Buffalo Smelting Works Building
23 Austin Street
, Buffalo, New York

Original function:

Copper processing plant

Year built:

1891

Style:

Romanesque Revival industrial plant

Status:

Listed on the State Register for Historic Properties Nomination (National  Register listing pending as of July 2011)

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The former Buffalo Smelting Works, located at 23 Austin Street, is a particularly exquisite and rare surviving example of waterfront industrial architecture in the Black Rock neighborhood. The paired building was constructed as the neighborhood became a thriving industrial area during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

The Buffalo Smelting Works demonstrates elements frequently seen in industrial architecture of its type, with a steel truss roof system topped with roof monitors, and is embellished with detailing in the Romanesque Revival taste, with segmental and Roman arched windows, as well as a repeating motif of oculus windows.

Built for the Michigan based Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, the building is additionally eligible for the information about the nationally successful company and its Buffalo operation. As a prominent industrial processing plant, the Buffalo Smelting Works enjoyed nearly three decades of success in the copper smelting industry, attracting much business to the region.

A period of significance has been set at 1891, the year of the building’s original construction, until 1920, when Calumet & Hecla sold the property to the American Radiator Company.


Photos and their arrangement © 2011 Chuck LaChiusa
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