The love story of Grace Plaza

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second installment in the UB Reporter’s tour of spots on campus that hold special emotions, memories and good karma for UB faculty, staff and students.

The official description of Grace Plaza tells part of the story. The outdoor learning landscape on the North Campus surrounded by Ketter, Davis, Jarvis, Bell, Bonner and Furnas halls was designed as a place for faculty, staff and students to take time from their busy days to stop and reflect.

Dig a little deeper — or just walk a little farther inside the grounds — and the story expands and gets a lot better. There’s a small exhibit in the middle of the courtyard with a gold bust of a stately, lovely woman with luxurious hair and uncanny, lifelike eyes.

“Grace N. Seitz McCombs” reads the inscription under a statue. “My Love. My Life. My Inspiration.”

A short distance away is a bench with another inscription: “Love at first sight.” “1954.”

Visitors need to know they stand on a shrine to the power of love. It’s that simple. Grace’s husband, Norman McCombs, commissioned Grace Plaza as a monument to romance, deliberately immersing it within the engineering school campus.

McCombs’ intention for the plaza is as clear and unqualified as his devotion to his lifelong romance: When you enter Grace Plaza, you must remember why it’s there in the first place.

McCombs’ over-the-top success was a lifelong testament to impress Grace, the love and inspiration of his life. Let McCombs tell you himself. His work has improved the lives of millions of people around the world, and if it weren’t for his enchantment with Grace, none of it would’ve happened, “at least not by me,” McCombs says. Without Grace, he insists, he probably would have dropped out of school.

McCombs, who earned a BS in mechanical engineering from UB in 1968, received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama in 2013. McCombs can certainly be counted among UB’s most distinguished and successful graduates. His pressure swing adsorption invention is a means of air separation for the production of oxygen. It was first used for industrial purposes, such as wastewater treatment and metal cutting. Later, the same process was used for humans. It eliminated the need for the delivery of containers of oxygen, giving patients an endless supply of portable oxygen. It both extended and improved the quality of life for millions of people around the world and saved billions in health care costs.

McCombs’ invention launched him on a renaissance career that included forming his own company, national and international prominence, countless world traveling, learning to be a classical guitarist and opening an elite restaurant on Kenmore Avenue called Truffles. McCombs also is proud he has cultivated his talent as a sculptor, a quality he again says he never would have developed if it were not for Grace.

McCombs, whose “very humble background” includes being born and growing up in a house his father built from used materials on 84 Woodcrest Drive “in the shadow of UB,” has a simple message. He never would have accomplished any of this if he had not fallen “in love at first sight” with the girl he saw walking down the hall when he was a sophomore at Amherst Central High School in 1954.

“Based on my family history, there was a better than 50-50 chance I would have dropped out of high school,” says McCombs, who will celebrate his 78th birthday Aug. 14. “Grace gave me a reason to stay in school. I wanted to impress her. She was my raison d’etre.

“I’m not being humble. I had some God-given talents. But they came out because of her. That’s what men and women do. If you love someone, you want to impress them and you continue to do it.”

Grace Plaza, with its geometric sidewalk design, starfish-shaped benches and indigenous gardens, is meant as an oasis. But that message to engineering students — as well as others — is essential. Be aware of the power of love. It’s as real and measurable and enduring, McCombs says, as any mathematics formula students may be struggling with.

And McCombs — as serious-minded and methodical a businessman and scientist as it gets — patiently and happily tells his story of how he met the woman he credits with being his lifelong muse, his salvation.

“I was walking south on the second floor of Amherst Central High School and she was walking north,” he says, “and I saw the prettiest girl I ever saw in my life walking toward me. As she walked by I turned around, and she was looking back at me.”

Grace was dating a friend of McCombs (who eventually became McCombs’ best man). But they saw each other again at the Granada movie theater on Main Street near Winspear Avenue, where he worked as an usher and bouncer.

“She came in with girlfriends,” McCombs says. “That’s when I saw her again, and we knew each other right away.”

Their first date was May 5, 1955 — 5-5-55 — when she accompanied McCombs to his sister Edna’s wedding. The bust in Grace Plaza includes the image of a pendant hanging from Grace’s neck. It’s based on the real one McCombs designed and had crafted for her on the 50th anniversary of their first date, with both their birthstones — peridot and rubies — incorporated into the design. On the side of the real pendant McCombs had “5-5-55” inscribed. The replica in Grace Plaza has the same inscription as the actual piece of jewelry.

McCombs loves recounting the details of the courtyard sculpture. The bust stands at Grace’s exact height. The “g” lapel pin is a replica of the 35th wedding anniversary gift. The “G” earrings correspond to a gift from McCombs on their 50th anniversary. On Sept. 24, they will have been married 56 years.

“I want Grace Plaza to be an oasis in the engineering area,” McCombs says, “a garden, a place where young people come and relax and get away from the classroom. If they’re a young couple or an individual, they might think of something else other than the problems of the world or a problem in the classroom.

“If they look at Grace, I want them to know that love is real.”

McCombs often has heard others suggest the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ oasis and place to reflect should be named after him. His wife has mentioned it numerous times. Every time McCombs gives the same answer.

“You call it Grace Plaza after the person that really deserves it,” he says.

It’s hard to determine who is more enthusiastic about what is becoming a major outdoor attraction along the academic spine — McCombs or Liesl Folks, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who is on record about the need for more spaces for students and the rest of the UB community to commune.

The plant landscape is mostly indigenous, Folks says. Plants were chosen so that different species are at their best at different times of the year. The gardens have numerous hydrangeas, Grace McCombs’ favorite flower. The flood of purple plants are blazing stars, chosen to give the gardens a wildflower look. There are also ample irises.

“The original concept was for a raingarden that emphasized more native plants that focus garden interest in all seasons,” Folks says. “There are different things in bloom to look at at any given time.”

Of particular interest is the bioswale, a large green patch of garden near Ketter Hall that filters runoff water. Earlier this summer, Folks saw a groundhog in that bioswale, feeding on one of the green plants. She couldn’t help but notice how absolutely happy the animal looked.

“He was smiling,” she says, pulling out her phone to show a video she took of the groundhog. “He looks so grateful, so contented.”

Weeks later, Folks looks at the place where she saw the happy groundhog.

“There is not a leaf left on that plant,” she says. “He’s eaten everything.”