Concrete Central Elevator (Buffalo, New York)

 abandoned / shut down, grain elevator / grain silos

Stretching a quarter mile along the Buffalo River sits the massive Concrete Central Elevator, built in several stages between 1915 and 1917. Containing over 250 storage bins, some of which are 150ft tall, the facility had a maximum capacity of 4.3 million bushels of grain. With the capability to load and unload 20 railroad cars an hour and with significant waterfront dock space fed by three marine legs, the massive facility could also load and unload three freighters at one time.

Purchased by the Continental Grain Company in 1944, the Elevator operated with high profitability and was used for grain storage until 1965. When the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway which caused a drastic drop in grain transshipment activities, the enormous facility quickly became unprofitable and laid off its 30 employees in 1966. Deeded to the Buffalo Grain Elevator Inc. for a mere $10,000, the facility was idled in hopes of more profitable economic times but in less than a decade Buffalo Grain Inc. went out of business and the site was seized by the City of Buffalo as part of a lien for unpaid taxes.

With the city of Buffalo mired in its own problems in 1975, little was done to secure the facility and within a few years the once proud facility had been looted of over $250,000 worth of equipment and other artifacts and left in ruins. Today the abandoned monolith is popular with photographers, paintball players and graffiti vandals, however the decaying structure is highly unsafe.