Someone(s) to Watch Over Me

 If you’ve driven by the Eckhardt Building at 950 Broadway lately, you may have noticed the plywood sheath that is covering two broken windows on the corner of the building (not shown in this photo). At first glance, you’d assume that this isn’t going to be a “good news” type of story, but let me tell you why it is exactly that.

In the mid afternoon on Christmas Eve, I received a voicemail from Chris Byrd, notifying me of the broken windows (as an aside, Chris knows that long time Central Terminal volunteer, Ben, was recommended by me to the owners of the building a few months ago to act as the chief maintenance man there). Apparently, Marty Biniasz had driven by earlier, saw the broken windows, and called Chris.

So, upon hearing Chris’ message, I immediately left Ben a voicemail about the problem. I explained that I wasn’t expecting him to drive from Tonawanda to the east side on Christmas Eve, but that I thought that he might contact the owners to have someone do an emergency enclosure. But afterward, I found out that he decided to drive down there as soon as he heard my message anyway.

I’m not sure how much time elapsed since Marty called Chris and Ben arrived on the scene, but it was probably only a matter of a couple hours. To Ben’s surprise, the two broken windows had already been boarded up! So, Ben went inside to investigate the interior damage. Other than the broken glass, there was none! Judging by the distance the broken glass had traveled inside, it appeared as if the windows had simply just blown in on that windy, snowy day.

But, the story doesn’t end there. Soon after Ben arrived, one of the owners showed up. Apparently, he had already been notified by Dave Franczyk! And to everyone’s surprise, no one knows just who boarded up the windows!

So, here are the “nice to know” factors of this story:

• We have a good network of people in place to keep their watchful eyes on things. That’s also been proven time and time again regarding occurrences at the terminal.
• We’re fortunate to have people who care enough about the building and the neighborhood to interrupt their holiday plans.
• The windows weren’t broken by vandals, as one might assume, but by an act of God.
• Somehow, the broken windows were repaired almost immediately, before any further damage could be done.

So, thank you Marty, Chris, Ben, Dave and whomever it was that resealed the building on that snowy Christmas Eve! That was one of the best displays of true Christmas spirit I’ve heard of in a long while.