Repurposing Outdated Transportation Infrastructure
For the 25th Anniversary of our flagship Seven to Save program, we wanted to look back with a thematic retrospective – highlighting seven themes we’ve seen pop up in our listings over the past 25 years. Over the course of the year, we’ll be digging into our STS archive to highlight places across the state that help tell a broader story of preservation in New York.
Waterways, roadways, railways, and airports – the architecture that moves people and products can tell us a lot about the time in which it was constructed and how our communities have evolved and developed over the years. Whether purely utilitarian in its original conception or a grand statement of forward-looking aspirations, many great buildings and structures have fallen out of use and landed on our Seven to Save list. But just because something can no longer be used for its original purpose doesn’t mean it can’t still be useful.
Photo taken on the High Line in 2023. According to the High Line’s website, “The High Line’s planting design is inspired by the self-seeded landscape that grew wild for 25 years after the trains stopped running. Wandering through our gardens, you’ll find perennials, grasses, shrubs, and trees that were chosen for their hardiness, sustainability, and ever-changing textures and colors in all four seasons.”
There might be no better example, or more widely-known success story, than the High Line. The elevated steel freight rail line was built in the 1930s and remained in operation until 1980 — as trucking grew more popular, railways fell out of favor — at which point it was abandoned. Nature had begun to take over and the property owner wanted to see it taken down. The High Line was chosen for the endangered properties list in 2001 because it was in danger of imminent demolition. About the listing, then-League President Scott P. Heyl said, “To lose this rare surviving industrial icon and the opportunity to create new parkland would be a travesty, especially when public open space is so desperately needed in the city. By reusing the High Line, New York would retain a remarkable piece of transportation-related infrastructure and provide the public with an exciting and needed amenity, a pedestrian walkway.” The League joined dedicated local advocates in making that assertion, with the nonprofit Friends of the High Line leading the charge. Broad public support and the tireless work of local advocates ensured that the High Line could find a second life. The 1.45-mile line runs along Manhattan’s West Side, from 34th Street, through the West Chelsea neighborhood and into the heart of the Meat Packing District. It’s among the most popular destinations in New York City and serves as a model for how other cities can reinvent their aging infrastructure to create much-needed public amenities. You can see this clearly through The High Line Network, a group of infrastructure reuse projects — and the people who are helping them come to life.
What I hope the High Line has done is make the impossible possible. The network helps all of us learn from each other so that our spaces can reach their full potential.
Robert Hammond, Co-founder, Friends of the High Line
Following a 2012 restoration, the former Erie Railroad Passenger Station was renamed the Jamestown Gateway Station. It now houses the gift shop of the National Comedy Center.
The Rails-to-Trails model is a good one, but there’s more to transportation than rail lines. Take, for example, the passenger stations certain rail lines serviced. In Jamestown, the Art Deco Erie Lackawanna Railroad Passenger Station made it onto the League’s Seven to Save list in 2002. The station served the Railroad from the time it was constructed in 1931 until passenger train service stopped in 1970. In 1992, ownership transferred to the Jamestown Urban Renewal Agency (JURA), but the building was in poor condition, suffering from water infiltration, vandalism, and general neglect of both its interior and exterior. When it was named a Seven to Save 10 years later, JURA, the Downtown Jamestown Development Corporation, Fenton History Center, City of Jamestown, Chautauqua County and Chautauqua County Visitors Bureau were still working together to try get a reuse plan and financing in place to save the building. This concerted effort eventually paid off — after several large government grants, a transfer in ownership to the City of Jamestown, and more private funding raised, a full restoration was completed in 2012. But it would take a few more years before this National Register-listed building really came back to life. While work was underway to save the Station, the National Comedy Center (NCC) was making moves to create a new museum attraction dedicated to comedy. NCC opened in 2018, occupying both a new building and the historic train station. For all the twists and turns along the way, local radio station WRFA has a thorough 25-year timeline of the process.
Volunteers tending the lawn in front of Buffalo Central Terminal in 2021. Photo by Ben Wild. While stabilization continues to progress on the building, the lawn and grounds have been an important way to bring the community to the site — providing the perfect location for a variety of public programs.
Inside Buffalo Central Terminal in August 2023. An illuminated clock stands in the center of the concourse, which features tall vaulted ceilings.
Another Art Deco train station in Western New York is poised for a rebirth. Included on our Seven to Save list in 2003, Buffalo Central Terminal is a monumental railroad station complex. The steel and brick station is dominated by an imposing 271-foot tall office tower. Deterioration and vandalism resulted in the decline of the complex, which has been vacant since 1979. Despite its years of vacancy, there is a bright future ahead thanks to the nonprofit Central Terminal Restoration Corp. (CTRC). Founded in 1997, CTRC has been stewarding the building with a community-first approach, determined to bring the building back in a way that truly serves the people of Buffalo’s East Side. As they say on their website, “The Terminal is a singular catalytic opportunity to ignite a shared vision for a new future rooted in equity, where the rising tide of investment, innovation, and opportunity can be formed and realized by the very people who have made the community what it is today.”
This focus on community engagement is apparent in all three of these examples. And it speaks to the importance of saving historic places not just because they link us to the past — but because they provide an opportunity to take care of our communities now and into the future.