Thursday, June 25, 2009

Brisbane Building Update

Last month I had posted pictures showing a restoration in progress at the Brisbane Building adjacent to Lafayette Square in downtown Buffalo. Yesterday I noticed that the left corner of the entranceway has been uncovered completely:


Two men were up on a scaffold, gently at work on the other corner. One man taps away with a small mallet of some sort while the other holds his hands underneath to catch the chips of concrete, then deposits them in a bucket. Painstaking work. It doesn't appear to be a daily thing, although I did notice that the columns have become a bit more prominent somewhere along the line.


A bit of history originally published by Buffalo Place says that the building was designed by Milton E. Beebe and Son. A postcard found on Buffalo as a Historic Museum shows that there is an ornate side entrance buried too. Curious how most of the pictures feature the side facing Lafayette Square. Two architectural treasures in one, with the Hotel Lafayette in the left corner background, all facing the Soldiers and Sailors monument.


I'm looking forward to seeing exactly how much of the Brisbane Building is eventually restored.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I was just admiring this yesterday!
They had scaffolding up a few weeks ago and I wasn't quite sure what they were going to do with the facade.
Seeing as all the photos I've seen/been able to find are from the Lafayette side, I never figured there to be something this beautiful on the Main Street side.

I hope they don't decide to cover it back up... now, if I can only get my point-and-shoot to capture the beauty...