Going through some old clippings again, I came across these two early images, one a postcard and one an architect’s rendering, showing the Metropolitan Transportation Center in Downtown Buffalo, run by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA). It is a fancy name for what is basically a bus depot topped by the NFTA’s headquarters. I believe it was built on land that had already been cleared for parking.
The new bus station serving long distance buses opened in 1977 to great fanfare. It was hailed as a new way to do bus stations and was well received at the time. Its wide open and brightly skylit waiting room was the exact opposite of the dark old stations common back then, including the former Buffalo Greyhound station that it replaced in Buffalo. That old Buffalo bus station still stands on Main Street in the Theater District now used as a theater after a brief stint as a police station.
The Metro Transportation Center still serves intercity buses, a bit faded now but, not a bad building. Although not perfect it does a decent job stretching its program of uses out to fill its block. Building wings at the corners reach out to anchor the block and create enclosure for the bus loading areas. The main entry, facing south, is pushed up close to the street. A dense row of trees on the east and west sides of the bus loading driveways also help define the street and separate pedestrians from the buses. There were some plans floated at one time to spruce up the building and give it a bit more pizzaz. I am not sure what happened to them and could not find images that I know I saw someplace.
The rendering of the building, included here, is an interesting view into the warped psyche of 1970s architects and planners. Notice how there are no buildings surrounding the transportation center. None, with the exception of a parking garage to the west. In fact the image shows only parking outside the confines of the bus station. I guess they wanted bus passengers to feel secure that they would find easy parking next to the bus station. I think what this rendering says “we don’t really like cities and all that cities stand for, so be assured that this bus station will not really be in a city”.
Renderings are idealized visions of what could be. Imagine an ideal world where the only purpose for a city was to provide space for parking and a bus station. It would be comforting to know that this dull way of thinking has passed into history along with the 20th century but, we know that parking psychosis still has a very strong hold on our society. The “now” image below shows that there are actually a few buildings that escaped the wreckers along with a few quite lame new buildings filling the surrounding blocks. These new buildings include the NFTA’s own metro control center across the street. Parking is still the dominant use in the area including the now biggie-sized parking ramp to the west.
2013