Akron's Architectural Crown

The village of Akron in the town of Newstead, east of Buffalo, is a community that prides itself on tradition. The village's Main Street is lined with quaint storefronts, pubs and a village park with a gazebo. Farther down Main, near to where the road ends, is a unique four-floor, eight-sided house that stands as a testament to the villagers' pride of heritage.

Akron is Greek for "a high point." The high point of the village is fittingly crowned by an architectural high point. The 155-year-old Rich-Twinn Octagon House is a formidable architectural site, meticulously detailed. Purchased by the Newstead Historical Society in 1981, it required 20 years of tireless effort to bring the house to its exquisitely restored state - a sterling example of community-based restoration.

To read more of Jim Bisco's story, see page 4 of the Winter 2005 Heritage Magazine. Suscribe now!

 

'The Last Line': Frank Lloyd Wright's Blue Sky Mausoleum

At the beginning of 1927, the celebrated American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, had no new commissions and his finances were low. His longtime client and friend, Darwin D. Martin, a then-retired Larkin Company executive, responding to Wright's financial condition, commissioned one of the last projects of their 25-year-long association.

The project was a memorial for the Martin family, which was to be placed in a lot that Darwin Martin had purchased in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. Wright's innovative ideas about cemetery memorials differed from the approaches to such monuments that were common at the time, much as Wright's ideas about architecture, in general, differed drastically from popular styles. The stock market crash of 1929 and the untimely death of Darwin Martin in 1935 ultimately prevented Wright's design, which he called the Blue Sky Mausoleum, from being constructed during Martin's lifetime. Now, 77 years later, the project has been admirably rescued and constructed in Forest Lawn.

To read the rest of Patrick J. Mahoney's, see page 10 in the Winter 2005 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!

 

Buffalo's Lone Ranger

He wrote 60,000 a week every week - the equivalent of the Bible every three months. According to a 1939 Saturday Evening Post article, the 10,000 different characters he spawned shattered four typewriters. "His 156 Lone Ranger scripts a year, plus 365 Lone Ranger cartoon strips, plus twelve Lone Ranger novels, plus editing the movie version, plus his tremendous correspondence, account for two thirds of his output. He also writes 104 Green Hornet scripts and 52 Ned Jordan, Secret Agent scripts a year for WXYZ. His working day is fourteen hours; in return, $10,000 a year, or around a third of a cent per word."

The Frank Striker radio legend is formidable. The breadth of characters he developed withstood the test of time. The Green Hornet and Kato. Sergeant Preston and Yukon King. And, above all, two of the Paul Bunyans of popular culture, The Lone Ranger and Tonto.

To read more of Jim Bisco's story, see page 26 of the Winter 2005 Heritage Magazine. Subscribe now!

 


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