Buffalo burning reignites preservation and eminent domain debate

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Firefighters responded to two major fires in the city of Buffalo this week.

A fire ravaged The Old Pink dive bar on Monday and customers are in mourning after an emergency demolition. On Tuesday, 110-118 South Park Ave. in Buffalo’s historic Cobblestone neighborhood caught fire.

“The city is not considering an emergency demolition,” Mayor Byron Brown said Wednesday of this latest fire. “We are considering emergency stabilization.”

Given recent support for preservation, various councils and organizations are applauding the move.

“This is the last existing pre-Civil War Erie Canal era building on lower Main Street,” said Preservation Buffalo Niagara board member Fits Abell. . “That’s why Buffalo became an important city.”

They will therefore seek to save what they can.

“It’s important. The public loves structures, you know, old structures. We do too,” said Cathy Amdur, Buffalo’s commissioner of permits and inspection services. “We want to preserve them. But we need the public’s help to stay away from them (and) keep them safe.”

The streets are blocked off at the moment, with safety paramount, including for the owner who continues a decades-long legal battle over the property.

“They never talked 150 years before I owned these buildings,” said owner Darryl Carr. “They were heavy industrial buildings. They had a use and they used them to the point where they became unusable and they moved.”

Still fighting eminent domain with plans still in place to tear down the old one and build a second tower to attract people to Buffalo, he says it comes down to dollars and cents.

“So what I’ve heard is that the city is in financial trouble right now and they’re looking for money for next year’s budget, but they want to somehow “Another finding the money to stabilize the buildings when I already have the people lined up to take the buildings down,” Carr said. “Clean up the property and get it ready for real development. We’ve talked about it trying to save some of the structure, whatever we can save, but after the fire it becomes very difficult.”

“This fire occurring in these structures does not change that. The city will continue to pursue eminent domain,” Brown said.

The investigation is looking into the causes of the fire.