Good night, McBride’s

McBride’s, the creaky old tavern at the corner of Chicago and Miami Streets, was demolished last Monday morning, while the rest of the city dug out from under the weekend’s snow. The brick building had lost its roof in an early January storm, then was left open to the elements by its owner for two weeks, weakening the structure. A second storm at the end of the month caused a third-floor wall to collapse.

The owner, Detective Sergeant William Crawford of the Buffalo Police Department, promised the city a rehab plan for the historic building but came forth with nothing, according to Rich Tobe, Commissioner of Economic Development, Permits and Inspection Services. “He never got back to us,” Tobe said in an email. “We sent him two letters. Made a lot of calls. He finally told us he would not do anything to save the property or to make it safe…This forced us to condemn the building.”

By the time the demoition order was issued, Crawford had sold the interior fixtures at an auction.

To give the tavern a proper, St. Patrick’s Day weekend farewell, a party of 50 or so will gather at the site on Thursday, March 13 at 6:30pm to drink a toast. The wake for McBride’s is organized by the Campaign for Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture and Fogotten Buffalo, which is running a bus tour of the Old First Ward that evening. (Check out forgottenbuffalo.com for more information.)