817 Washinton St., Buffalo, New York. County/parish: Erie.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places February 02, 2001. NRIS 01000053.
1 contributing building.
Trico Plant No. 1 is an historical building located in Buffalo, New York. Originally a factory that produced windshield wipers, it was converted in 2024 to apartments. It is an example of a style of architecture sometimes referred to as the daylight factory, a style for which Buffalo is well known. The building was mostly constructed in the 1920s and 1930s of reinforced concrete and features curtain walls of metal sash windows and brick spandrels, although a portion of the plant incorporates an historic brewery building from the 1890s. It was the original home of Trico Products Corporation, the first manufacturer of windshield wipers, and was an important factory during a period when Trico was the largest employer in the city of Buffalo. The building is also known for once being the office of John R. Oishei (1886–1968), the company's founder and an industrialist who went on to become one of the most important philanthropists in the Buffalo Niagara Region.
The Trico business continued to operate at the building until 1998, when, after having transferred most of its manufacturing facilities to Texas and Mexico, the company moved out of the building. In 2003, plans were developed and conditionally approved by the New York State Historic Preservation Office to reuse the building as a mixed residential and commercial structure. That developer subsequently died, and in 2007 the property was purchased by the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC). After sitting dormant for another four years, it was reported that BNMC planned demolition of about 95% of the building beginning on April 15, 2012 (saving only the brewery building). Meanwhile, community groups called attention to BNMC's refusal to conduct an adaptive reuse study or evaluation process prior to demolition to assess the feasibility of building reuse.
Trico Plant No. 1 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
In 2019, large portions of the southernmost (1890-1937) sections of the building were demolished; the remaining portions were renovated into a mixed-use complex with loft apartments.
(read more...)National Park Service documentation: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75317723