Broadway Barns up for Local Landmarking

On April 27, 2023, the City of Buffalo’s Preservation Board will hold a public hearing on our application to locally landmark 201 Broadway, known as the Broadway Barns.

 

As detailed in the full application, the building consists of one remaining wall of a New York State arsenal constructed in 1858; a large armory addition dating to 1884; and front, side, and rear additions made from 1948-1952. The building was converted to an auditorium and convention center in the early 1900s and hosted multiple notable political figures and many local and national sporting events. In the 1940s it was renovated for use as the central garage for the City of Buffalo’s Department of Public Works. This included the front, side, and rear brick additions, the latter of which was built after the 1858 arsenal building was mostly destroyed by fire. Its façade remains visible inside the building.

Original 1858 façade, now encapsulated in a later expansion as an interior wall.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps detail the evolution and growth of the site from 1869-1989.

 

 

 

The building is significant for its role in the history of Buffalo, from being the first building in the city big enough to allow a full regiment to drill, to serving for over 20 years as the city’s primary event space. It is also an excellent example of a building that has been adaptively reused multiple times over its history, with an especially notable feature being the sawtooth dormers containing clerestory windows. Supported by a large steel truss system that was a significant engineering accomplishment at the time, these were added as part of the alterations to convert the building to an auditorium.

 

This application came about from a studio report written by University at Buffalo students in 2021 that included research on this building. One of the students approached PBN about turning the report into a landmark application for the building, and we worked with them to do exactly that.

The future of the Broadway Barns is unknown, as the City of Buffalo is currently seeking to redevelop the building and has issued an RFP. That makes this the perfect time to protect it via local landmarking.

 

Get involved! Here’s how you can help!

 

Option #1:

Attend the public hearing and speak in support of landmarking 201 Broadway, either in-person or virtually.

The public hearing is scheduled for Thursday April 27, at 3pm on the 9th floor of City Hall. You can visit the Buffalo Preservation Board’s website at https://www.buffalony.gov/361/Preservation-Board to access the meeting agenda and instructions for attending the meeting virtually.

 

Option #2:

Submit written comments supporting the landmarking of 201 Broadway. Written comments need to be submitted to the Preservation Board by 3pm on Wednesday, April 26th to make sure your comments are entered into the record during the public hearing on Thursday April 27th. You can drop off a hard copy of your comments at City Hall (9th floor, Office of Strategic Planning) or send them via email to chawley@city-buffalo.com.

 

Option #3:

Let Ellicott District Councilmember and Council President Pridgen know you support landmarking 201 Broadway and that you hope he will also when the application eventually goes before the Common Council. You can reach Council President Pridgen at dpridgen@buffalony.gov or drop off a hard copy of your comments at City Hall room 1315.

 

Option #4:

Share this post! Help us spread the word about the history of 201 Broadway and the importance of landmarking such a unique aspect of Buffalo’s history.

Demolition Moratoriums and the Local Landmarking Process

By Christiana Limniatis and Tabitha O’Connell

 

On March 7, 2023, the small Art Deco style administration building at the Clinton-Bailey Farmers Market in Buffalo was illegally demolished. This post will break down the context of this demolition and why it was illegal.

In December 2021, a demolition application for the building, which was located on the market’s property at 1443 Clinton Street, came before the Buffalo Preservation Board for advisory review. This is the process for all non-emergency demolition applications in the city; before a permit is issued, the Preservation Board reviews the application and makes a recommendation that is passed on to the Department of Permit and Inspection Services (DPIS). For buildings that are not designated as local landmarks, this recommendation is non-binding.

In the case of the building at 1443 Clinton, the Preservation Board hoped to work with the owner to find an alternative to demolition, and the application was tabled while the Board discussed the issues with the owner, conducted a site visit, and facilitated a meeting between the owner and the district’s councilmember. The demolition application has remained tabled by the Preservation Board ever since, with no recommendation ever made.

As part of our advocacy on this issue, we submitted a letter to the Preservation Board asking that they recommend denial of the demolition permit and encouraging the landmarking of the entire Clinton-Bailey Famers Market. To assist with the preparation of a landmark application, we included research on the property and a recommendation of which Criteria for Designation we felt the site was eligible under. The Preservation Board’s Landmarks Subcommittee subsequently prepared a local landmark application for the market property, which was submitted in July 2022. After the necessary public hearing before the Preservation Board in September, the Board recommended that the application be approved and sent it to the Common Council for the next part of the process.

Per the city’s Preservation Ordinance, upon the Common Council’s receipt of a landmark application from the Preservation Board, a moratorium on demolition permits for the subject property goes into effect until a final decision on the application is reached. This aspect of the law is a relatively recent amendment that was unanimously approved by the Common Council in 2021. Sponsored by Councilmembers Nowakowski and Rivera, it came about due to the demolition of the house at 184 West Utica Street while a landmark application for that building was pending.

As amended, the law states:

The Preservation Board shall, within 90 days of receipt of a completed application form, take its final action thereon, which shall be in the form of a recommendation to the Common Council. …

Upon the Common Council’s receipt of said recommendation, the Department of Permits and Inspection Services shall put in place a temporary moratorium, prohibiting the issuance of any building permits or demolition permits, relating to any property or resource that is subject to the proposed designation, to last until there is a final decision on the designation.

A property owner affected by this temporary moratorium may petition the Common Council for the lifting of any temporary moratorium to allow certain work to proceed pending the completed designation process, if such work would not affect the historic features under consideration.(§337-8 of Article III of Chapter 337, Preservation Standards)

Thus, a moratorium on permits should have gone into effect for 1443 Clinton Street in September 2022, when the Common Council received the recommendation from the Preservation Board. Since then, a final decision has not been made on the application. The Council’s Committee on Legislation held a public hearing for the application in October 2022, but rather than sending it on to the full Common Council for a vote afterward, they tabled it, and it has remained tabled ever since.

Issuance of a demolition permit for this building thus constitutes a clear violation of city law. While the City has not yet provided any formal explanation, based on  information available our understanding is that the permit’s issuance comes down to three critical failures on the City’s part:

 

1. Department of Permit and Inspection Services

Cathy Amdur, the Commissioner of the Department of Permit and Inspection Services, has stated that it is the job of the acting Secretary of the Preservation Board (who, as specified in §337-5 of the city’s Preservation Ordinance, is the staff person assigned to that position by the city) to enter a comment in the City’s permitting system to indicate when a property has a pending landmark application. In this case, according to Ms. Amdur, that information was not entered in the system, and thus DPIS was not aware of the moratorium when they received a demolition permit application from the building’s owner. However, as quoted above, the law states that it is the duty of DPIS to put the moratorium in place. Thus, the City’s internal policy is a violation of city law.

2. Preservation Board

The Preservation Ordinance lays out the powers and duties of the Preservation Board, which include “To advise and assist other City departments on matters pertaining to historic preservation” and “To undertake any other action or activity necessary or appropriate for the execution of its powers and duties or to further the purpose of this code” (§337-5 of Article II). In this case, the Board did not communicate sufficiently with DPIS regarding this building, resulting in a failure of execution of the Preservation Ordinance.

3. Common Council

Finally, indefinite tabling of a landmark application by the Legislation Committee is itself a violation of city law. According to the Preservation Ordinance, the Committee must take action—that is, approve, disapprove, or modify the proposed landmark designation—within 30 days of the public hearing and transmit their decision to the Common Council, who will then conduct a final vote on whether to approve or disapprove the designation (§337-11 of Article III). The requirement that the Council make a timely decision is confirmed by case law; in The Campaign For Buffalo History Architecture & Culture, Inc. v. The City of Buffalo Common Council (2019), the New York State Supreme Court found that it was “arbitrary and capricious” for the Council “to fail to make a decision” on a landmark application.

As a side note, this particular issue is not unique to 1443 Clinton Street; Voelker’s Bowling Center, located at 680 Amherst Street, is currently in a similar situation, with a landmark application for the building having been tabled by the Legislation Committee for 18 months, since September 2021. The city’s housing court recently issued a demolition order for the property, which is a directive to the owner to obtain a demolition permit; however, even with this order from the court, DPIS cannot legally issue a demolition permit while the landmark application remains pending.

 

As we plan our next advocacy steps, in light of the numerous issues laid out here, we call on Mayor Byron Brown and his administration to review and update the City’s internal policies and procedures so that they are consistent with the letter of the law and allow for the law’s appropriate execution. We also call on the Common Council to process received landmark applications in a timely matter. PBN will continue to advocate to the City to protect our historic fabric from further illegal demolitions

Save Willert Park Courts/AD Price Courts

Watch this video to learn about Willert Park/AD Price Courts

 

Preservation Buffalo Niagara has been working hard with our community partners, including the Michigan Street Preservation Corporation, for nearly a decade to preserve this important part of Buffalo’s past. To read more about Preservation Buffalo Niagara’s advocacy for Willert Park/AD Price Courts click here.

You can also read the Willert Park National Register Nomination.

Our letter to HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge asking her to come to Buffalo, give her a tour of Willert Park, introduce her to former residents, and learn more about the importance of this site.

A letter from the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) opposing the proposed demolition of Willert Park Courts/A.D. Price Courts.

Docomomo’s press release and our press release announcing Willert Park/A.D. Price Courts as the recipient of the Docomomo US 2020 Modernism in American Advocacy Award

1. Send an email to the BMHA

2. Become a member of PBN to ensure we have the resources necessary to fight this fight!

3. Share photos or memories of Willert Park/A.D. Price Courts – are you a former resident? Contact Tabitha to share your story and make it part of our research and archives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gay Places with Dr. Jeff – 140 North Street

Welcome to Gay Places with Dr. Jeffry Iovannone. PBN’s newest blog series is dedicated to celebrating and learning more about the historic LGBTQ landmarks of Western New York. With this space we will highlight the work of Dr. Iovannone and other guest writers to provide insight to the LGBTQ history associated with our existing historic built environment- narratives which are frequently forgotten, ignored, or purposely left out.

 

140 North Street, Buffalo, New York
By Dr. Jeffry Iovannone

140 North Street, located in the historic Allentown neighborhood, just west of Delaware Avenue, is the site of the Lenox Hotel. The Lenox, originally known as the Lenox Apartment House, was designed by architects Loverin & Whelan and constructed in 1896 as a 24-apartment building. In 1901, the property was transformed into a 48-room luxury hotel for women and men of economic means who came to visit Buffalo’s Pan-American Exposition. The exposition coincided with Buffalo’s economic height, and the style and function of the Lenox reflected this with its elaborate and ornamental detailing.

At the time, Loverin & Whelan described the Lenox Apartment House as “Venetian Gothic.” From a twenty-first-century architectural perspective, the building contains elements of what we now call Chateauesque style. Chateauesque was briefly popular in the United States between 1880 and 1910. The style is based on the grand sixteenth-century chateaus of France and contain a mixture of both Gothic and Renaissance details. Chateauesque was popularized in the United States by Richard Morris Hunt, the first American architect to study at France’s prestigious Ėcole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts). Hunt was influenced by the nineteenth-century revival of Chateauesque architecture and, upon returning to the United States, created similar buildings for his wealthy clients. Chateauesque has several identifying features, including steeply pitched hipped roofs; busy roof lines that contain elements such as spires, turrets, or gables; dormer windows; metal cresting on the roof ridges; and arched windows and doors.

An illustration of the original Lenox Apartment House from the Buffalo Courier (May 10, 1896).

The first two stories of the Lenox are constructed of washed brick and terra cotta and the upper stories of buff brick and terra cotta. The building is divided into two wings with a recessed courtyard in between. In its original condition, the Lenox featured an entrance portico with terra cotta ogee arches (an arch with two serpentine curves that meet at an apex), Renaissance detailing, and a balustrade with finials. The building also featured arched windows and doors with ogee hoods and Renaissance detailing, molded cornices, and metal cresting along the roof line. Many of these character-defining features were removed upon subsequent remodelings of the Lenox, particularly during the 1940s and in 2005 when the building was sold to new ownership.

Robert Uplinger, who went by “Bob” or “Bobby,” moved to Allentown in the early 1970s to be near his own kind: Buffalo’s gay community. He took up residence in the Somerset apartment building located at 228 Summer Street, one block north of the Lenox. Bob, an out gay man, grew up on Buffalo’s West Side and was secure in his sexuality from a young age. “I didn’t see anything wrong since it was my natural orientation,” he later explained. “It was a fact, and I couldn’t help it if others were unable to understand it.” Beginning in the late 1960s, Allentown became associated with Buffalo’s gay commuity, in addition to artists, musicians, and other bohemians. Racial tensions on the East Side caused white-owned gay bars to relocate west of Main Street, and anti-vice campaigns centered around Chippewa and Washington streets forced gays and sex workers to move their nightly operations northward. 

Portrait of Bob Uplinger by Marc Krygier that accompanied George Sax’s profile in the February 1984 issue of Christopher Street.

Standing at five feet three inches tall, Bobby Uplinger was short in stature but had personality in abundance. After receiving his M.A. in Elementary Education, Uplinger took a Civil Service job teaching troubled youth within the Buffalo schools. He was out to his family, friends, and co-workers and was highly respected by gay and straight memebers of the community. Uplinger also participated in the local gay organizations Gay Professionals and the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier and was a practitioner of Eastern philosophy and meditation. 

Bob was a popular and well-known fixture of the gay Allentown crowd. On the hot, muggy night of August 7th of 1981, the then 30-year-old Uplinger, clad in a tank top to both stave off the mid-summer humidity and increase his chances of finding a companion, went to a local gay bar (most likely Mean Alice’s/City Lights or the Villa Capri). Later, as he walked home along North Street around 3 A.M., Uplinger noticed a handsome young man sitting on the steps of the Lenox Hotel (the steps have now been replaced by a semi-circular driveway). The section of North Street between Delaware Avenue and Irving Street, where the hotel was located, was a popular “cruising” area for gay men and male and female sex workers.

“Hi, how are you?” the ever-personable Uplinger asked as he walked over to the young man. The two struck up a conversation, and Bob even introduced the young man to a few of his friends who passed by. Their casual banter continued until a police car drove up and the officer told the group to “move on.” As Uplinger and the young man walked toward the corner of North and Irving Street, Uplinger asked if he wanted to go back to his apartment. “Why?” the young man asked, to which Uplinger countered, “Well, do you just want to come over?” “No, I’m scared with the police. I’m going to leave,” the young man responded. Uplinger, growing impatient, made the following offer: “If you drive me over to my place,” he said, “I’ll blow you.” 

These were the exact words the young man wanted to hear—but not because he was hoping to make a sexual connection with Uplinger. The young man was, in fact, Buffalo Police Department undercover vice officer Steven Nicosia. Nicosia was part of an undercover campaign to scare gay men away from cruising in the residential areas of Allentown. The campaign was initiated by Erie County District Attorney Richard J. Arcara, who claimed that police received frequent complaints about the sexual cruising activities of gay men in Allentown. Given the neighborhood’s historic status, Arcara worried gay men were sullying Allentown’s reputation and terrorizing its heterosexual residents by flaunting their homosexuality in public. 

Chosen for his boyish good looks, Nicosia, as a rookie vice cop, was eager to prove himself. He arrested Uplinger on the spot at the corner of North and Irving streets. Uplinger hadn’t recognized Nicosia as an Allentown regular and had, earlier in their conversation, asked if he was a police officer, which Nicosia denied. As he was taken to the police car—the same one that drove by earlier—Uplinger realized the design of the BPD’s undercover campaign. He was booked for violating a section of the New York Penal Code, which prohibited “loitering in a public place for the purpose to engage in deviate sexual intercourse or other sexual behavior of a deviate nature.” Uplinger remained calm and collected as he was put into the police car, asking Nicosia and his superior officer what the charges against him were, and why. Uplinger felt they acted fairly towards him, but when they arrived at headquarters, the officer who took his mugshot said, “Because of people like you, we have to make extra fingerprints and send them to the FBI.” He presumably meant “deviates,” like Uplinger and his kind, forced the BPD to do extra work.

The night of August 7th of 1981 was not Bob Uplinger’s first run-in with an undercover police officer, however. When he was 18, Uplinger had been kicked out of a private Catholic high school in Buffalo after the principal discovered he had been picked up by an undercover officer downtown in a former gay cruising area. This was in 1969 when gay bars in Buffalo were few and far between, so gays would meet on Washington Street. Uplinger, who had been “out” since age 15, was senior class president, a four year letterman in track, and a member of the debate, drama, and glee clubs. Despite being an upstanding and engaged student, Uplinger’s principal called him “sick and depraved.” A priest at the school, whom Uplinger had confided in about his arrest, broke his code of ethics and informed the principal. Uplinger was forced out four months prior to his graduation, but received his diploma anyway. The judge placed a gag order on the case due to Uplinger’s age, and his attorney, who had him plead to a lesser charge, assured him he wouldn’t have a record. This was actually untrue, and following his second arrest, Uplinger learned that he did, indeed, have a criminal record.  

Bob Uplinger’s mugshots and fingerprints, taken on August 7th of 1981. Image courtesy of the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York, Archives & Special Collections Department, E. H. Butler Library, SUNY Buffalo State.

A friend of Uplinger’s came down to the station and paid his $100 bail. He had already decided he would fight the charges. “What really angered me,” Uplinger later explained in an interview, “was the fact that here I was, a tax-paying citizen who has a responsible job, walking home from a nearby gay bar in a predominantly gay neighboorhood I’d moved into 10 years ago, and because I asked an attractive man to go home with me in a casual, non-threatening conversation, I was arrested… I wasn’t being obnoxious or pushy, just talking in a normal way.”

Uplinger called Buffalo attorney William H. Gardner. Bill, as Gardner was more colloquially known, had made a reputation for himself representing gay men who were targeted by the BPD for sodomy or loitering charges. He had, in fact, helped a friend of Uplinger’s who was arrested previously. Gardner graduated from the University at Buffalo School of Law with his Juris Doctorate degree in 1959 and was a senior partner at the law firm Hodgson Russ. As a young lawyer, he observed how gays and lesbians were routinely harassed by the Buffalo police. The instruments used to carry out their campaign of persecution were sections of the New York Penal Code that outlawed consensual sodomy and loitering. As Gardner explains:

“Given my responsive horror to the attitudes of the authorities against the gay population in Buffalo, the only way I figured we could overcome that was to mount a crusade to overrule the laws that they were enforcing so vigorously.

I let various folks and gay organizations know that if they brought me people, I would represent them for free. If they wanted to make a case and fight the system, I was ready to do that. I was confident that sooner or later someone would show up who wanted to fight and not be a victim.”

Gardner received permission from his firm to take some of these cases pro bono, and throughout the 1960s, he routinely represented those charged under the consensual sodomy and loitering statutes. In 1970, Gardner also represented Buffalo restaurant-owner James F. Garrow when his attempts to open a gay bar and community center on Delaware Avenue were thwarted by the BPD. 

Gardner’s willingness to challenge the police stemmed from more than a personal commitment to those in need of defense and his belief that the statutes used to target gays were unconstitutional. Bill Gardner was struggling with his own sexuality. He had lived the life he thought he was supposed to. After serving in the United States Army and attending law school in the 1950s, Gardner got married and had children. It was not until the 1980s that he acknowledged his own homosexuality. By then, he had become the bane of the Buffalo Vice Squad. Gardner himself had been arrested for “cruising” in LaSalle Park, but was spared from the media and further maltreatment because of his reputation.

“Do you want to fight this?” Gardner asked Uplinger. “We can go as far as we have to take it.” Bob was certainly ready to brawl, though he was not the first to take Bill Gardner up on his offer. One of the first successful attempts to overturn a state sodomy statute was People v. Onofre, a 1980 case in which a consensual relationship between two adult males became the subject of a criminal prosecution in Syracuse, New York. Ronald Onofre initiated a consensual sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male, unnamed in the court records. The relationship deteriorated and the young man, in anger, went to the police seeking revenge, alleging he had been coerced into the relationship. Onofre and his attorney provided evidence the relationship was, in fact, consensual, but the District Attorney proceeded to charge him under New York’s misdemeanor consensual sodomy statute. First adopted in New York State in 1965, the statute made it a misdemeanor for anyone to engage in “deviate sexual intercourse.”

As Onofre’s case worked its way to the court of appeals, Bill Gardner was busy defending one of several sodomy prosecutions in the Buffalo city courts. Gardner’s clients were found guilty in the city courts, and their convictions were upheld in the Erie County Court. He thus saw the Onofre case as a vehicle for getting his clients’ convictions, and the consensual sodomy statute, overturned. Gardner filed an amicus brief on behalf of the National Committee for Sexual Civil Liberties to lend his expertise to the court of appeals consideration of Onofre’s case. 

The opinion in Onofre’s appeal, issued on January 24th of 1980, found that the consensual sodomy law violated due process and equal protection under both the federal and New York State constitutions. Thus, the statute was struck down. The court of appeals’ decision in Onofre was a landmark in sodomy litigation for several reasons. First, the court equated heterosexual and homosexual sodomy and examined the issue through the concept of sexual privacy. Second, the ruling extended the concept of privacy to behavior formerly criminalized. Finally, in striking down the sodomy statute of one of the largest states in the country, hope was given to those struggling to decriminalize gay sexuality throughout the United States. Bill Gardner had issued his first major blow to the Buffalo police.

Guided by the momentum of this victory, Gardner moved to dismiss the charges against Uplinger on the grounds that New York’s anti-loitering statute was rendered unconstitutional as a result of the Onofre ruling. His rationale was that if it was now legal to have oral sex with a consenting adult in the privacy of one’s own home, then it was surely legal to inoffensively ask one to come to one’s home for that very purpose. Straight men, furthermore, often sexually propositioned women in an aggressive manner, yet were rarely, if ever, arrested for doing so. 

Uplinger’s first trial was held on November 9th of 1981 in the city courts. Of those called to testify during the proceedings, Uplinger thought only Kenneth P. Kennedy, Captain of the Bureau of Vice Enforcement, was outwardly anti-gay. In his testimony, Kennedy asserted that connections between gay sexuality and child molestation were part of the reason for the crackdown in Allentown. The vice captain further claimed to be in possession of an informal book in which he logged complaints made to police regarding gay “cruising.” The BPD received at least four complaints per week, alleged Kennedy. However, when Gardner asked him to produce the book, Kennedy was unable to do so. Gardner’s questioning revealed what he long knew to be true: an atmosphere of systemic homophobia within the Buffalo Police Department. In the end, Judge Timothy Drury, who expressed fears the Allentown neighborhood was deteriorating, found Uplinger guilty. The case then went to the Erie County Court where Judge Joseph P. McCarthy upheld Judge Drury’s decision. 

Uplinger’s win before the NYS Court of Appeals makes the front page of the Fifth Freedom’s March 1983 issue. The Fifth Freedom was the free newspaper of the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier. Image courtesy of the Dr. Madeline Davis LGBTQ Archive of Western New York, Archives & Special Collections Department, E. H. Butler Library, SUNY Buffalo State.Front page news

People v. Uplinger next made its way to the New York State Court of Appeals in Albany where a panel of seven judges voted 6-to-1 in Uplinger’s favor. “I argued that you couldn’t have a situation where consensual sodomy was OK, but inviting someone home to have consensual sodomy was illegal,” Gardner later recounted. The judges ruled that the loitering statute was both unconstitutional and improperly used. Gardner landed yet another blow, but District Attorney Arcara filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, who agreed to review the case. When it became known that Bob Uplinger was headed to Washington, he was fired from his job within the Buffalo school system. Unemployed from mid-June of 1982 until October, he was forced to rely on support from his two sisters and brother. But Gardner, again, went to bat for Uplinger, and the impassioned educator was reinstated with seniority and back pay. 

As Uplinger waited for the Supreme Court to hear his case, now restyled as New York v. Uplinger, he received a series of harassing phone calls from people he perceived as unhappy and maladjusted gays. “Why are you rocking the boat? You deserve to be arrested for being out at that time in the morning. Everything was fine until you upset the apple cart,” they would say before hanging up. Uplinger was further distressed that the leaders of Buffalo’s various gay organizations (approximately 12 at the time) were slow to reach out and hear his story. He attributed this to the prevailing notion that gays living in mid-sized, blue-collar cities such as Buffalo should remain closeted. Uplinger began to observe a change within the community, however, and saw his case as a way to buck Buffalo’s status quo. 

As Gardner prepared for the Supreme Court, his nerves were rattled by a phone called he received from a representative of a national gay-rights group. “You’re out of your league,” the rep told him. “You should give up the case to a nationally-known constitutional lawyer.” Gardner felt he had just been chided by his high school principal. He presented this option to his client, but Uplinger remained unwavering in his support of Gardner. On January 18th of 1984, Gardner made his arguments before the nation’s highest court. He worried he would make a major blunder due to a combination of inexperience, tension, and fear—but he didn’t. The court, who issued their ruling on May 30th of 1984, ultimately dismissed the case. While the justices declined to rule on the merits in Uplinger, they did leave intact the ruling by New York’s Supreme Court that people could not be prosecuted for asking others to have “deviate sex” in the privacy of their own homes. While a landmark case, it is important to note that this Supreme Court decision, however, was not necessarily an affirmation of gay rights on the federal level. Just two years later, in  Bowers v. Hardwick, the court, in a 5-to-4 ruling, upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law, which criminalized private consenting sexualconduct involving same-sex copules. 

Gardner had, from a legal perspective, solved the problems of sodomy and loitering within New York State. The BPD’s publicity-grabbing arrests ceased, and he turned his focus to his regular caseload. He also became more publicly involved in the gay community as a member of the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier and the Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus. “When you came out, you came out with a bang,” Gardner’s friend Jim Haynes told him, reflecting on the gravity of his legal victories.

Uplinger, too, re-immersed himself in his work with troubled youth, and helped to found Gay & Lesbian Youth of Buffalo (now Gay & Lesbian Youth Services of Western New York). Bob had a knack with young people, and despite being “an adult,” he easily earned their trust. Kate Gallivan, today the Senior Director of Grants Management at Evergreen Health Services, met Bob in 1984 when she started volunteering for GLYB. Volunteers would often co-facilitate Saturday discussion groups, and Kate often found herself paired with Bob, whom she liked immediately:

“He was firm but compassionate and a very good listener. He was down to earth and very empathetic. I remember him often taking one of our youth aside who was going through a hard time so that they could talk privately. It was a different time being gay then, and most of our youth lived in fear of someone finding out. Many were homeless and many were living double lives–“straight” during the week and gay when they were at GLYB. Bob spent a lot of time reassuring and empowering them, and letting them know they were ‘normal.’ They looked up to him, and I think he gave them hope because he was such a positive adult role model.”

In 1986, GLYB’s director, Mark Boser, informed the volunteers that Bob was moving to sunnier climes in Florida. It wasn’t long after that they learned he was sick, and just as quickly, GLYB received news that Bob had died from an AIDS-related illness. He was just 35 years old. Kate Gallivan, and many other members of the GLYB family, never had the chance to say goodbye. By then, the HIV/AIDS epidemic was ravaging gay communities across the country, Buffalo included. 

To honor Bob’s memory, several members of GLYB came together to create a quilt panel for the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Envisioned by San Francisco gay activist Cleve Jones, the Quilt drew upon the medium of folk art to commemorate the lives of those who had died of AIDS. The idea was born in 1985 during a candlelight march to commemorate the assassinations of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Jones asked marchers to write the names of deceased loved ones on squares of cardboard that were then taped to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. Jones and his friends began making 4-by-6-foot quilt panels in their backyards with the intention to unveil their creation on the National Mall at the October 1987 Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The march that year drew around 500,000 people, and the NAMES Project unfolded a 1,920-panel quilt that represented more than 20,000 Americans who had lost their lives to AIDS or related causes.

Bob Uplinger’s panel for the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, created by Mark Boser, Robert Frank, Kate Gallivan, Jim Haynes, and Don Licht.

While Jones and his comrades labored in San Francisco, in December of 1988, Bob Uplinger’s friends gathered at the home of Jim Haynes and Don Licht on 69 Johnson Park to create their panel. The design was a tree with multi-colored, heart-shaped leaves set against a pale blue background. Bill Gardner, of course, made a heart with the scales of justice. Jim Haynes’s heart included the initialism “MSNF” to symbolize Bob’s involvement in the Mattachine Society of the Niagara Frontier. Don Licht, Jim’s partner, made a heart that read “Love Grandma”Bob’s nickname for him. Mark Boser contributed a heart with the GLYB logo. Kate Gallivan’s heart, finally, depicted Bob with the young people from GLYB gathered around him. He was the first friend she lost to AIDS. When the group assessed their work, they noticed the “n” in “Uplinger” was sewn on backwards. The imperfection lent character to the otherwise impeccable composition. “That was just Bob having the last word,” Jim Haynes commented.

Because of Bobby Uplinger, gay people could walk the early-morning streets of Allentown unharassed, though most did not know the story of the man upon whose shoulders they now stood. Bob, however, never really saw himself as a hero. He knew there was still much work to do:

“I’ve learned that you can lull yourself into a sense of false security, thinking that something like this only happens to somebody else. I did. I thought I lived in a pretty liberal neighborhood, never realizing that a few public officials could have such legal power to adversely affect people’s lives. I’ve matured no doubt… Fortunately, I’ve always had a gay consciousness that never needed raising.”

 

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Dr. Jeff Iovannone is an historian, writer, educator, and third-generation Buffalonian who holds a Ph.D. in American Studies, specializing in gender and LGBTQ studies. He is currently at work on a book about Buffalo’s gay liberation movement from the late 1960s to the early 1980s and is an avid collector of LGBTQ historical materials. He is the coordinator of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at SUNY Fredonia and a board member of the Buffalo-Niagara LGBTQ History Project. You can find more of his writing on Medium and other platforms at https://linktr.ee/drjeffgenderprof

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Jesse Strash, personal correspondence with author, May 15-16, 2019.

Kate Gallivan, personal correspondence with author, July 10, 2020.