Poooof…in a cloud of demolition dust, one of the most familiar buildings on Broadway is gone FOREVER.
1163 Broadway was the home to the famous Polish Village and in its later years Shadracks Nite Club…it went quietly…I didn’t hear about it until a phone call a little while ago. I didn’t even know it was on the demo list. (click for location on Google Maps)
It sickens me…it breaks my heart…with many buildings in the neighborhood in much worse shape than this, it doesn’t even begin to make sense to me.
What a joke…what an awful joke!
This building should not have been torn down…that is the bottom line….this is a whole HEAP OF FAIL and indictment of Buffalo’s preservation and demolition plans.
@%#&!
UPDATED…
I shot these in the evening yesterday…all except for the first.
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Hey Chris, you’re not the only one who didn’t know anything about this. I and many of the folks I’m in regular touch with on preservation issues weren’t aware of this building’s impending loss, either. I remember that building distinctly from last year’s most excellent Polonia tour with Buffalo Tours docent Peter Filim (if I remember correctly, you stopped by early on to meet the folks on the tour). It was one of the great heritage building of Polonia. This is another reminder of how we’re losing our heritage — in bits and pieces, here and there, in dribs and drabs. If this continues, sooner or later we’ll look around and there won’t be any left — or, at least, not enough to build a district around.
Sad!
This is why it is important to revisit the Clinton Brown historic inventory of properties in Broadway Fillmore, prioritize the buildings that should be survived, utilize the community vehicles available such as the East Buffalo GNPA and Broadway Fillmore to serve as advocates for historic reuse of properties if reuses for a building can be done before the current policy of demolition by neglect sets in.
It was public knowledge that as of two years ago it was being seriously considered for demo. It says so right here on the city’s website:
http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/files/1_2_1/SPlanning/PreservationBoard/Agendas/8-02-07.pdf
In those two years, did anybody step forward with a rescue plan? Or at least publicly object to the demo?
It is a sad day in Polonia albeit this building sat for many many years untouched..This should be another wakeup call for anyone who agrees that our historic buildings should be mothballed as soon as they become vacant.
How many times are we going to travel down this road?
The building could have been rehabbed. At the very least it should have been deconstructed, there were a lot of great architectural features. This is truly a sad day.
Well, this place had many memories for me. My friends and I would religiously party at Shadrack’s every Friday night from 10pm – close in the early 80’s. Two-for-one’s would be lined up on our table overloking the dancefloor. I can still hear the Kings’ Swithchin’ to Glide and the Stones, Start Me Up playing loudly as we drank up. Good times….actually, this is the only bar I ever got bounced out of….lol
This building suffered demolition by neglect on the part of the City’s Real Estate Division. What it needed was a little maintenance to keep the water from ruining the side wall. soon after they acquired it. Idiots !
how come know one ever points the finger the at our illustrious common council president and fillmore council representative?
what has he done to stop the demolition by his neglect?
why aren’t buildings like this on his radar screen?
what is his plan for preservation?
I think “Wondering” hit the nail on the head – sort of…. It was made public that the building was on the list to be torn down but who did what (if anything) to save it?
1 – Did “Wondering” or anyone else that knew of the upcoming demolition notify anyone in the B-F area that this was going to happen?
2 – Why didn’t anyone in the B-F area “preservation” group not know that the demo was upcoming?
3 – Why didn’t the Fillmore Council Representative raise the ‘red flag’ and alert the local community that this was scheduled to happen?
Maybe all of the above happened. Maybe none of the above happened. Maybe this will lead to changes and at the very least, people will be better informed of what is about to happen.
B-F alive is a great resource to spread the word about what’s going on in the B-F area and maybe this incident will help bring more information to everyone that’s interested.
Side note: I could be wrong; maybe all of this information was conveyed to everyone concerned in the past. At the very least – this is another story of a building that many of us can relate to and we’re sad for the loss to our neighborhood…..
Buffalo is a dying city with many dying neighborhoods.
There is enough blame to go around. But blaming people for what
happened isn’t going to solve the problems.
CW…BINGO!!!
This building appeared on an auction list a few years before it was demolished…..from the outside it looked pretty solid……I made some phone calls and begged someone to allow me to get a peek inside before the auction started (they rarely ever allow someone to do this….especially at the low price this was expected to get) and when I saw it inside I was blown away, and very saddened …I would have loved to bought this eastside landmark . I grew up on the East side and always loved this place…..I was there quite often back in the days when it was Shadracks………..
It was severely water damaged inside…..and there were pigeons galore living within! ….a very disgusting site. I could not believe my eyes……the roof was leaking and it was never repaired. Thus the extreme damage inside (same issue the Buffalo Central Terminal had but on a much lower level)
I’m only writing this because I have read many of the posts on here…..there was no wrong doing by anyone……trust me…….this place needed to be demolished for sure….in fact…many years before it was. The only wrong doing was not getting the roof repaired.