Frank Lloyd Wright and Jamestown's Little Round Church

Frank Lloyd Wright — one of the most famous, prolific, and influential architects in American history — turns 150 on June 8th. Although Wright never designed any buildings in Jamestown and Chautauqua County, a few of his masterpieces can be found nearby: the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo and Fallingwater near Pittsburgh, both of which are celebrating Wright's birthday and achievements with special activities this month and summer. 

Despite the fact that he never worked in Jamestown, Frank Lloyd Wright did leave a mark on the city through residential and commercial buildings that evoke the Prairie style he popularized in the early 20th Century (more on that in a future post). But he also left a mark through his influence on the design of one of the city's most distinctive churches. 

The St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church parish was established in 1916 near the tail-end of a wave of Southern European immigration to the United States that brought a considerable number of Greeks and Albanians from the Balkan Peninsula to Jamestown. Besides providing labor to the city's flourishing furniture and metal-working industries, these immigrants contributed to a striking level of religious diversity in the city, adding Eastern Orthodoxy to a mix that included rapidly growing Lutheran and Roman Catholic communities.

Fifty years later, with Jamestown's Greek community firmly established, growing with the Baby Boom, and enjoying the fruits of America's Postwar industrial prosperity, the parish decided to build a new church. What local architect Julian Naetzker designed for the parish in 1965 — at the corner of Mount Vernon Place and Francis Street — was profoundly modern, rooted in Eastern Orthodox tradition, and strongly inspired by one of Frank Lloyd Wright's last works before Wright's death in 1959. 

St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, Jamestown, New York (1965-1967), by Julian Naetzker

Just a few years before Naetzker's work for the St. Nicholas parish, Frank Lloyd Wright was commissioned to design Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa. The result was a groundbreaking reinterpretation of the Byzantine dome — an essential element of Eastern Orthodox religious architecture. Using cast concrete, steel, and glass, Wright eschewed the tradition of building a church with a dome and instead created a dome that was a church. It was elegant and harmonious, modern and timeless.    

Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin (1956-1961), by Frank Lloyd Wright

Photo by Stephen Matthew Milligan

And it was an idea well-suited for St. Nicholas' property in Jamestown, positioned as it was on a hilltop perch overlooking downtown — recalling the domed and whitewashed churches resting on cliffs above the Aegean Sea. Naetzker complemented this dome-as-church with a delicate metal spire, topped with its own dome and the Greek Orthodox cross.   

Annunciation and St. Nicholas — both more than half a century old now — still stand out for the boldness of their simplicity. So, too, does the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, one of the landmarks of Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture and an inspiration for countless churches and architects, including Wright and Naetzker. Almost 1,500 years after its completion, it continues to inform how people interact with space and cities — from the Bosporus Strait, to the outskirts of Milwaukee, to the South Side of Jamestown.      

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey (532-537), by Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles

Photo by Omar David Sandoval Sida

Jamestown's Slice of Finnish-American Modernism

Most of Jamestown's buildings date from the period 1890 to 1930 -- a time when the city's population more than quadrupled. But the city also has many notable buildings from the first decades after World War II -- the best of which, interestingly, are churches. After decades of hewing strictly to Medieval and Classical styles in church design, many local congregations followed the lead of churches nationally in reinterpreting the look and feel of religious architecture.

Perhaps the most refined local example of this pivot towards Modernism is Christ First United Methodist Church on Lakeview Avenue. Built in 1958 and designed by Harold E. Wagoner & Associates, one of the nation's leading mid-century church design firms, the church eschews many of the traditional ornaments of church design. Instead, it engages the eye through a contrast of textures (smooth limestone and a rusticated stone veneer) and the juxtaposing of straight, curving, angled, and stepped lines. These simple, well-arranged elements -- along with a sanctuary flooded by light from both clear and stained glass -- succeed in infusing the church with a sense of naturalism that pairs well with the sloping, arboreal landscape of the neighboring Lake View Cemetery.   

Christ First United Methodist Church (1958), Jamestown, NY, Harold Wagoner & Associates

First Christian Church (1942), Columbus, IN

Christ Church Lutheran (1949), Minneapolis

Cadet Chapel (1963), Colorado Springs, CO

Shrine of the Ages (1970), Grand Canyon Village, AZ

Inspiration for the Jamestown church is deeply rooted in the work of Finnish-American  architect Eliel Saarinen, who, along with his son Eero, revolutionized American church design in the 1940s in their work on First Christian Church (1942) in Columbus, Indiana, and Christ Church Lutheran (1949) in Minneapolis. In both churches, the elder Saarinen fused his fondness for traditional materials and forms (honed in early 20th century Finland) with his Modernist inclination to strip a building to its fundamental elements -- a combination that made him famous in the U.S. for his entry in the 1922 competition for the Tribune Building in Chicago. Eliel and Eero Saarinen are best-known in Western New York for their Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo (1940). 

Although the Jamestown church was inspired by the work of the Saarinens, architect Harold E. Wagoner was  well-known not for any particular style preferences, but for delivering high-quality designs that appealed to the tastes of his clients -- which led to a portfolio containing very traditional and highly futuristic projects. Some of Wagoner's more well-known works include his contributions to the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy (1962 -- a project led by Walter Netsch, Jr.) and the Shrine of the Ages (1970) on the rim of the Grand Canyon. 

Although merely a coincidence, it is worth noting that the patron for the Saarinens' groundbreaking work in Columbus, Indiana (on First Christian Church and several other projects), was the Miller family who oversaw the growth of the Cummins Engine Corporation into a leading maker of diesel engines. Their enthusiasm for Modern design -- and their influence on institutions throughout that city -- made Columbus an epicenter of Modern architecture in the United States. Cummins opened its Jamestown engine plant, now the county's largest manufacturing plant, in 1974. 

(Photos of First Christian Church, Christ First Lutheran, and Cadet Chapel are courtesy of the Library of Congress).  

Under the Erie Railroad

Winsor Street Overpass

The Winsor Street Overpass (1890), the city's oldest railroad overpass, was built nearly 25 years before a systematic effort was undertaken to separate train traffic from the streets of Jamestown. A simple plate girder bridge with rusticated limestone block retaining walls, the bridge was built to support two tracks.

Winsor Street Overpass

A westward view beneath the bridge, showing steel supports with bracing plates and heavily corroded surfaces.

Winsor Street Overpass

A close-up view of the bridge's plate girder support system. When the bridge was built, Jamestown had 16,000 residents and the area around Winsor and Harrison was one of the city's busiest industrial hubs. The overpass eased transit between factories there and the rapidly expanding residential districts along the East Second Street corridor. 

Winsor Street Overpass

This stone block on the bridge's northwest corner includes the bridge's construction date. The surrounding blocks on the retaining wall were painted within the past five years in an attempt to cover graffiti. 

Winsor Street Overpass

The track level of the Winsor Street Bridge (looking east from Chandler Street) shows the bridge's two-track capacity. Only one track remains in service.  

Winsor Street Overpass

Stepped profile of the bridge's retaining wall. 

West Second Street Overpass

The railroad bridges over the short, winding segment of West Second Street (just before it crosses the Chadakoin) was the first component of the joint effort by the Erie Railroad, the City of Jamestown, and New York State Public Service Commission to remove almost all of the city's at-grade crossings. It was completed in 1916. 

This view, looking north, shows the two spans (both with capacity for two tracks) that comprise the overpass.

West Second Street Overpass

Northward view in between the two double-tracked spans, both of which are simple plate girder bridges. Unlike the overpasses completed later over Main, Foote, and Buffalo, this overpass lacks rows of columns to separate pedestrians from street traffic. 

West Second Street Overpass

The reinforced concrete retaining wall that lines the overpass is showing its age, with significant surface chipping. 

West Second Street Overpass

The overpass's eleven foot spans supported four sets of tracks in an area between the Erie Railroad's 1931 passenger depot, a maintenance facility, and a once-busy rail yard. 

West Second Street Overpass

The eastern retaining wall of the overpass contains a plaque noting the year of the overpass's completion and the construction firm that performed the work. The local firm Mahoney & Swanson was hired to complete a full system of overpasses in 1912 but only got this far due to poor project management. Following World War I, the McMullen Company of New York City was hired to complete the remainder of the Erie's overpass system in Jamestown. 

Main Street Overpass

The busiest at-grade crossing in the city was at Main Street, where traffic (including busy streetcar lines) crossed the railroad tracks and the river that separated downtown from Brooklyn Square. The Main Street Overpass was completed in 1926 after nearly two years of work to elevate the tracks through downtown. 

Main Street Overpass

The tracks through downtown were elevated through the construction of reinforced concrete trestles and retaining walls. This view of the viaduct's south wall, east of the Main Street Overpass, shows gaps that were either filled with gravel or left open to serve as coal storage for adjoining factories.  

Main Street Overpass

The Main Street Overpass is a steel girder bridge that was then sculpted with with an outer shell of reinforced concrete. This view beneath the overpass shows three rows of arches on the west side of Main Street.

Soon after the overpass was completed in 1926, spaces beneath the structure were walled-in to create leased commercial space -- a unique feature for any railroad beyond the East Coast. The spaces were occupied for decades by retail tenants but were demolished between 2010 and 2012 after sitting abandoned and derelict. 

Main Street Overpass

The Main Street Overpass identifies the railroad and the two terminals that served the route through Jamestown -- Chicago and New York. The letters on the overpass are all filled with mosaic tiles.

The space on the overpass long served as a source of advertising revenue for the railroad (just as the storefronts under the bridge served as rental revenue). The overpass was covered by by advertising for decades -- including ads for Jamestown's First National Bank and later McDonald's. The original concrete and mosaic tile surface was restored in the early 2000s. 

Main Street Overpass

View of the Main Street Overpass from across the Chadakoin River. Demand for space at the center of town was once so strong that, in addition to storefront spaces beneath the overpass, buildings were constructed over the river (including at the South Main Street Bridge), largely obscuring views of the river until urban renewal cleared most of Brooklyn Square in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Institute Street Pedestrian Subway (south portal)

When the railroads were elevated through downtown, Institute Street (formerly a through-street from Harrison to E. Second) was closed to traffic. But due to heavy pedestrian traffic generated by the high school and factories on both sides of the railroad, the decision was made to build a pedestrian subway under the railroad. It was completed in 1925.

The subway was operational until the 1990s, when deteriorating conditions and concern for the safety of high school students who used the subway led to its closure. It is currently sealed and covered by overgrowth. 

Institute Street Pedestrian Subway (north portal)

The entrance on the north side of the railroad, directly behind Jamestown High School -- also sealed and covered with overgrowth. 

Foote Avenue Overpass

Completed the same year as the Main Street Overpass (1926), the Foote Avenue Overpass is a simple plate and girder bridge with capacity to carry four tracks. 

Foote Avenue Overpass

The reinforced concrete abutments and retaining walls include simple but graceful arched passageways for pedestrians. This view of the northeast corner of the overpass shows the date of construction. 

Foote Avenue Overpass

The reinforced concrete columns and arches beneath the overpass show signs of corrosion, as do most elements of the century-old system of grade-separating infrastructure. With the decline of railroads after World War II, and the mergers and bankruptcy's of the 1960s and 1970s (leading to Conrail's takeover of this line, which is now owned by Norfolk Southern with a short-line operator), deferred maintenance on these privately-owned assets is considerable. 

Foote Avenue Overpass

Full view of the pedestrian passageway on the east side of the overpass. 

Foote Avenue Overpass

Shadows, light, and rows of arches make the pedestrian passageways dramatic spaces to pass through.

Buffalo Street Overpass

The last phase of the grade-separation project that commenced in 1912 and finished in 1927 was the Buffalo Street Overpass, a three-track overpass that crosses the street at a sharp angle. 

As with the Main Street and Foote Avenue overpasses, this one has single rows of reinforced concrete columns that shield pedestrian traffic from the roadway -- also these arches are blockier and wider than the others. 

Buffalo Street Overpass

The reinforced concrete retaining wall of the overpass showing the 1927 completion date. 

Buffalo Street Overpass

View of the underside of the track deck. Steel I-beams resting on the concrete retaining walls span the roadway with rivets attaching them to smaller, rib-like cross-members.  

Buffalo Street Overpass

Although a narrower span than the overpasses on Main Street and Foote Avenue, the pedestrian passageways are longer (and more intimidating, especially at night) due to the overpass's crossing angle. 

Fairmount Avenue Pedestrian Subway

The completion of the grade-separation project in 1927 coincided with a separate project that also made it easier to travel within the city -- the Third Street Bridge. Prior to the bridge, the quickest way to reach the Westside from downtown was via the Fairmount Avenue Bridge. After crossing the river, traffic had to wait in line at Fairmount's busy at-grade crossing. Due to the site's topography, an overpass there was impossible.

That crossing was finally closed with the opening of the Sixth Street Bridge in 1937. But pedestrian traffic generated by the factories along Jones & Gifford Avenue necessitated a safe pedestrian crossing, resulting in the Fairmount Avenue Pedestrian Subway. 

Farimount Avenue Pedestrian Subway

The date of construction, stamped onto the entrance of the portal on the east side of the tracks. 

This peculiar vestige of the Industrial Age is still open to pedestrian traffic, although garbage, graffiti, and low light prompt most crossing at this location to simply walk over the tracks.

Fairmount Avenue Pedestrian Subway

A view of the portal on the west side of the tracks, with warehouses of the old Art Metal Company beside the tracks to the right.

West of the tracks, a rather densely populated area retains many of its characteristics from the time of the subway's completion, including low-rate rental housing and a neighborhood firehouse.

One hundred years ago, Jamestown had a big traffic problem on its hands. Over 50 trains passed through the bustling city of 40,000 on a daily basis -- trains that utilized 13 separate at-grade crossings where they competed with a growing number of cars, trucks, pedestrians, and a busy streetcar system. The railroad's east-west route through the middle of the city -- paralleling the course of the Chadakoin River -- meant that almost anyone who traveled between the north and south sides of the city had to wait patiently for tracks to clear and traffic to flow. 

The inconvenience and danger that the busy at-grade crossings posed to city residents, as well as the liabilities they posed to the Erie Railroad, brought about a project to separate train traffic from other city traffic through a system of bridges and tunnels. The effort was launched in 1912, with costs divided between the railroad (50%), the city (25%), and the New York State Public Service Commission (25%). However, due to incompetent contractors and World War I, much of the work didn't begin until the mid 1920s. The project finished in 1927, with one additional project (the Fairmount Avenue Pedestrian Subway) added in 1936 to coincide with the construction of the Sixth Street Bridge. 

This annotated gallery provides a glimpse of the bridges and tunnels that provide almost complete grade separation for the Erie Railroad in Jamestown. Today, the only streets within the city limits where vehicles must cross an active railroad track are Tiffany Avenue and Lister Street. 

A Death on Third Street

West Third Street lost another oak tree last night -- the victim of a weakened root system that could no longer bear the tree's weight.

The trees and their mortality are discussed in "Jamestown, New York: A Guide to the City and Its Urban Landscape" by Peter Lombardi: "One of the area’s most compelling features...is the formal row of oak trees planted along 3rd Street soon after the bridge's completion. Toward the end of the 20th century, the oak trees matured into the graceful canopy that now forms one of Western New York’s most scenic streetscapes."

"The trees are also a reminder about the fragile and changing nature of any cityscape. Their full effect came decades after their planting, and the inevitable demise of each tree will permanently alter the street. Thoughtful planning and careful stewardship can make a place great, but cities and their streets can never be frozen in time."

Opportunity on Lakview Avenue

One of Lakeview Avenue's most impressive homes is on the market -- the Cornell House (1905) by architect Carl C. Pedersen.

From the home's entry in "Jamestown, New York: A Guide to the City and Its Urban Landscape" by Peter Lombardi: An elegant Beaux Arts design with a hipped roof, Corinthian pilasters, and large columned porches, the Cornell House was built for an executive at the Jamestown Lounge Company -- one of many furniture barons who commissioned impressive homes with elaborate woodwork.

See the listing by CENTURY 21 Turner Brokers at http://www.ccbrmls.com/public/search/advanced/summary.asp….

Train Station Transitions

How does Jamestown's train station reflect the constancy of change in American cities?

When it opened in 1932, the Erie Railroad Station was a monument to an industry that had already peaked. Less than 40 years later, the station—and the era of passenger rail travel in Jamestown—would close.

But the gleaming new station was also a marker of progress for the city, replacing a much smaller station from 1897. In Graham King’s design, the Erie’s lead architect expressed the city’s and the railroad’s need for a building that was monumental and modern—especially in the streamlined entry pavilion with smooth stone and subtle classical detailing.

After a lengthy restoration, the station reopened in 2012 as a transportation center for buses and will now play a central role in the development of Jamestown's National Comedy Center.

The Difference a Century Makes

How much has the Chadakoin riverfront in Jamestown changed over 100 years?

The first photo here was taken around 1915, a time when the river was still dominated by industrial uses. Looking north from Jones Hill toward downtown, you see a river lined with lumber -- some of it destined for the city's furniture factories. Within a few years, the Furniture Mart (1917) would rise in the center of the frame as a vertical exhibition center for the city's furniture makers.

The second photo, taken in the summer of 2014, shows the Furniture Mart framed by Jamestown's expanding Riverwalk. The Riverwalk, which has grown in phases since the late 1970s, will take a leap forward in 2015/2016 with the addition of two new pedestrian bridges and new events to draw residents and visitors to a waterway that was obscured and largely inaccessible for much of the city's history.

Jacob Riis and Jamestown

Photo by Jacob Riis

What is Jamestown's link to the birth of urban social reform?

Jacob Riis -- a Danish immigrant and itinerant laborer -- lived in Jamestown in 1871, a time when the village was growing rapidly and suffering from many of the conditions (overcrowding, poor sanitation) that plagued American cities. Later in life, as a pioneering photojournalist, Riis captured immigrant living conditions in New York on film and had a major influence on housing reform and the emergence of modern city planning.

Read more in The Guardian at: http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/dec/01/picturing-place-how-images-shape-our-cities-snow-cholera-corbusier-graffiti.

Buildings as Brands

What role did Jamestown's YMCA and YWCA play in American urbanization and the rise of corporate branding?

Both the YMCA and YWCA emerged in the nineteenth century amidst concerns that the young men and women who were migrating from farms into rapidly growing cities were easy prey to gambling, drunkenness, prostitution, and other vices. To put these youngsters on the path of churchgoing, wage-earning, family-oriented citizens, “Y” programming emphasized social, mental, and physical hygiene moored to prevailing Christian values.

The proliferation of YMCAs and YWCAs to almost every American city brought about design standards that marked the advent of architecture as a means of corporate branding. Guidelines developed at YMCA headquarters were used to give branches across the United States a uniform look. In the early 1900s, red brick and Renaissance Revival detailing were hallmarks of branch design. John F. Jackson, architect of Jamestown’s YMCA, was based at the Y’s national office and designed numerous branches, including a Jersey City branch on the National Register of Historic Places.

As City Evolves, Flexibility is Key

Thurston Block on E. Fourth Street, circa 1947 (Courtesy of Fenton History Center)

When Dr. J. Hamilton Thurston decided to dabble in real estate development in the 1870s, he was taking a chance. Not only was he branching out from his successful dentistry practice, but he was trying to popularize a type of housing that was relatively unknown in western New York – row houses for the well-off.

His block of five upscale Victorian homes on East 4th Street, built between 1875 and 1880, were designed to provide Jamestown’s elite families with an alternative to the rambling mansions that were the norm and to mimic the row house neighborhoods being built by the wealthy of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other East Coast cities.

The homes sold to their intended users, but the concept got little traction in Jamestown, where growth pressures were relatively low and the supply of land too great to compel people – especially the rich – to live in such close proximity.

In the 1890s and early 1900s, Jamestown’s central business district spread northward and enveloped the Thurston block, making it less desirable for single-family residences. As families left, the block transitioned to a mixture of commercial uses and apartments. By the middle of the century, a combination of age, disinvestment, and suburbanization took their toll on these and other downtown properties, leading to a progression of low rent uses and structural decay.

The iconic block was saved from demolition in the 1970s when the city used federal dollars to stabilize the buildings and dress up the streetscape with planters and trees. Though many of the buildings remained underutilized, this work gave the block a new lease on life, as did investments by individual property owners. More than 30 years later, a painstaking façade renovation project funded by the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation gave the block a further boost.

Today, the block is in the midst of another transformation. This time, renewed interest in downtown and the city’s historic architecture – especially among younger generations – has made the block an epicenter of the city’s renaissance. In particular, the opening in 2013 of Brazil Craft Beer & Wine Bar directly above the Labyrinth Press Company, a coffee shop that will soon reopen after a summer of renovations, has created a concentration of amenities and activity that are vital to making downtown Jamestown a more attractive place to live, shop, work, and relax.

This evolution of the Thurston block reveals two key points about cities and revitalization.

The first is the importance of adaptation. Markets change. Cultures change. Technologies change. As a result, staying vital and livable for decades or centuries at a time is a function of being able to adjust to new conditions and opportunities at a variety of scales – city, neighborhood, and block. Being able to reinvent buildings and spaces to accommodate new uses is what drives the long-term health of cities. While the Thurston block has seen its ups and downs, it has adapted, survived, and is now a spark for downtown’s rebirth.

The second point, closely linked to the first, is the importance of flexibility. If the original use of the Thurston row houses – single-family residences – had been rigorously enforced to prevent the introduction of other uses, the buildings would likely have been obsolete and abandoned in the early 20th century rather than now exemplifying the layered mixture of uses that make cities functional, dynamic, and interesting.

Luckily, the mixture of uses that the Thurston block had accumulated into the early 1900s was maintained when zoning was introduced to Jamestown in the 1920s, around the time when most other American cities began adopting zoning as a form of land use regulation. But the effect of traditional zoning – to strictly regulate and separate uses – was not kind to cities or their ability to adapt. The comfort of predictability came at a price, and places such as the Thurston block became difficult, if not impossible, to replicate.

That’s why many cities are investigating or adopting form-based codes to replace traditional zoning. Such codes, including Buffalo’s proposed “Green Code,” focus more on the physical form of buildings – and how they relate to each other and surrounding spaces – than on trying to separate uses. You let the market determine use, parking supply, and other elements (within reason) while the form-based code regulates the overall feel of a place.

Replacing Jamestown’s outdated zoning code with one that makes the city, its land, and its buildings more adaptive is a needed step.  If Jamestown and the Thurston block are to survive and thrive for the next hundred or 500 years, we have to take a chance – much like Dr. Thurston – and let innovation and reinvention happen.

–Peter Lombardi

This post appeared in The Post-Journal on September 29, 2014, as the Jamestown Renaissance Corporation's biweekly Renaissance Reflections feature.

Steel Frames and Soaring Skylines

Why is Jamestown's Wellman Building an important link in the city's architectural and development history?

The corner of 3rd and Cherry was, in 1897, one of the priciest spots in the city. Adjacent to a streetcar hub and just two blocks from the train station, it was highly accessible and flooded with foot traffic -- a perfect place for the three Wellman brothers to locate their drug store and stationary shop. And a perfect place to stack four levels of speculative office space -- reachable by elevator -- with modern washrooms on each floor.

When it was completed, the Wellman Building was the city’s best commercial property and a financial boon to its builders, who added a six-story annex on Cherry Street in 1910 to meet the needs of their own businesses and the demand for rentable space.

Although the two parts of the Wellman Building have similar Italian Renaissance Revival styling and are considered a single property, they represent the fundamental leap in tall building construction taking place at the time. The 1897 portion is a load-bearing masonry building, with the exterior and interior walls providing structural support to each floor. The 1910 portion, however, uses a steel frame to support the building like a skeleton, making the brick exterior a mere curtain that encloses the building’s adaptable interior spaces.

Largely vacant and obsolete by the 1970s, the building was redeveloped and reopened in 2012, with the office floors converted to residential use.

A Richardson Romanesque Gem

What inspired the design of the Prendergast Library?

‪Jamestown and hundreds of other American cities were imprinted in the 1880s and 1890s with Henry Hobson Richardson's very refined and personalized Romanesque style. First Lutheran Church (see Sept. 9 post) and the Prendergast Library are the two best surviving examples of this style locally.

But most of these buildings were designed by Richardson admirers, not Richardson himself, who died at age 47 in 1886. Andrew Jackson Warner, the Rochester architect who designed the library that now houses the James Prendergast Library was an admirer and colleague who served as Richardson's supervising architect at the massive Buffalo State Hospital project (now the Richardson Olmsted Complex).

In his Prendergast Library (1891), Warner was drawing inspiration from Richardson's Thomas Crane Library in Quincy, MA. Built in 1881, the Crane was Richardson's most famous library project and its massing, materials, and round Romaneque arches (top image) are clearly echoed in Warner's Jamestown work (bottom image).