Erie Community College (ECC) Building, Buffalo, NY
The Erie Community College building is constructed of load-bearing masonry. The granite at the tower and other portions of
the building is from the Bodwell-Jonesboro quarries in Washington County, Maine. These quarries produce a grayish pink
colored granite and also furnished stone used in the construction of the Custom House in Buffalo and the Bourse in Philadelphia.
The 244-foot tall tower rises from the center of the west facade on Ellicott Street. Like the rest of the
building, the ornament of the tower reflects the Flemish Gothic style of the original design. At the tower, the ornament
is even more exuberant than the lower portion of the building and includes turrets and projecting grotesques at the corners,
foliated crockets at each course of the tower roof and a massive stone finial capping the structure.
Although the bulk of the granite exterior is in good condition, exemplifying the durability of granite as a building
stone, a series of cracks at the finial crockets was identified as a potentially hazardous condition. A previous stabilization
measure had been installed at the finial, but no record of its design could be found and some deterioration was noted in the
materials of the existing stabilization treatment. Kelly Streeter completed a series of calculations which showed the existing
measure to be structurally insufficient. Given the tower's height and location above the main entrance to the building, this
condition presented a significant public safety hazard.
The County of Erie hired Vertical Access to design and install a temporary stabilization measure at the hazardous
finial, intended to be in place until the masonry of the tower is repaired as part of the current exterior restoration project.
Vertical Access installed a system of cables on December 8th encircling and tying together the crockets of the finial. The
existing dimensions of the cracks were measured and crack monitors were installed so that the crack conditions can be tracked
in the future.
See the Erie Community College project profile.
