History
In 1934, when it was determined a music hall was to be built, it was assumed the much experienced and local architect, Edward B. Green would get the job. In 1935, Green submitted a neoclassical design combining the styles of Symphony Hall in Boston and Severance Hall in Cleveland. Green planned to have the hall attached to the Museum of Science. It was later decided the hall would be constructed at the site of Truman Avery's mansion (to be demolished) on the circle at Richmond and Porter Avenues (known as Symphony Circle).
George F. Rand, the chairman of the Buffalo Foundation (the Kleinhans' executors), liked the works of local architects and brothers, F.J. and William Kidd. (The Kidd brothers designed Buffalo's Rand Building, built in 1929 and located at Lafayette Square). In May 1938, the brothers were hired as architects for the music hall. However, their designs were criticized by Esther Link who had been shown the Kidd drawings by Buffalo Foundation lawyer, Edward P. Letchworth. Link, without any formal architectural education, was a high school music teacher who travelled Europe and had a strong background with architects and artists. She was an admirer of architect Eliel Saarinen particularly for his design of the central railroad terminal in Helsinki. In July 1938, upon Letchworth's request, Link drafted a letter detailing her passion for Saarinen's work and the future of Kleinhans music hall. The Buffalo Foundation agreed to offer Saarinen the position of consultant. Saarinen declined. Letchworth did not want to undermine Rand and the Kidd brothers. In September 1938, Letchworth met with Saarinen and his son Eero, and the Kidd Firm. They all agreed that Saarinen would be "designing architect" while Kidd would oversee the project. Saarinen quickly submitted his design one month later.
Four months after the city was rocked by the Buffalo riot, on November 10, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King visited Kleinhan's and in a speech titled "The Future of Integration" before about 2,500 persons and sponsored by the Graduate Student Association at the University at Buffalo proclaimed: "We are moving toward the day when we will judge a man by his character and ability instead of by the color of his skin."
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“The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)