Below is a picture I took while on an adventure down Hertel Avenue. This building is the North Park Theater. It is a single screen movie theater. In this theater's glory days it originally housed a few Tiffany’s chandeliers and a Wurlitzer pipe organ (North Park Theater-waymarking.com). Pipe organs, I found out, were used to play various types of music and accompaniments during the
silent movies that would have been played here shortly after being built in the 1920s. The North Park Theater was built using the Neoclassical model of architecture of which some elements are noticeable. For example this building is very symmetrical from side to side. The façade of the building shows off very aesthetic qualities such as the Spanish roofing tiles, and from what I can make out, grape veins that are quite prominent just below the Spanish tiles.
Here are more pictures I took:
This was the building to the left of the theater
And this was the building to the right of the theater.
Though they would look the same if you were casually walking by, the building to the right has definitely been renovated (at least on the outside). With the building on the right of the theater: the tiling is new, the windows are new, and the brick is new. Yet the building keeps with the style of the decaying building on the left side of the theater. You can tell when taking a closer look, but if you were just walking down the street talking to a friend you probably would not notice these differences at all.
As for the question pondering if these upper floors are occupied… The picture below of the fuzzy, little kitty looking out at pigeons says YES!
Actually just about all of the shops I noticed or took pictures of seemed to be inhabited. Some of them were apartments and some of them were for office space.
I paid considerable attention to detail with my exploration of the Parkside Candies building on Main St. near South Campus of UB.
Most of the building looks to be rehabbed all except for the sign on the front which shows a lot of wear. I guess that sign is probably the original one from when the building opened between the 1920s and 1930s (Parkside Candy). One thing that was strange to me was the fact that the upstairs is used for office space including the Buffalo Pregnancy Care Center. This is a free clinic for non-pregnant and/or pregnant women to come seeking information on abstinence, pregnancy, ultrasounds if needed, alternatives to motherhood such as adoptions, and info on abortion as well (buffalocare.org). The care center was established there in 1985. I just thought that it was out of the ordinary to find such a clinic above a candy shop.
On a different note you can see the letter P sculpted in those pieces just below the roof that go between each window. I can only assume (and I may be wrong) that they stand for Parkside!
References:
Buffalo Pregnancy Care Center-
<buffalocare.org>
North Park Theater-
<http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM28KN>
Parkside Candy-
< http://www.city-buffalo.com/Home/OurCity/Buffalo_My_City/Buffalo_My_City_Watercolors/08-AParksideCandy1990>
Yes, P for Parkside. More classical detailing, just like at the North Park. Think of the expense, but obviously, these were the expectations of the day, a way to set a tone for a commercial building.
ReplyDeleteNote how the movie theater facade rises above the other facades on the street. That's to accommodate the projection booth and screen. You see the same thing at the Amherst Theater, and that was recently rehabbed.