Elevator B rises from the industrial wasteland of Buffalo, New York. But it’s not just art, it’s also what might be the most beautiful working beehive you’ve ever seen.
Rick Smith didn’t set out to save the honeybees. Instead, when the Buffalo business owner purchased a 15-acre plot of land along a bend in the Buffalo River just east of Lake Erie in 2006, he planned to build an ethanol plant there. Once part of the largest grain port in the world, the property was dotted with century-old grain elevators and towering, concrete silos that could store nearly a million bushels of corn. But when the ethanol boom went bust in 2008 amid soaring corn prices, so too did Smith’s Rust-Belt revival plan.