Great Northern Grain Elevator
Long before Buffalo was known as the home of chicken wings, beef- on- weck or even the Bills, the Queen City was considered the grain- storage capital of the United States. That distinction—a weird one, to be sure—came in large part because of a series of soaring cement grain elevators that were built on the edge of Lake Erie, where Midwestern-grown wheat would come east on ships, before being sent to market along the Erie Canal or other byways.
Perhaps the most notable of these structures—at least for grain-elevator aficionados—was the Great Northern, a 15-story, brick-cladded “cathedral,” according to Gregory Delaney, a clinical assistant professor at the University at Buffalo’s architecture school.
Once fueled by electricity generated by Niagara Falls, about 20 miles northwest, the Great Northern was essentially a giant machine disguised as a building, using a series of pulleys, hoppers and conveyers to move grain from trains and ships to a series of steel bins inside. The building’s brick cladding kept the steel bins safe from the harsh winters and raking lake-side winds.
Buffalo’s connection to the wheat trade was once so intertwined that Buffalonians joked that the whole city “smelled like Cheerios.” Eventually, however, as trucks and planes began to make canal- travel obsolete, many of the city’s grain elevators fell into disuse, including the Great Northern, which closed in 1981.
The building’s current owner, a subsidiary of the food giant Archer Daniels
Midland, acquired the building in 1992, and has sought several times to demolish it, leading to fierce battles with local preservationists, including an ongoing court saga. The pressure to tear down the Great Northern intensified in late 2021, when a powerful winter storm ripped away a section of the building’s brick on its northern wall, leading ADM to seek an emergency order to tear it down.
Conservationists insist the elevator is still structurally sound even as developers have floated various ideas for renovating it—a museum, apartments, a cultural center. Architectural experts like Gregory Delaney say that its destruction would be a major historical loss. Other fans agree.
“It’s hard for outsiders to believe, but people in Buffalo really cherish and value the elevators,” said Tim Tielman, the executive director for the Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture, which has sued to stop the demo. “They are big, gritty survivors, and this is the grittiest of them all.”