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With weeks to go before the wrecking ball would arrive, someone would need to sign off on the city's expense report to pay for the demolition. That someone would be Buffalo Comptroller George D. O'Connell, who wouldn't sign the paperwork, and instead stepped to help the Friends of Shea's Buffalo rally the city.
Photo Credit: The Buffalo News - April 18, 1975
"I feel very strongly about Shea's Buffalo. There's only one Shea's Buffalo in the entire world, and if it's gone, there is no way to retrieve it, or rebuild it. I call it Shea's, rather than Loew's Buffalo, because that's the way I remember it."
Photo Credit: The Buffalo News - July 2, 1975
Thanks to the Friends of the Buffalo Theatre, the State Supreme Court ruled in favor of protecting the remaining furnishings still preserved at the Shea's Buffalo Theatre, preventing former owner, Leon Lawrence Sidell, from taking or selling these artifacts -- including the Mighty Wurlitzer organ.
Photo Credit: The Buffalo News - June 4, 1976
Photo Credit: Buffalo City Archives, edited by Mika Puma
Photo Credit: Buffalo City Archives, edited by Mika Puma
439 Pearl Street circa 1970's: the back of Shea's Buffalo Theatre once had a bowling alley for a neighbor.
Photo Credit: Buffalo City Archives, edited by Mika Puma
439 Pearl Street circa later 1970's: the bowling alley was demolished and this parking structure was put in place until 2016, when it was removed to make way for the future Shea's expansion.
Photo Credit: Buffalo City Archives, edited by Mika Puma
Down the street at 710 Main Street, our new neighbors Studio Arena had just moved into the old Palace Burlesque theater. Note the two painters working on the Entertainment mural - it's still there today!