I took these tonight… I will post more info later. I’m mad, exhausted and annoyed with this.
This Cigar building is in a historic district and it’s history and charm sat vacant and rotting away for the past 10 years while the owner waited for an emergency demolition to be allowed. He purposefully did a demo by neglect and even worse, the preservation board was not told about this demolition. The whole process is illegal. It’s unacceptable. I doubt there were even fines or violations for this building. We need transparency in our government. The city does not want to be viewed as “pro demo” but continues to allow this?
I spoke with the Toronto owner rep on site at about 11pm tonight. He mentioned he’s been waiting to demolish it because now its a shovel ready site, which will help develop it because the building was a “burden” for the redevelopment. He pointed out the old safes still inside with the Buffalo, Ny engraved and that he had old posters he found inside that would be of value one day. I wish he saw value in the building like he did the posters…
What a missed opportunity. Looks like another parking lot will be here with no plan in sight.
More to come. Check buffalorising.com for more info.
Bernice Radle 
Phil M
I remember that building from when I was a kid and my mom would take us downtown. Passing it now would remind of those trips downtown. This sucks. It was a charming little building
berniceradle
It was a charming building!
It was actually built to hold 4 more floors.. which means the building could have easily been used to built on top of. How cool would it have been – a new build on top of an old, historic storefront?
What a waste of an opportunity (IMO).
Phil M
Interesting. It always looked to be very sturdy building to me.. for a cigar shop. I thought that maybe it had been a jewelry store or something at some point.