Summer 1992 Table of Contents
Suburban Living Comes to Buffalo
by John Feather
Wandering through the beautiful nineteenth century neighborhoods of the west side of Buffalo, it is easy to become absorbed in the diverse architectural styles of the houses and fail to realize that the real story is the fundamental sociological shift that was required to make the development of these areas possible.
"Modern life" as we know it, with the separation of work and home, commuting, municipally provided utilities, separation of social classes, the segregation of business into "strips" away from residences, planned land use, and other aspects of "suburban" development were all products of the late nineteenth century, and can be seen in the physical layout of the west side.
One such area was the focus of the Preservation Coalition tour, "The Queen Anne Style in Buffalo." Bounded by W. Ferry, Richmond, Bidwell Parkway, and Elmwood, every house in this area was built between 1880-1910, and every one is still standing, giving an excellent sense of what a late nineteenth century neighborhood "felt" like.
What caused people to move 2.5 miles away from their places of work downtown, and why did they move here? Both "push" and "pull" factors were at work.
The "push" was the desire to escape the congestion, pollution, and smell of the densely packed downtown area. Like most cities, Buffalo had few zoning restrictions, and commercial and residential buildings were mixed together without regard for the effects of smoke or heavy wagons traffic on the residents. Since the industries included iron smelting, slaughterhouses (in 1900, Buffalo was second only to Chicago as a meat processing center), and tanning of hides, the smell in some parts of town is hard for us to even imagine. Since everyone had to live within walking distance of their place of employment, the practical limits of the city were very constrained. Essentially, each neighborhood was self-sufficient in most of its needs, including food.
This pattern, which had been common to cities since mediaeval times, became intolerable in the late nineteenth century when Buffalo experienced explosive population growth (1860 - 81,000; 1880 - 155,134; 1890 - 255,543; 1900352,387; 1910 - over 400,000). The development of strictly residential areas within walking distance of downtown, such as the West Village and Allentown, were one response to the desire to separate commerce and housing.
Fortunately, transportation technology made a major leap at this point. Unlike our stereotype, most people in 19th century did not own horses and carriages in the way we own cars. Horses were very expensive to maintain, and were generally rented from a stable when needed (the term "carriage trade" referring to the very wealthy is a reminder of this). Most people either walked or relied on streetcar system. Horsedrawn cars could travel at three to five miles per hour, making the trip from downtown to our neighborhood a long commute. However, the system was electrified in 1896, making it much faster. This was one of the first large scale uses of electricity, and one of the first electrified streetcar systems in the country, and by 1900, Buffalo had 104 miles of streetcar track. It finally became practical to live that "far out" and still work downtown.
Real estate developers actively marketed the advantages of suburban life, including living in a fashionable part of town, providing the "pull" away from downtown. The huge estate of John J. Albright, the industrialist who for whom the Albright-Knox Museum is named, was on W. Ferry between Delaware and Elmwood. The 600' brick fence, with its center gate and two service gates, can still be seen on the north side of W. Ferry, although Tudor Place now cuts through it. The lot ran from W. Ferry all the way back to Cleveland (700'), with a house designed by Green and Wicks, and landscaped by Olmsted.Developers subdivided the space in each block into the long narrow lots , so characteristic of Buffalo. In this neighborhood, the lots were laid out in three different sizes (70' street frontage on W. Ferry, Richmond, and Lafayette, 45' on Ashland and Norwood, and 30' on side streets), guaranteeing some mix of house sizes and social status.
Since the lots were laid out before building started, the types of houses that could be constructed were restricted. Despite the restrictions, owners chose from the wide variety of styles that were popular simultaneously. The neighborhood is dominated by variants of the "Queen Anne" style, which was well suited to the narrow lots and was easily adapted to different tastes (e.g., 601 W. Ferry and 533 Auburn).
The Neoclassical style, which became popular after the World's Columbia Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and is itself an amalgamation of earlier Georgian, Adam, Early Classical Revival and Greek Revival traditions, is well represented by 580 W. Ferry.
The Shingle Style, which aims for a smooth surface that unified the irregular shape of the house, is shown in 529 Norwood. The Stick Style is illustrated by 609 Ashland and 542 Norwood.
The Colonial Revival Style, which we mainly associate with 1950s suburbs, actually dates from the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. In 1877, the architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White toured New England to study original Georgian and Adam style buildings, and then designed several landmark buildings in the style in the 1880s. This style is illustrated by 33 and 35 Colonial Circle.
Commercial structures were kept out the residential part of the neighborhood, and restricted to Elmwood, where they remain today. There are none of the corner stores and bars that still characterize older neighborhoods closer to downtown. The middle and upper classes wanted their homes to provide their families a sanctuary from all of the problems of urban life, and since they had servants to shop for them, not having a store at every intersection was not considered an inconvenience.
This neighborhood was also one of the first to be developed with municipally provided sewerage and water built into each house, a critical public health development to prevent the cholera and typhoid epidemics that had swept through Buffalo on a regular basis.
The breadwinners still worked downtown almost exclusively. Elsworth Statler made his fortune by providing lunch to business people who could no longer go home for the noon break, and other new service industries grew up to meet the needs of the commuters.
The next step of moving businesses and professional offices out to the "suburbs" soon followed, giving us the pattern of decentralized cities we see today. Another major technological development of the turn of the century, the telephone, also helped make this possible by removing the need to be within messenger distance of all of one's colleagues.
The suburban development of Buffalo can be illustrated by the history of the family that built my house on Breckenridge. He was a type setter for the Courier, a skilled trade at that time, and in 1880 lived on Carolina Street about three blocks from the site of City Hall and within a block of the Courier printing plant. In 1889, the family built the house on Breckenridge. By 1915, they had moved to the Riverside area, made accessible by the Belt Line railroad that circled Buffalo. The descendants of the family now live in Orchard Park, continuing a trend of moving into outlying areas that became more accessible.
As we struggle with the issues of suburban flight and urban redevelopment, it is useful to remember that these are not new issues. Buffalo's "glory years" coincided with the development of the social, transportation, and economic mechanisms needed to make possible the pattern of life we now take for granted.
