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Demolition Looms Once Again for Historic Fruit Belt Property
204 High Street again sits in the shadow of the wrecking ball as the City of Buffalo plans demolition of the long neglected Civil War era property
"We will try one last time to see if we can find somebody to save the property," said Lou Petrucci, the deputy commissioner of the Department of Permit and Inspection Services, speaking of 204 High Street.
Known as the Meidenbauer House, the 1865 Italianate home in Buffalo's Fruit Belt will fall to the wrecking ball in September if a new owner cannot be found to save the historic property that the city repossessed in 2005 and has neglected since with the intention to demolish.
Standing on the edge of the ever-expanding Medical Campus, the value of deteriorating properties has risen as developers seek to profit on the long neglected Fruit Belt neighborhood where 140 demolition permits have been issued over the last twelve years.
"If anybody's out there," Petrucci said, "we need them to come forward."
Buffalo Rising featured 204 High Street in 2014 and again in 2016 when the city called for proposals to redevelop the property. You can see more photos of the property from around that time here.
Further reading on the history of 204 High Street's brush with demolition:
Buffalo New, "Civil War-era home in Fruit Belt gets one last chance to avoid demolition", 2019
Preservation Buffalo Niagara Instagram regarding 204 High Street
Buffalo Rising, "City Issues RFP for Redevelopment of 204 High Street", 2016
Mike Puma's photos of 204 High Street from 2012
Buffalo Rising, "Save 204 High Street", 2014
Buffalo News article on Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus overtaking the Fruit Belt
Frank Lloyd Wright's Bookshop In the Sky
Gas Station Burrito
In October 1907, a new bookstore opened on the seventh floor of the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago designed entirely by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Designed when Wright was thirty-nine years old and little known outside the circles of Chicago's elite, Browne's Bookshop was as unique for it intent to feel very much like a home library or study as for its location on the seventh floor, and despite its short life was known as "the most beautiful bookshop in the world."
Wright modeled the glass lamp shades from the windows he'd designed for his childrens' rooms, and organized the store's bookshelves around reading tables to create cozy alcoves in which to explore.
Francis Fisher Browne, the store's owner and editor of the literary magazine The Dial, relocated the store to the building's ground floor in 1910 but closed it for good two years later.
While the Fine Arts Building…
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