Maria Scrivani, Brighter Buffalo

Talking Leaves…Books will host a book signing with local author Maria Scrivani for her just released Brighter Buffalo: Renewing a City, on Monday, December 14, at 7 pm at our Elmwood Avenue store.  There is no admission charge; copies of the book will be available for purchase.

Brighter Buffalo offers a fresh perspective on the region’s evolving architectural history, shining a spotlight on many of our most admired structures and introducing some new treasures.  Along the way, author Maria Scrivani explores some intriguing questions. How does preservation happen? Why is it important?  Can grassroots activism really make a difference?

This lively book tells the fascinating tales of dozens of local sites ranging from the Broadway Market and Babeville, to the Burchfield-Penney Art Center and Corpus Christi Church.  It chronicles Herculean efforts to transform once-decaying buildings into upscale housing and Class A office space. It traces the struggles of persistent urban pioneers to turn at-risk neighborhoods into steadily-improving communities.

Readers will learn about the rock star who returns home to restore a crumbling church. They will explore revitalization efforts in a Buffalo neighborhood that was severed in half by an ill-conceived highway in an earlier era. They will learn how a boathouse designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for a Wisconsin shoreline site was built a century later on Buffalo’s emerging waterfront.

There will be some surprises, too.  Did you ever notice the tall church spires that pierce the skies over the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood? You might not know that dueling church congregations engaged in spirited competitions to erect the highest steeples.  Did you know that the Hamlin Park neighborhood was once home to a harness-racing track? Or that the Albright-Knox Art Gallery was actually supposed to be one of the buildings at the Pan-American Exposition, but that construction was delayed until after the event was over?

Brighter Buffalo includes more than 40 photographs and a user-friendly site map. Readers will learn about restorations at Delaware Avenue mansions, citizen-driven campaigns to save the West Side and efforts to revitalize the Nash House, an important icon in African-American history.  Ultimately, Brighter Buffalo holds out the hope that a once-great city can restore itself.

Maria Scrivani was born, raised and educated in Buffalo. She also raised her three children here.