I’m not going to refute all the arguments with which I disagree in this Buffalo News editorial, which says that it’s dumb to force the Public Bridge Authority to maintain the houses it owns on Busti, and to prevent the PBA from demolishing them until they’re finished with the environmental review process—which is required by law, as the Federal Highway Authority reminded the PBA in this letter to general manager Ron Rienas.

But I will contend that this statement is dead wrong:

None of the houses involved rises to the level of historic or aesthetic value that would make this worth a preservationist crusade.

That’s complete hogwash. The Samuel H. Wilkeson house at 771 Busti is, in addition to being beautiful, a direct link to one of the most celebrated members of one of Buffalo’s founding families. It is precisely the sort of structure that spurs preservationist crusades, and I imagine that any effort to demolish the house—last week, next week, two years from now—will encounter opposition.

Consider its history, as researched by the Campaign for Greater Buffalo:

The three-story mansion was built around 1864 by Charles Storms, whose company—Storms & Dorer, located on Lloyd Street in the Canal District—specialized in the manufacture of buckets for grain elevators. At the time, the street was named Sixth, and the Storms lived there until 1882; in 1884 the street was renamed Front Avenue, in reference to Frederick Law Olmsted’s the Front, the park which the house overlooked. Olmsted considered the Front to be the jewel of the park and parkway system he’d designed for Buffalo in 1868, the first of its kind in the country. In 1894, Front Avenue was designated a parkway, and the city’s park commissioners remodeled it with Olmsted’s vision in mind. In 1929, Front Avenue was renamed again, this time after Paul Busti, who had worked with surveyor Joseph Ellicott to lay out Buffalo’s street grid in 1804.

Colonel Samuel H. Wilkeson moved into the house in 1885, and lived there for 18 years. He was the grandson of Samuel Wilkeson, whose gravestone at Forest Lawn reads “He built the city by building its harbor.” The elder Wilkeson is credited with securing the terminus of the Erie Canal for Buffalo, and was mayor of the city in 1836, when his grandson and namesake was born.

Samuel H. Wilkeson enlisted in the army in May 1861, as first lieutenant in Company H, 21st New York Volunteer Regiment. He was 24. Twelve of his siblings and cousins answered Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers. Two—his brother John and his cousin Bayard—would be killed in action. None distinguished himself in service as Samuel did.

In February 1862, Wilkeson was made captain of Company C, Scott’s 900, officially listed as the Eleventh New York Cavalry. Four months later he was promoted to major; in December 1862, in recognition of daring raids in and around Harpers Ferry, he was made lieutenant colonel and joined Lincoln’s cavalry escort. In the following year, he was dispatched to Mississippi, Louisiana, and West Tennessee, where his reputation continued to grow. In charge after charge, Wilkeson’s men harried the celebrated Confederate cavalry of Jeb Stuart, 900 men versus 10,000, preventing Stuart’s timely arrival at Gettysburg, to which Robert E. Lee attributed his defeat there. Promoted to full colonel, Wilkeson was stationed in Memphis when the war ended.

On returning to Buffalo, Wilkeson joined his father in managing the Wilkeson grain elevator, built in 1858, one of the first of its kind. (It burned down in 1911.) When his sister, Louise, died in 1904, Wilkeson moved into the family mansion on Niagara Square, which was torn down after Wilkeson’s death in 1915 to make room, eventually, for City Hall.

The house at 771 Busti is the city’s only remaining structure tied to the Wilkeson family. I’d say that “rises to the level of historic or aesthetic value that would make this worth a preservationist crusade.” More to the point, I think the preservation community feels that it does.

Here’s something that drives me crazy about the Buffalo News: the “Another Voice” column on the editorial page. It would be a nice idea, except that so often it is not given over to “another” voice. It is given, rather, to the same old voices: to people who are frequently quoted as sources in articles, who are in positions of political or economic power, to folks whose job is to push agendas—to people, in other words, who have no difficulty making their voices heard.

Today’s “Another Voice” column is by Ron Rienas, general manager of the Public Bridge Authority. None of the evasions he offers here are new, nor has Rienas lacked opportunity to make them in a public forum. He has been quoted in at least 40 Buffalo News articles in the past year. He wrote another “Another Voice” column in January.

In the past two months, the column’s authors have included incoming State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, who earns headlines somewhere in that state nearly every day; Tom Golisano, who can order up a microphone and reporter whenever he needs one; Erie County Legislator Maria Whyte, with whose column I agree but who already  has occasion to speak with reporters weekly; UB President John Simpson, stumping for the UB 2020 plan that is frequently the subject of articles in the news pages; Erie County Executive Chris Collins, also no stranger to headlines; and outgoing Congressman Tom Reynolds, who, it is true, has not been much in the limelight in the past two years.

And Rienas’ column today is a response to a recent “Another Voice” piece by attorney David Colligan, chairman of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy. I agree with much of what Colligan says in that piece, but he’s another guy who hardly lacks opportunity to speak his mind: He is quoted in the pages of the Buffalo News about once a month, sometimes more often than that.

In between these privileged perspectives, the column frequently comprises articles by the mouthpieces for lobbying or special interest groups. It would be nice, I think, if “Another Voice” were afforded solely to those who are invisible in the news media, underrepresented in government, underserved by our institutions and economy.

Late last night, at the tail end of one of the few weeks in the past year in which we did not publish anything snarky about anybody, someone threw two gallons of paint on our front doors. Seems a waste; we hadn’t even earned it. Nonetheless, we were cleaning up all morning.

Last week, sure, I can see that: maybe Chris Collins, maybe Steve Pigeon. But no…those guys wouldn’t stoop so low. They don’t even return our calls. It must have been someone else.

Buck Quigley had what sounded on his end like a civil conversation with Bob Gioia earlier in the week, so I can’t believe it was him. And I can’t imagine his brother, Anthony Gioia—recently confirmed as a representative to the 63rd session of the UN—would be so undiplomatic. James Williams? No, Dr. Williams loves AV. He told me so last year. And I can’t believe anything would have changed his mind since then.

Revenge, like pizza, is best served cold, but we understand that the folks at La Nova have made peace with their neighbors. So that’s not it.

George Sax is too urbane to have caused us trouble with the Public Bridge Authority or the Erie County Democrats. And though Bruce Jackson frequently draws heat down on the paper, it doesn’t seem like the Seneca Gaming Corporation’s style. Our other Bruce, late of county government and now thinking deep thoughts about public policy at Buffalo State, is generally brisk but not offensive…unless Bob Wilmers has been nursing a grudge against Fisher and occasional AV contributor John McMahon for months.

What the hell. It couldn’t have been former Buffalo News editor Murray Light.

I’m sure the vandal didn’t issue from City Hall, the good offices of which are AV’s most frequent target, because anyone who works for the city would know that there’s one of those new surveillance cameras just up the street. The blue-light specials.

When I called B District to ask if the camera might have caught the guilty party in the act, I was told that a detective would call back later today. Then, maybe, we’ll see.

A bridge too high…

The Federal Highway Administration says we can’t have a really tall, cable-stayed bridge across the Niagara River. But we can have a shorter cable-stayed bridge, or a really cool-looking arched bridge.

Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton say: Terrific! No need for any more lengthy studies!

But what about the plaza design? That’s where the rubber meets the road. Or, rather, where the road meets—and, in the Public Bridge Authority’s currently preferred plaza expansion design, bulldozes—a viable, historic neighborhood, and continues the isolation of a jewel in the city’s Olmsted park system.