Buffalo City Hall

Buffalo City Hall is the seat for municipal government in the City of Buffalo, New York State. Located at 65 Niagara Square, the 32 story Art Deco building was completed in 1931 by Dietel, Wade & Jones.

At 378 ft (115.2 m) height or 398 feet (121.3 m) from the street to the tip of the tower, it is one of the largest and tallest municipal buildings in the United States of America and is also one of the tallest buildings in Western New York. The design was by George Dietel, architect, with the assistance of John J. Wade. The friezes were sculpted by Albert Stewart and the sculpture executed by Rene Paul Chambellan.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Construction

in the foreground and Lafayette Square in the background from Buffalo City Hall during a snow flurry]] City Hall was built by the John W. Cowper Company, the same firm who built the Statler Hotel and the Buffalo Athletic Club, also on Niagara Square. The cost of building City Hall was $6,851,546.85, including the architect's fees, making it one of the costliest city halls in the country.

Ground was broken on September 16, 1929 and the corner stone was laid May 14, 1930. The building was completed on November 10, 1931, though parts of the building were occupied as early as September 1931. The building was dedicated in July 1932. City offices were previously located in County and City Hall.

In the summer 2009 Buffalo City Hall is undergoing renovation on the south wing and is covered with scaffolding and canvas.

Buffalo's tallest until 1970, City Hall has 32 stories, 26 of which offer usable office space. The total floor area is 566,313 square feet (52,612.2 m2) and the footprint of the site on Niagara Square is 71,700 square feet (6,660 m2). There are 1,520 windows from the first to the twenty-fifth floor. A practical design feature is that all of them open inward, making window washers unnecessary. It takes approximately ten days to clean them all. There are eight elevators to the 13th floor and four to the 25th floor. Curtis Elevator Company furnished the first elevators, with additional elevators supplied later by Otis Elevator Company.

There are 5,000 electrical outlets, 5,400 electrical switches, and 21 motor driven ventilation fans. One hundred and ten miles of copper wire weighing 43 tons, and 47 miles or 180 tons of conduit pipe, serve the building, as well as 26 miles or 5 car loads of underfoot conduit. There are either 138 or 143 clocks (counts vary) regulated by a master clock in the basement, and 37 fire alarm stations distributed throughout the building.

It was originally equipped with 375 telephones and a master switchboard. External illumination was provided from dusk to midnight by 369 flood lights with an average candlepower of 350.

City Hall was designed and built with a non-powered air-conditioning system, taking advantage of strong prevailing winds from Lake Erie. Large vents were placed on the west side of the building to catch wind, which would then travel down ducts to beneath the basement, to be cooled by the ground. This cooled air was then vented throughout the building. Winds off the lake were usually strong enough to power air through this system.

In 1939, construction defects were discovered. Apparently, many anchors were left out in the walls behind the granite facings. and water seeped in, causing extensive damage.

Design of City Hall

It was customary in the past to erect triumphal arches memorializing the victories of war, but the architect and builders of Buffalo City Hall have endeavored to portray the constructive rather than the destructive side of life. Their focus was to accomplish in stone, steel and glass what the ancient Greeks did in stone and timber.

The importance of this Art Deco masterpiece is immediately relevant upon viewing its command of the downtown Buffalo and the waterfront. When approaching City Hall from Niagara Street, one is impressed with an architectural style which is modern without being modernistic and which depicts the age in which it was built. Also, it generally balanced its modernism with a taste of the symbolism normally associated with classical architecture. The exterior and interior are adorned with symbolic figures and decorations, which in bold relief portray an industrial theme.

In keeping with this approach, the main entrance of City Hall is made up of symbolic units forming columns and lintels. The shafts of the columns represent large octagons nut with rivet heads and stud heads applied there. The molding of the lintel is styled to depict a saw, thus portraying the power in Buffalo's industry.

References

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Tips & Hints
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Mike Szukala
8 April 2019
Go to the roof observation deck! It’s free and a great view! The roof is not handicapped accessible, though. Also see the Common Council skylight. The frescos in the main lobby are beautiful.
X
26 July 2013
Free Wi-Fi, although it's censored and blocks many legitimate websites, like mine. (No WiFi password either, horribly insecure.) Go check out https://eff.org for more info on digital civil liberties.
JK
6 July 2021
Gideon Oji ate 25.5 16oz servings of kale salad in eight minutes here during The Taste of Buffalo
Minnke Katya
22 June 2012
The architecture is beautiful. If you need something, plan on waiting.....
Judith Frieh
25 June 2013
Beautiful view on the observation level and the architecture is stunning!
Peter Breninger
7 August 2014
The observation deck has breathtaking views of the city.
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65 Niagara Square, Buffalo, NY 14202, USA Get directions
Sat 2:00 PM–3:00 PM
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Mon-Tue 7:00 AM–5:00 PM
Wed 7:00 AM–6:00 PM
Thu 7:00 AM–5:00 PM

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