Bell demo progresses

By Zack Penque

WBEN

Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - What once stood as a pillar in the world of aviation, the former office building of the Bell Aerospace facility in Wheatfield, New York, is set to be demolished.

Executive Director of Niagara County Industrial Development Agency, Andrea Klyczek, says only the front portion of the facility is being demolished.

"We've been working with the owners of Wheatfield Business Park to improve the area and the parcel, but a focus of the Center for Economic Development to improve the overall area surrounding our airport. Obviously, the former Bell Aerospace building, is a large part of that, and we worked with Empire State Development so the owners could apply for and be the recipient of a grant to help offset the cost of redevelopment of that space there's obviously the site is historical, but the building, it was in disrepair and condemned," stated Klyczek

Klyczek says Demolition is expected to take around two weeks, then additional improvements to the facility will begin to take place.

"We're looking forward to the demolition of the front, just the front part of the building, obviously not the entire facility. There's going to be some façade improvements. I think the local municipalities and the people that live in the community are going to be really happy with the end results of seeing like the improvement of the area, because it's long overdue," stated Klyczek,

Executive Director of the Niagara Aerospace Museum, Lindsey Visser, says the facility was once a major powerhouse in the aviation industry, particularly during and after World War II. From breaking the sound barrier to manufacturing parts for NASA's lunar missions, the facility played a crucial role in numerous groundbreaking technological advancements.

"I think the one that most people would be familiar with is the X-1 Aircraft. That is the one that broke the sound barrier and was flown by Chuck Yeager. A lot of the early flights were around Niagara Falls, in fact, and we have in our collection the flight notes of one of the test pilots talking about what it was like flying this aircraft and what the airplane started to do as it occurred, as it improved, as it approached the sound barrier. They also were creators of the X-22 which was another experimental prototype aircraft. We have the actual only remaining one in the museum collection, but it was the first attempt at vertical takeoff for an aircraft," Visser explained.

Due to ongoing challenges, Lawrence Bell, founder of Bell Aerospace, relocated operations to Fort Worth, Texas, in 1951, where the company has remained active ever since.

"What happened for our Western New York aerospace industry is that several of Bell's projects spun off into their own entities. Moog is an example of something that can trace its origins back to Bell. As it shifted its operation predominantly toward helicopters, a lot of the aerospace and aviation component pieces of its industry became their own companies, and are still thriving to this day in Western New York. As far as Bell itself, when it left Western New York, a lot of its factory floor models, prototypes, archives, research and photographs, all sorts of things actually came over to the Niagara Aerospace Museum," state Visser.

Visser says for anyone who is passing by the building and wants to reminisce, stop by the Museum to see the entire Bell Aerospace collection.

"We just love to have people come in, especially we love it when former Bell employees visit and tell us their stories about what they worked on, or some of their memories of seeing these, these prototypes, in flight. Because it's one thing to see them on display the museum, but it's just amazing to hear some of the sounds they made, or the shadows that they cast, and just those little details that sometimes we don't always have in the historical record, until people come in and talk about them," Visser explained.