Webb Building - Table of Contents
Summer 2006 History / Exterior Photos
Webb Building
90-94 Pearl Street, Buffalo, NY
Original owner: |
Jewett M. Richmond |
Architect: |
Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz (New York City) |
Erected: |
1888-89 |
Style: |
Commercial Richardsonian Romanesque Considered finest remaining Richardsonian Romanesque commercial building left in Buffalo |
Original use: |
Belt and hose factory |
Landmark status: |
Joseph Ellicott Preservation District |
In 2006, minor alterations at ground floor; otherwise, completely original exterior. The building, in the hands of a speculator, is vacant.
Architect Cyrus Eidlitz also designed the original Buffalo Public Library (demolished in 1963) and the Iroquois Hotel (demolished in 1940).
HISTORY Beneath Illustrations
5 stories, 45,000 square feet |
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Text reprinted from the The five-story Webb building is a Richardsonian Romanesque brick commercial building with a flat roof. It is by 80 feet wide on Pearl Street and 120 feet deep and was originally intended to house two stores, each 40 feet wide. Only the façade on Pearl Street (east elevation) is treated architecturally. This elevation retains a high degree of architectural integrity of design, materials, and workmanship from the period of its construction. The five-story facade of red pressed brick with Medina sandstone trim is topped by a central parapet with end urns and small, round-arched attic windows. A sandstone stringcourse supported by stone corbels defines the uppermost floor. Brick piers with simple stone capitals rise from the stringcourse to support a row of brick flat arches. The arches are glazed with double-hung sash windows that light the fifth floor. Floors two through four have tripartite openings that were filled with plate glass
windows, many of which are now missing. The fourth floor has round-arched windows
with cast-iron pilasters, continuous sills,
and spandrels between the floors. The
second and third floors have flat-headed, tripartite windows with cast-iron pilasters
and continuous metal sills . (Several windows have been filled with glass block
or boarded up.) These floors are ornamented by a number of stone and metal decorative
elements (notably carved sandstone floral and lion head corbels and metal guilloche
moldings) that survive in remarkably good condition. |