Main Place Tower

The Main Place Tower is located at 350 Main Street, in Buffalo, NY. The skyscraper is the fourth tallest building in the city, and home to a large number of technology and communication firms. The tower is connected to the Main Place Mall, downtown's only shopping mall, with a gross leasable area of 250,000 square feet (23,000 m²). In recent years, it has lost a great deal of its retail shops to suburban shopping centers. The tower, built in 1969, rises 350 feet (107 meters).

History

The current location of the Main Place Tower was originally Shelton Square, a city block of considerable traffic in the city. Shelton Square was the site of a notorious publicity stunt in 1955, when disc jockey Tom Clay climbed to the top of a billboard in the square and disrupted traffic by repeatedly playing "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets on a loudspeaker; the incident led to Clay's firing and arrest.

Originally the headquarters for the Erie County Savings Bank, it became known as One Empire Tower when the Erie County Savings Bank became Empire of America, the building was then renamed "Main Place Tower" in the 1980s with the demise of Empire of America. The Main place tower was constructed as part of an urban renewal project. The land site of the building was previously home to the Richardsonian Romanesque castle-like Erie County Savings Bank Building (1890-1968). The Erie County Savings Bank was both the anchor tenant and financial backer for the Main Place tower construction and leased the first three floors upon ist completion.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Main Place Tower" and modified on July 23, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.