer for the Larkin building. The nationwide advertising. The extension of deadlines.

We have made progress in this area, but at a huge cost. Some interesting buildings in the Theater District were saved. But who would adopt this as a model when it cost $60 million and is still not an independently-viable area.

[biker]

Half the lecture was on Larkin Soap Co., the business. At its height, it sounds like it might have been the largest employer in the City proper in 1900. One of the audience commented, "at one time, one-fifth of all families in Buffalo had at least one family working for Larkin Soap.

The other half of the talk was on "Larkland" which I had never of before. The patriarch---John D. Larkin---basically bought the block bounded by Lincoln Parkway, Forest Avenue, Windsor Avenue and Rumsey Road. The block with the wall built all around it.

The family then built the "big house" for the father (took up the whole block facing Rumsey. And then the rest of the block became the sites for the homes of three of the children. With a fourth on an adjoining block. There was so much land involved for these four homes, there was a private service road down the middle of block to take care of the four homes.

The father's home was torn down in 1939 to make room for three on Rumsey. There's a lot more than homes on the rest of the block.

[biker]

I'd love to talk to Res about one aspect of the Larkin Co. I think that a large part of their success was the creation of a customer database and some rudimentary data-processing techniques in the 1880's.

[buffy]

biker, i heard of that indexing system, seems a boy who came up through the ranks at Larkin invented it and eventually becam a top executive

Thanks for the play by play!

[biker]

That boy was 13 year old Darwin D. Martin, my one-time neighbor.

He was hired by the Larkins to do a card-catalog of their library. He applied some of the same concepts to threcord keeping of the Larkin Soap Co. sales records, eventually becoming their chief financial officer.

Who, according to the presenter, died with about $0.37 cents to his name in the mid-1930s.