Subsidiaries created by the LSC to make leather products and premiums, glass containers and furniture premiums, were sold off in the early 1920's. Fortunately, its subsidiary, Buffalo Pottery Co. (later Buffalo China) had developed its own successful product lines in addition to making premiums. Branch offices of LSC in other cities began to be closed. But, though diminished, LSC continued to be profitable.
As discussed in previous articles, JDL was committed to maintaining the LSC as a family owned and operated business. Accordingly, he began grooming his son, John D. Larkin, Jr. (JDL Jr), to take over as President in the early 1920's, which JDL Jr. did upon his father's death in February, 1926.
In 1932 JDL Jr began making changes in the LAB. The decorative sculptures were removed from the exterior piers. When he proposed punching holes for windows in the fifth floor walls, FLW came to Buffalo where he and JDL Jr. got into a very heated argument. A rare occurrence, FLW left in defeat and the windows were put in. JDL Jr also extended the annex chimney, thus altering the lines of the annex.
Functions of spaces were also changed. The classroom on the top floor of the annex became the Engineering Department. The in-mail department and clerical offices were replaced by soap business offices.
These changes, and others, impacted the former efficiency of Wright's design which had been so carefully crafted to accommodate the work force procedures of 1906. The perfection of function at the time the LAB was built, was also its flaw; it was an inflexible design that did not adjust to change well.
Daniel Larkin's biography of JDL related that by 1938, under JDL Jr's leadership through difficult economic times, the LSC was in financial trouble. WHH had left the company before JDL's death, not relishing the management style of JDL, Jr. DDM followed WHH a short time after JDL's death, following an intense argument with JDL Jr at a board meeting. Now in 1938, JFL Jr. found himself needing to borrow money to keep the business afloat. His application for a Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan to avoid bankruptcy, was denied. At the suggestion of his financial advisors, the company was divided into separate corporations. Kenland, Inc. owned some of the real estate while Larkin Warehouse, Inc. owned the rest. The latter was able to qualify for the loan. LSC continued to run the business.
By this time, JDL, Jr was very ill. His brother, Harry, was then elected president.
The Larkin Store, which had been located on the first floor in the Seneca Street- Van Renssellaer Street corner in what is now the Larkin Center of Commerce, was moved across the street into the LAB first floor light court. The move was handled by JDL's grandson, Crate Larkin, who insisted on hiring an outside moving company at great expense instead of using the LSC maintenance staff.
Complicating the break up of the real estate into separate corporations was the fact that the powerhouse (still there on the corner of Seneca and Larkin Streets), furnished heat and steam to all of the buildings including the LAB. This arrangement became very problematic when, in 1942, the Armed Forces condemned the manufacturing complex (LCOC) and the powerhouse for its own use. The Larkin Warehouse (now the LCo Building on Exchange Street), built its own heating plant, but the rest of the buildings including the LAB were left to fend for themselves. With no heat, the LAB was closed to face Buffalo winters with no heat for the rest of its existence.
A construction company, the L.B. Smith Co. from Harrisburg, Pa. in 1943, purchased the LAB but never moved into it. In fact, they never intended to move in, but rather to use the city tax liability of the LAB of about $80,000 to offset the company's profits back in Pennsylvania. It did take advantage of its ownership by selling what contents were still there, including the magnificent organ. Jack Quinan points out in his book, "FLW's Larkin Building: Myth and Fact," that the tax scheme failed when IRS disallowed the write off. L.B. Smith then simply abandoned the building two years after purchasing it.
Quinan goes on in his book to describe efforts to save the LAB. A suggestion was made to the Common Counsel that the LAB be converted to a conservatory of music. The Counsel was criticized at that time for having owned the LAB for two years and letting it fall to pieces.. Literally, plaster, masonry and rubble surrounding the LAB was a "spectacle of decay." The counsel refused to act.
In the meantime vandals had virtually free run of the LAB, stealing light fixtures, doorknobs, plumbing and part of the copper roof. The handsome wrought iron gates designed by FLW had toppled as rusted hinges failed. Other of the iron fencing became wartime scrap. Windows were broken.
So why did the city not just sell the property? Its assessed value in 1946 was $240,000. I suspect it had not been reassessed since before the LAB's decline, a shocking oversight in my opinion. That same year and again in 1947 and 1948 the Common Counsel rejected two offers of $26,000 and one of $25,000, apparently believing they could sell it for $240,000 and thereby recoup the unpaid city tax which was well over $100,000 by then.
Finally, on 8/30/49, Western Trucking Corp. offered $5000 for rights to demolish the LAB, agreeing to then improve the property with a truck parking lot of value not less than $100,000 within 18 months. The property would then be back on the tax rolls, thereby benefitting the city. This offer was approved by the Common Council. Demolition occurred in 1950, but Western Trucking found it to be an extraordinarily difficult job. Though it removed the debris, it fled the scene leaving an ungraded mess that remained unused for many years.
Quinan remarks in his book that there was no economic justification for the demolition. The property was in a neighborhood where industry was disappearing and nothing was coming in to replace it. The land was simply without any significant value. Years later it was still a barely used parking lot of pitted asphalt and overgrown weeds. Note his book was published in 1987. Carla Lind, in her book, "Lost Wright: FLW's Vanished Masterpieces," refers to the LAB being now an icon of unnecessary loss."
The impact of the LAB has nevertheless been lasting and important. Jack Quinan, then a professor at the University of Buffalo and a nationally known expert on FLW, was so outraged that he became an activist for historic architecture preservation. He with several other like-minded people, founded the FLW Building Conservancy, a national organization dedicated to preventing the loss for any reason of any other FLW buildings. Its logo is a stylized façade of the LAB. Quinan is still a board member of the Conservancy, which publishes a monthly newsletter and holds at least one, but often several, conferences a year across the country. (Conferences have twice been held in Buffalo. The last one, in 2009, was co-chaired by Quinan, Mary Roberts, Executive Director of the Martin House, and myself.) The Conservancy is an active advocate, having intervened monetarily and through legal action, to save a number of endangered FLW structures.
For years busses and cars have pulled up on Swan Street, delivering people to view the one remaining piece of the LAB, a tall brick pier that was at the corner of the masonry wall that partially surrounded the LAB. Many years ago a cadre of volunteers began maintaining the pier, cleaning off the graffiti, replacing missing or damaged bricks, repointing the bricks, capping the top to keep the weather out and sealing the opening between the pier and the wall to secure the hollow space within the pier from use by neighborhood kids as a clubhouse. The volunteers also paid for the interpretive panel installed nearby. This was accomplished with the blessings of the prior owners of the manufacturing complex, including Alan Dewart who still maintains an office here. Those who performed the work included, among others, Patrick Mahoney, architect and FLW expert who is a consultant for the LCOC today and designed the gallery space for the new Larkin Gallery off the Seneca Street lobby; Jerry Puma, a nationally known expert on the LSC who manages am internet site for Larkin enthusiasts nationwide and was a major member of the team that created the Gallery, and myself, who also worked on the Gallery.
The legacy of the LSC and LAB has been honored by the commitment of the LCOC's owners, Jim Cornell, Gordon Reger and Peter Krog. Not only have they continued to maintain the pier, they have also restored the foundation of the wall that between Swan and Seneca Streets, as well as built a "ghost pier" at the Seneca Street end. Honoring, but not trying to duplicate the original pier, Mahoney designed and they built the replica with etched glass block outlining the shape and placement of the bricks in the original pier. It is framed in brick along with a replica for the FLW designed wrought iron fencing. Interpretive panels and careful landscaping complete the structure.
Light fixtures throughout the lobbies and outside are based upon those designed by FLW for the LAB.
The LAB continues to inspire and motivate, in spite of its humiliating history of deterioration and destruction. It truly was, and in a sense, still is, one of the most important pieces or architecture in America.
