Board Wants Landmark Status for Pan-Am House

By Brian Meyer, The Buffalo News, N.Y.

May 19–Buffalo’s Preservation Board will push to win landmark status for the Pan-American House on Delaware Avenue, a move that was criticized last week by the building’s owner.

The board voted unanimously to draft a recommendation to the Common Council to give landmark status to the structure at 1950 Delaware near Middlesex Road. Last fall, the owner, former Buffalo Councilman Alfred Coppola, threatened to tear down the 2z-story clapboard structure unless the Preservation Board let a downtown restaurant owned by a friend install an awning.

Coppola backed away from his threat to demolish the building. But three months later, he said he was contemplating moving the Pan-Am building to a street near the Peace Bridge in hopes of blocking demolitions on the West Side that would occur as part of a Peace Bridge expansion.

Coppola said Thursday he wasn’t serious about either plan to tear down the structure or move it. He said he was merely trying to send messages involving what he considers heavy-handed policies by the Preservation Board and officials’ refusal to take steps to protect historically significant sites that he claimed would be decimated by the Peace Bridge project.

But John Laping, the board’s chairman, said preservationists were concerned the area might lose a “very important property” with ties to a historic event.

“When you feel a threat, you want to take some action,” Laping said.

Coppola said it would be one thing if he requested landmark status for a building he’s owned and maintained since 1982.

“I really think it’s unconstitutional,” Coppola told the board. “You weren’t there helping me paint it. You weren’t there helping me pay the taxes all those years.”

But Alan Gerstman, a city attorney who advises the board, said a municipality has the legal right to make private properties landmarks.

Coppola said he doesn’t want to answer to the Preservation Board when he makes future “improvements” to the property.

“I’ve seen how they’ve treated other people on certain things. There’s no common ground. There’s no compromise. It’s always their way or no way,” he said.

Coppola claimed the board is trying to get back at him for criticizing some of their policies. But Laping stressed at Thursday’s meeting that the push for landmark designation was done strictly to make sure the building is preserved.

“It was not a scatterbrained attempt at all. It was done with a lot of forethought and a lot of conviction,” Laping said.

The structure sits in front of a home Coppola built for his family. He dismissed suspicions that he wants to raze the Pan- Am House to expand his front yard.

“If that were the case, why wouldn’t I have torn it down years ago?” he asked.

bmeyer@buffnews.com

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