This fantastic video profiles Buffalo, New York, site of next October’s annual National Trust Preservation Conference. Several of the buildings highlighted in the video are both Buffalo landmarks and Conservancy grantees, via our state-wide Sacred Sites program.
In the video, Paul McDonnell, Buffalo public schools architect, speaks about the great American architects active in Buffalo – not only the incomparable triumvirate of H.H. Richardson, Louis Sullivan, and Frank Lloyd Wright, but also Richard Upjohn, as the video pans over St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral (Gothic Revival brownstone, built in 1851), recipient of planning and challenge grants for brownstone masonry restoration in 2003 and 2004.
Other Buffalo landmarks figuring prominently in the video include St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Cathedral (Gothic Revival, Patrick Keely, 1851-1855), and two Richardsonian Romanesque with prominent towers, one red brick, one brown sandstone: First Presbyterian Church (built in 1891, Conservancy grantee in 1990 and 2003), and Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church (built in 1896, Conservancy repair, planning and challenge grants in 2002 and 2009).
Another of the video’s featured speakers, distinguished preservation architect Theodore Lownie, has consulted on several of the Conservancy’s Buffalo grant projects: Blessed Trinity Roman Catholic Church (1923-1928), First Presbyterian Church, and Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo (1904).
Altogether, the Conservancy has awarded thirty Grants to 19 historic sacred sites in Buffalo, totaling $233,700.