Friends of J. N. Adam Historic Landmark & Forest
Friends of J. N. Adam Historic Landmark & Forest
   
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"Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities officials told us that they do not have the resources to market the unneeded property, and that it is fiscally more prudent to simply leave the property unused than to maintain it in usable condition . . .."
 
~ from NYS Comptroller audit of state-wide developmental center closures, Report 98-S-47, page 1

What's News?

July 1, 2010:  Best Reuse Ideas Contest Winners Announced!

June 27, 2010:   Radio program airs about the J.N. Adam facility.

Buffalo Common Council President David Franczyk and Dr. Larry Beahan of Friends of J.N. Adam are interviewed by host Tom McNulty on his radio program "Spotlight on Health" on 96.1 JOY-FM.  This half-hour interview spanned the past, present and future of the hospital from a shared goals perspective.

June 2, 2010:  Promoting the site for Tri-County Hospital relocation.

Representatives from Buffalo Common Council President David Franczyk's office and Friends of J.N. Adam met with Senator Charles Schumer's aide to discuss the FEMA funds obtained by the Senator for the relocation of flood-ravaged Tri-County Hospital in Gowanda and to promote the J.N. Adam facility as a potential relocation site.

May 24, 2010 - Best Reuse Ideas Contest

Friends of J.N. Adam is compiling a list of ways to reuse this historic facility and handing out prizes for the best ideas!  What would you like to see there?  What do you think would work? Do you think the public should be able to access and recreate on the 500+ of acres of open space -- forest, meadows, ponds, streams, even the sports fields and picnic area that the state abandoned?
 
We want to hear from you!  Prizes for (1) Most Creative, (2) Most Comprehensive Multi-Reuse (there are 650 acres total and well over 200,000 square feet of historic building space), and (3) Best reuse of the spectacular dome room/dining hall rotunda.
 
The three prizes you ask?  Your choice - either one copy of Mason Winfield's book "Haunted Places of Western New York" (because we well know the J.N. Adam hospital is haunted, after all !), or one copy of Margaret Wooster's book "Living Waters: Reading the Rivers of the Lower Great Lakes" (because the J.N. Adam facility does sit atop Perrysburg's sole source drinking water aquifer!), or one copy of Peak Experiences: Hiking the Highest Summits in New York, County by County" by Gary Fallesen (because this facility, at 1,322 feet, has views galore - from it you can see Lake Erie, Buffalo, Canada, and on a clear day the mists of Niagara Falls!)
 
Let your ideas flow forth (by 6-30-10) and prizes flow back to you!!
Submit your entries by email or facebook.

March 18, 2010 - Letter to NYS from Assemblymember Joseph Giglio addressing neglect of campus and requesting access.

March 12, 2010 - Friends of J.N. Adam, Buffalo Common Council President David Franczyk, NYS Assemblymember Joseph Giglio, Town of Perrysburg Supervisor and Town Council, Mayor of Perrysburg, Mayor of Gowanda, and Preservation Buffalo Niagara representative hold a successful meeting to discuss win-win reuse ideas and formulate a plan of action.

March 4, 2010 - Erie County Supreme Court Judge Gerald Whalen dismisses Trathen Logging's 2005 lawsuit against the State of New York, City of Buffalo and Town of Perrysburg, with no damages awarded to Trathen.

March 2010 - Join us on facebook

March 2010 - Preservation Buffalo Niagara assisting Friends of J.N. Adam with this historic preservation project and adds the J.N. Adam campus to its list of most threatened historic buildings in Western New York.

Buffalo to Host the 2011 National Preservation Conference

November 12, 2007
Sale of J.N. Adam Center Voided

The stately hospital on the hill in Perrysburg, New York, has been given another chance. In a unanimous decision, the Fourth Department of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court has sided with opponents of the proposed sale of the former J.N. Adam Tuberculosis Hospital campus by the state to Trathen Land Company and voided the sale.
In the lawsuit, brought by the Friends of J.N. Adam in order to preserve the historic buildings and 649-acre forested campus of the J.N. Adam Developmental Center, the Court upheld the group's claims against New York State and the City of Buffalo for violations of the state's environmental, historic preservation and public buildings laws. The Court found that the state and city failed to perform required environmental studies and historic preservation reviews.
The Court also voided the Buffalo Common Council's 2005 resolution giving up the City's reversionary rights to the property, and voided the state's declaration of "no environmental impacts" to the property in the sale to the logging company. The state sought to sell the 649-acre campus to the logging company for approximately $390,000, with the City to receive just under $334,000 of the sale proceeds.
The former hospital campus, designed by renowned American architect John Hopper Coxhead, includes a complex of more than two dozen buildings, a stained-glass domed dining hall rotunda, a dozen former physician residences, and hundreds of acres of mature forests, meadows and ponds. Friends of J.N. Adam is working toward a reuse of the property which is both beneficial to the community and protects the property's historic and natural resources.

Full ruling on nycourts.gov

Buffalo News article

John Hopper Coxhead Designed Campus at Virginia Union University Receives Getty Foundation Campus Heritage Grant, 2007
http://www.campusheritage.org/page/virginia-union-university


Last Gasp for Hospital?
New York State Is Selling Its Defunct Hospitals, but One City Objects to a Sale
By Elizabeth Benjamin
(Preservation Online - the Online Magazine of the National Trust for Historic Preservation)