23. Brisbane Building
403 Main Street
 The Brisbane Building covers half a city block, with 180 feet of frontage on Main Street, 200 feet on Clinton Street overlooking Lafayette Square, and 180 feet on Washington Street.
Materials included over 2,000 tons of iron and steel, about 3,000,000 bricks, and over 40,000 square feet of glass, terra cotta and marble. The interior floor-arching and partitions were fireproof. The heating and power was furnished by 4 one hundred and twenty-five horsepower boilers.
At the time it was built, the Brisbane Building was the largest mercantile and office building in the city. It was designed to accommodate a single retail establishment on the first floor and offices on floors 3 through 7. The second floor was set up as a "Bon Marché," with two immense skylights over a central court that served 16 small stores.
Text and photo courtesy of Chuck LaChiusa.
Credits
Scripts: Denise Prince and Jane Kwiatkowski
Voice: Christopher Jamele of Jamele Freelance Services
Audio production: John Davis of Eclectic Electric
This project was made possible in part with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts.
Tour content courtesy of Buffalo Tours.
|
