my first scheduled night in pit 3. i think i proved my worth. got to talk to john for a few minutes before my shift, so that was cool. and got out an hour early. if i hadn’t gotten out early i was gonna go to the other casino with some other dealers and just not go to bed before the terminal. but i have about 4 hrs i can sleep now.
just gotta get directions to the terminal from here…i just don’t know what way is fastest.
sooooooooooo tired. soooooooooo excited i’m gonna pee my pants hehheheheheh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i love buffalo. buffalo is such a beautiful city – you just need to know where to look.
i don’t even know where to begin. i had just a fabulous time at the terminal. i’m glad i left early because i went brain dead on how to get there once i got off the 33 and drove through the ghetto a bit (a lot) lol. so hanging out outside before they started the tour, i ended up talking to the president of the terminal restoration commission (or whatever it’s really called). I have to call him this week because he wants my dad’s pictures of the inside from the 70s. Since this was the first real tour in 15 years, he was there to sorta give the tour – he won’t be at the other 2 dates – so I was glad I went to this one. He had alot of information about the terminal, since he owns it, the history, what’s going on with it etc. I got tons more respect for the fences, and sealing it up so people “can’t get in”…met the kid who runs buffaloexploration.com as well and talked to him lots about the terminal and the psych center. definitely going to be a good contact for the book.
So inside…I was just like…omg. I could barely contain myself lol. There were about 60 people there, and the president guy kept saying he was overwhelmed at the response. He had a few slides someone gave to him from Germany of the terminal when it was being built, which was really cool. We can only hope to stumble across some stuff like that for our book.
I kinda wandered off on my own when the tour moved into the main concourse. There was a staircase to the offices in the tower that was fully illuminated, so I was like hey, I’m gonna go up there. The first floor ended up giving access to the tops of the ticket counters, and since I didn’t know if I was supposed to be up there or not, I tried to stay hidden from the main group down below. The kid from the website saw me up there though, so he came up and we walked around a bit through the offices up there. He found the infamous walkway between the windows, which was just like…omg. Was not going to attempt to go through it, way too much broken glass…and the whole owner being there thing. We thought we heard people coming up so we took off back downstairs. Then of course the tour goes upstairs HAHA…
So I took that opportunity to stay on the main concourse and go behind the caution tape…again trying to stay hidden incase I wasn’t supposed to be there. Found a room that used to have stores in it – a book store, candy store, and novelties…mens bathroom with broken urinals…ladies bathroom…which apparently had a large lounge before the actual bathroom part of it. Some of the old wall hangings (cloth wallpaper) and wall paper borders were still on the walls. It must have been really luxurious at the time. Went back into the main concourse, joined the tour upstairs but decided to continue up the stairs to the other floors to see how far I could go. 2nd floor door was stuck shut, 3rd floor was unlocked…went in there…I think that’s the floor that had all the fallen ceiling tiles that I walked over, some random furniture, etc. 4th floor had…the roof. I about died. Big open window that I went through to get onto the roof of the main concourse. I was just like…oh…my…god. 5th floor is the end of the line. It’s fenced off because the above floors have the machinery for the clocks, security, and cell phone towers on the top of the building. (however, making arrangements with the president to go back with a UB group, gonna see if he’ll let me up farther). Another guy found me up on the higher floors and mentioned the kitchen, which I hadn’t seen because I had been upstairs when the group was down on the concourse. So he took me down there, and the website kid was there – he found the basement. Soooo…the 3 of us went down to the first basement, which was pretty um…dirty and dangerous and dark. He was prepared with a flashlight, me not so smart. But I was able to use the flash on my camera to light up the steps enough that I could find a semi-flat-non caked with mounds of dirt steps that I could step on to get downstairs. There was a hall full of lockers, I guess for the workers, and another kitchen. We made our way down the hall, which was again..dark and piles of dirt everywhere, so you had to becareful with your footing. The end of the hall was more of a kitchen with an old stove and stuff. We didn’t even try to go to the next further down basement, because it was even more dark (cuz by then it was actually underground – the first basement still had windows that you could see the parking lot railings from), and the stairs were covered in even more debris. Would definitely need to be more prepared to venuture further down.
The tour was basically over, people were leaving, but we were still wandering around. Then a bunch of people went back up stairs – to the roof. HAHA so we went back to the roof, and we actually climbed up the domed roof of the main concourse. It was incredible. I went back to the 2nd floor to just try the door again. I pulled real hard and got it open lol, so it apparently wasn’t welded shut like I thought…just stuck. Stepped in their breifly.
After that, everyone really was leaving cuz the president guy had to lock up. Hung out in front for the last people to get out of the building, and talked about some of the going ons and possible future plans. Apparently (and this got me excited to all hell), the group gave a presentation to the Seneca Nation about putting the Buffalo casino in the terminal…!!!!!!!!! I couldn’t think of a more fabulous idea for the building. There are concerns that the guy talked about, and the Seneca’s decided this week to put the casino in the Buffalo Convention Center – but the rumor is if the negotiations fall through for that, they have a secret 2nd location picked out – possibly the terminal. There is so much potential for it there (other than the neighborhood it’s in…)…you have the train tracks…people from New York to Chicago could take a train right into the casino. The tower would be a fabulous place for a restaurant overlooking the city. Apparently on a clear day you can even see the falls from the top. The building is just so beautiful, such a work of art, that if the Seneca’s put the money into restoring it, it would be amazing. The tower could even be restored into a hotel. gah…lol.
It’s totally gutted, don’t get me wrong. But it’s incredible. And with money, it would be amazing again. In talking about the history, the building was in private ownership for 25 years or something, and that is the main reason it went into ruins. As a historical landmark, that only applies to the outside of the building, not the inside…and the asshole previous owners stripped and sold all of the fixtures, and everything inside – even ripped the pipes out of the walls to sell as scrap metal. The clock that was in the main concourse was on ebay a few years ago for 28,000$…the buffalo that was inside was destroyed and removed. UB apparently found the molds for the original buffalo, and re-made it and they have it on the south campus somewhere. The president said he gets letters and emails all the time from all over the country – people telling him that light fixtures, or railings, or mailboxes from the building are on display at such and such a museum, or for sale at antique shops…and they don’t have the money to regain them – which is why they didn’t buy the clock off ebay. It’s sad really.
I took 4 rolls of film, tried to recreate my dad’s pictures…we’ll see how it turns out. Hopefully I have some decent pictures, but neither camera wanted to work properly and ug…But yeah…omg.
After the tour, I ended up going to Corpus Christi church which is a few blocks away with some people from Canada. The church is in danger of being closed by the diocese (sp?), so they wanted to see it before it’s closed. It’s a Franciscan/Catholic/Polish church…I walked in and started to cry. No idea why, but I was just like omg. It is so beautiful inside. There was the fathers day mass going on, and they announced that they got a 6 month repreive on the closure of the church. It was just…I don’t even know. The mass was…interesting…cuz it’s polish, so they had like…polka hymns lol. I tried to concentrate on the amusement of that, so I’d stop crying lol. So after the mass, we walked around to look more closely at the alter and the artwork. Really amazing place.
Gah!!!! The photo place that does b&w was closed, so I have to take them tomorrow, get them tuesday – they’ll be scanned asap.
Got to get in contact with the website kid cuz he’s gonna be a great contact for the book, and I’m gonna see if I can tag along on some future outings.
