The Buffalo Central Terminal is a grand, ghostly

structure in downtown Buffalo. This enormous train

station opened in 1929 and it once facilitated the

traffic of 3200 passengers per hour and 200 trains

per day. Today it is vacant.

My interest in creating banquet events in unused

buildings dates back to 2005 when I created

Mechanical Sandwich in a former factory in Buffalo.

This process involved 40 people working together

to create 40 sandwiches. To pursue this idea further,

I asked The Central Terminal Restoration

Corporation if I could create a site-specific project for

The Terminal. The result was Lunchtime Training

which took place on June 21, 2008.

When the audience arrived, they saw a long banquet

table occupying the center of the main hall of

The Terminal.   Each person received a lunch

bag with an ingredient for a summer salad in it,

along with instructions for how to chop it.

The participants then passed large bowls down the

rows of the banquet table, filling them with

their ingredients, simulating a “train” picking up

passengers as it moves along a line.  The bowls of

food met in the center of the table and the

audience had the opportunity to enjoy the lunch

that they had helped to create. 

This event landed me a half hour interview with

Western New York Tonight, a television show

produced by Lockport Community Television!

Two enthusiastic guests who had read about my

event in the paper are journalists who work at LCTV.

Lunchtime Training was co-sponsored by

Artists & Audiences Exchange, a public program of

the New York Foundation for the Arts.