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SEPTEMBER 2017
The 43North finals are soon upon us. The scene on October 5th at Shea's will provide eight startups the opportunity of a lifetime; pitching their idea to the panelists and a packed house in an effort to walk away with a share of the $5 million in cash prizes.
43North was derived from Governor Cuomo's Buffalo Billion initiative, with support from the New York Power Authority. The competition, formed in 2014, awards brilliant minds seeking a spark to ignite their idea, product, service or strategy. Winners are provided with $5 million in cash prizes, dedicated mentors, free incubator space and health tax breaks. Past winners include the likes of CoachMePlus, ACV Auctions and UltraCell Insulation.
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The Larkin Center of Commerce houses six incubator spaces. If your business is at a critical stage, you need to make sure you have every advantage you can get. The Larkin Center's incubator spaces allow your new business to be surrounded by experts in their fields, as well as like-minded business and creative professionals. What's more, you'll be able to expand and add any number of workstations as you require them with contiguous incubator spaces built to grow. No one knows the future, but you can be certain the Larkin Center of Commerce will be there as it unfolds.
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HELP US SAVE PUERTO RICO
A proud Puerto Rican American and tenant of the Larkin Center of Commerce, Amanda Estronza, has orchestrated a local relief effort.
Amanda is seeking donations for those who were affected by Hurricane Maria on the island of Puerto Rico. The victims of Maria are without electricity and water, and in need of almost everything. We have placed donation boxes in the Larkin Center lobbies as well as other businesses throughout Buffalo. Now we ask you to help fill those boxes so that we can help our neighbors in the Caribbean. We will be sending these donations through the Salvation Army. So many people have been displaced from this tragic event and we are hoping to bring a little light to their lives by showing them they have not been forgotten.
This cause is near and dear to our hearts, as a significant portion of our steady contractors hail from Puerto Rico. Many of them have felt the suffering of both friends and family residing in Puerto Rico. We wish them the best of luck in a safe recovery.
Below is a list of acceptable donations we will not take MONEY OR CLOTHES: water, canned food with meat, fruits and vegetables, manual can openers, diapers, baby formula, batteries, flashlights, pet food, candles, dry foods, personal care items, feminine supplies, hygiene supplies.
For those unable to drop off their donation, Amanda will gladly pick them up. Please Feel Free to call her with any questions, she can be reached at 716-954-9902. Let's show Puerto Rico what they mean when they call us the City of Good Neighbors.
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ISABEL MARTIN'S GRAYCLIFF
"Your client is Mrs. Martin...If a house is built, it is only for her pleasure and we must make a joy to her of the very planning and building..." These were Darwin Martin's (D.D.M.) instructions to Frank Lloyd Wright (F.L.W.) expressed in a letter to him dated May 5, 1926. Thus began the creation of the Isabel Martin (I.M.) house, commonly known as Graycliff, located in Derby, just a short distance down the southern shore of Lake Erie from Buffalo.
D.D.M. was highly protective of his wife, especially considering her rather fragile health and poor eyesight. I.M. had complained about F.L.W.'s design of their home in the city, finding it too dark and perhaps overwhelming. She longed for a summer house to which she could escape. They chose a site on the gray shale cliffs overlooking the lake and where other city dwellers had also established summer residences, including the Larkins, Rumseys and Kellogs. D.D.M. had first visited the lot on April 18, 1926 and purchased it the next day, according to correspondence cited in the Historic Structure Report for Graycliff prepared by Bero Associates Architects (2/3/99).
Continue reading.
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YOU'RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE
As the largest mixed-use building in Western New York, the Larkin Center of Commerce houses nearly 100 businesses and professional services. The tenants are the lifeblood of the the Larkin Center. As such, we want to promote each tenant's growth and development, and be a part of their success. Whether you're looking for a change of scenery or interested in surrounding yourself with like-minded professionals in a bustling metropolitan environment, the Larkin Center is eager to find a space that's uniquely tailored to your needs.
Our tenants make the Larkin Center Buffalo's unexpected hub for entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation. We want all the information you need to be right at your fingertips, so you can get back to doing what you do best. Here, you can access all the forms you require for your tenant experience.
Visit our Tenant Portal to learn more about becoming a tenant at the Larkin Center, access the above documents, make a service request or a reservation for our conference facilities. Our streamlined
Customer Service Request Center makes it easy for authorized tenant representatives to request and track service requests. See the link below to login in our click reply to learn more.
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THE DARWIN MARTIN HOUSE COMPLEX (Continued)
"Your client is Mrs. Martin...If a house is built, it is only for her pleasure and we must make a joy to her of the very planning and building..." These were Darwin Martin's (D.D.M.) instructions to Frank Lloyd Wright (F.L.W.) expressed in a letter to him dated May 5, 1926. Thus began the creation of the Isabel Martin (I.M.) house, commonly known as Graycliff, located in Derby, just a short distance down the southern shore of Lake Erie from Buffalo.
D.D.M. was highly protective of his wife, especially considering her rather fragile health and poor eyesight. I.M. had complained about F.L.W.'s design of their home in the city, finding it too dark and perhaps overwhelming. She longed for a summer house to which she could escape. They chose a site on the gray shale cliffs overlooking the lake and where other city dwellers had also established summer residences, including the Larkins, Rumseys and Kellogs. D.D.M. had first visited the lot on April 18, 1926 and purchased it the next day, according to correspondence cited in the Historic Structure Report for Graycliff prepared by Bero Associates Architects (2/3/99).
From the start, and probably because of the friendship and frequent communication between D.D.M. and F.L.W. since 1902 (when F.L.W. met D.D.M. in connection with the Larkin Administration Building), old habits of letters between the two men ensued. On April 21, 1926, D.D.M. directed F.L.W. to "reduce the job to the barest simplicity...the great desideration in floods of light and sunshine...and the appearance of growth of the house from the soil!" However, I.M. asserted herself on a number of issues with her husband supporting her. For instance, she wanted her bathroom which adjoined her bedroom on the second floor of the house, to have a window looking out over the lake.
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keithwright.ca
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On 7/21/26 D.D.M. wrote to F.L.W. telling him not to ignore I.M. Eight days later I.M. wrote to the reluctant F.L.W. saying she wanted a window in her bathroom not so much for ventilation as for a view of the outdoors. She cageily added, "With all the realm of architecture design at your command, your unparalleled genius surely will not balk at this small problem." She got her wish. Her bathroom was built within the large chimney that served the fireplaces in the living room, dining room, and I.M.'s bedroom, with the window built into the side of the chimney overlooking the lake!
Similarly, she had wanted a recessed terrace on the driveway side of the house but no overhang. F.L.W. changed his design for her. Again, it could be unbearably hot for her there, but later in the day and evening she enjoyed sitting out there working on stitchery projects and surveying the beautiful pond, sunken gardens and children playing croquet on the lawn. Often she was accompanied there by her companion who helped manage the staff, Cora Herride, known as "Aunt Polly."
In keeping with D.D.M.'s request for a house that appeared to grow from the ground, F.L.W. designed an elongated two story home near and at a slight angle to the edge of the cliff. Tichenor limestone quarried from nearby was used on the house as well as on landscape walls and on the heat hut and chauffeur's building. The limestone contained iron pyrite which rusted and streaked over the stones, informing the choice of brick red for the trim and roof tiles. Adding to the aura of permanence and naturalness were the fossils that had been embedded in those rocks eons before.
A port cochere of stone and a red tiled roof provided shelter to guests who arrived by the long driveway and around the pond to the door.
Both front and back of the house are flanked with ceiling to floor windows and French doors so that one can look through the house to the lake beyond. They also provided ventilation.
Like most F.L.W. homes, a massive fireplace faces the living room while on its back side, another smaller fireplace warms the dining area. (It is said that the first time D.D.M. lit that fireplace, water entrapped in some of the stones caused them to explode. When D.D.M. complained to F.L.W., he asked him if his family had to wear suits of armor while dining.) The chimney for these fireplaces as well as the one in I.M.'s bedroom is a massive L shaped structure made of the Tichenor limestone, which creates a sense of great stability, anchoring the house to the ground.
Adjoining the living room, and separated from it only by wooden see-through book shelves, is the "fern room." Picture windows form the corner facing the lake. (Notably, the windows conjoin with the non-weight bearing corner by only a think strip of wood. Thus the corner nearly disappears like what was achieved at Fallingwater when glass met with glass at the corner.) Planters built beneath the windows hold ferns; F.L.W.'s concept of blurring the lines between inside and outside is thereby achieved. That area is also demarcated with a slate stone floor.
Beyond is another sitting room with windows overlooking the sunken gardens, D.D.M.'s bedroom/sitting room is above with a balcony overlooking the same scene.
At the other end of the house beyond the dining area is the pantry facing the lake and the kitchen facing the driveway. Beyond the pantry is another sitting room for the servants.
Soon the house will need furnishing. There is some F.L.W. designed furniture already there - both original and reproductions. The Martin's did not want to go to the expense of having all the furniture designed by F.L.W., but Wright did select wicker furniture for the downstairs living areas. The book shelves, mentioned above, were replicated and now are in place. It is anticipated, though this writer does not know the plans, that a study will be done to determine as best as possible the furnishings and décor that the Martins selected for their summer home, thereby completing an authentic restoration of the main house.
Completed in 1928, the Martins lived in it during the summer till D.D.M. died in 1935 and then I.M. in 1945. It lay empty during son, Darwin R. Martin's horrifying stewardship till 1951 when a Hungarian Roman Catholic teaching order, the Priarist Fathers, acquired it. They built a chapel over the terrace facing the driveway. (F.L.W. visited the site in 1958, accompanied by some of his apprentices. The Fathers, recognizing him when he stepped out of his car with pork pie hat, cape and cane, emerged from the house excitedly to welcome him, only to witness F.L.W. raging and pointing his cane at the chapel, "This is not mine.")
In 1996 the aging Fathers placed the house on the market. A contractor had prepared to make an offer with the intention of tearing the house and the other structures down to make way for a residential development. Activist Carol Bronnenkant heard about it and quickly formed a group which became known as the Graycliff Conservancy, to raise money to purchase this 8.5 acre property with 6500 square foot house plus the other buildings.
To buy time, money was paid to the Fathers to "hold" the property off the market till cash and financing could be arranged. The closing occurred in 1998. During this period the Fathers permitted the Conservancy to conduct tours and to perform much needed maintenance on the property. For instance, the brush had grown so thick in what was supposed to be a grassy esplanade and garden between the house and the edge of the cliff, that one could no longer see the lake from the house.
Even after the Conservancy closed on the house, a few Fathers remained there, which provided a good security system as restoration began. Tour groups often came in while the Fathers ate their breakfasts; frequently the Fathers would join the tour group to contribute comments to the docents' stories.
It is a puzzlement to this writer why this wonderful house has not received more acclaim until recently. It seems that once it fell into the hands of Darwin R., his neglect of the property caused it to fade into the background. The Fathers did not seek any attention, and American culture was not such that there was much attention given to aging, deteriorating architecture.
But stalwarts like Carol Bronnenkant changed all that. Buffalo's historic preservation guru, Jack Quinan, so outraged by the destruction of the Larkin Administration Building, went nationally ballistic, creating the F.L.W. Building Conservancy, which has been a major player in bringing attention to and intervening on behalf of endangered F.L.W. buildings.
And Graycliff had it own "poet laureate," John Conlin, who contributed so much to our understanding of the sense of repose created by the house, and of its architectural geometry (hexagons come to mind) that create a sense of confidence and ease in experiencing the house.
In this writer's mind, it seems that Graycliff is perhaps one of the earliest examples of what F.L.W. described as "the Natural House."
Alan Hess, in F.L.W. Natural Design: Organic Architecture, quotes F.L.W.: "There must be a natural house; there must be some kind of house that would belong to that hill, as trees and the ledges of rock did. Architecture must lend a useful hand in building afresh the 'fairness of the Earth."
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Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
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Hess notes the importance of the presence of the sun and its path in F.L.W.'s designs. The trail of the sun from sunrise to sunset informed F.L.W. as to how a house should occupy the site. As an example, Hess points to a house designed by Wright located in Minnesota where the light of the setting sun at winter solstice reaches all the way through the living room.
Add to these phenomena the natural, mostly local materials used in the construction, the appearance of the house is one of quiet repose, secured by the central, massive stone chimney on this extraordinary site nestled in the woods overlooking the glistening waters of Lake Erie. Watch the hawks wind surfing over the lake; hear the song birds in the nearby trees. Observe in awe a graceful deer venturing across the lawn.
It is this writer's opinion that, Graycliff is stellar among the houses characterized as being in the "natural house" style.
~From the Desk of Sharon Osgood
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