Exterior Audio Tour: Stop 12

Stop Number 12—Modern Uses for a National Historic Landmark

As you face the Towers Building, you can see to your right the high-rise Strozzi Building, which is the home of the current Buffalo Psychiatric Center. Patients were moved there from the original hospital in 1974.

Many community members have worked hard over the years since then to save the Richardson from threatened demolition. Finally, the nonprofit Richardson Center Corporation was formed in 2006 to create and execute a reuse plan.

Since then, the Richardson has undergone a multistage rehabilitation and reuse process, stabilizing the buildings, reconstructing elements, and renovating interior spaces.

The preservation of the Richardson Olmsted Campus is a rehabilitation, not a restoration. A restoration is when a site is restored to a certain point in time. Examples of restoration in Buffalo include the Theodore Roosevelt National Inaugural Site and the Darwin Martin House. A rehabilitation is when the site is preserved and then adapted for new uses.

The Richardson Center Corporation, which oversees and administers the process, continually consults with the New York State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service on their reuse plan. The public has been actively engaged in these processes through a Community Advisory Group and public meetings.

The first redevelopment project at the Richardson involved rehabilitation of the main Towers Building and the first wing building on each side of the Towers for use as the Richardson Hotel. All other buildings have been mothballed for development in future phases as part of a mixed-use Campus potentially envisioning artistic, residential, academic, and cultural uses and amenities for the City of Buffalo.

The following resources will give you more information about the historic preservation of the site. They can be found on our website, www.richardson-olmsted.com. A Master Plan for development details the reuse phases, a Historic Structures Report chronicles the history of the architecture and the condition of the buildings before rehabilitation, and a Cultural Landscape Report deals with Olmsted’s design and the landscape renewal details.

If you take a moment to read the plaque located to your left as you face the Towers Building, it states that the Buffalo Psychiatric Center, the former name of the Richardson Olmsted Campus, is a recognized National Historic Landmark. Landmark status is the highest designation given to a building, site, structure, or object deemed to have outstanding historical significance. The Richardson was designated in 1986.

Only 2,500 sites across America have been recognized as National Historic Landmarks, and 8 of them are located right here in Buffalo! The other 7 are:

• The Buffalo History Museum building
• The Edward M. Cotter fireboat
• The Darwin D. Martin House
• The Guaranty Building
• Kleinhans Music Hall
• St. Paul’s Cathedral
• The U.S.S. The Sullivans

Notice that the plaque is mounted on a reddish brown stone. This type of stone, used on many of the buildings at the Richardson, is Medina sandstone quarried near Medina, New York. It is one of the building materials for which Buffalo architecture is known. You can see examples of it used on buildings along Delaware Avenue, Richmond Avenue, and on various churches throughout the city.

To finish the tour, head towards the raised map of the Richardson.