Architecture of Buffalo Voyage Tips and guide

Buffalo is renowned for its exquisite and well-preserved architecture. As of 2020, there are 23 historic neighborhoods in Buffalo that have been recognized by either the National Register of Historic Places or the Buffalo Preservation Board, at least partly for reasons of architectural importance. Buffalo's architecture took center stage when the 2011 National Preservation Conference was held in the city. Buildings from almost every decade of Buffalo's existence are preserved. An enormous wealth of information about Buffalo's rich architectural heritage is available at the award-winning website, Buffalo Architecture and History.

Four of Buffalo's neighborhoods recognized by either the National Register of Historic Places or the Buffalo Preservation Board in downtown:

• The 42.889474-78.8698311 Genesee Gateway Local Historic District. A row of seven buildings on the south side of Genesee Street between Ellicott and Oak Streets, at the east end of the business district just past the terminus of the Kensington Expressway, this district is the aptly named "gateway" to downtown. These two-, three-, and four-story brick buildings were built mostly in the final quarter of the 19th century in styles popular at the time, and represent the most intact period streetscape remaining in Buffalo's business district. Thankfully, after years of neglect and talk of demolition, these properties have been thoroughly renovated as office, retail, and restaurant space. (updated Sep 2017)
• The 42.884455-78.8775262 Joseph Ellicott Local Historic District. encompasses the blocks surrounding Niagara Square, as well as most of the area between Church and Seneca Streets west of Oak Street. The Joseph Ellicott Historic District preserves the nucleus of Ellicott's original street plan for the village of Buffalo, which remains substantially intact, and contains historic buildings in diverse architectural styles from all eras of Buffalo's history — from the Greek Revival-style Title Guarantee Building (110 Franklin St., 1833) through to the Gothic St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral (128 Pearl St., 1849) and Erie County Hall (96 Franklin St., 1871), the Italianate Main-Seneca Building (237 Main St., 1913), the Art Deco Walter Mahoney State Office Building (65 Court St., 1932), and the striking postmodern Robert H. Jackson U.S. Courthouse (2 Niagara Squ., 2011), to name just a few. (updated Sep 2017)
• The 42.887973-78.8729643 500 Block of Main Local Historic District. Also known as the Main-Genesee Local Historic District, the 500 Block is bounded by Main, Genesee, East Huron, Washington, and Mohawk Streets. This block chronicles the development of Buffalo's business district from the mid-19th Century to the early 20th Century, consisting mostly of low-rise brick commercial buildings in vernacular interpretations of Greek Revival, Renaissance Revival, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco styles. The small scale of these buildings, which generally rise to no more than three or four stories in height, hearkens back to the appearance of the downtown business district before the construction of gargantuan skyscrapers like the Tishman Building and Fountain Plaza began altering the character of this stretch of Main Street in the middle 20th Century. (updated Sep 2017)
• The 42.892772-78.8720464 Theater Local Historic District. Centered on Main Street and bounded by Chippewa, Pearl, Edward, Goodell, and Washington Streets, also including the former Buffalo Courier-Express Building at the northeast corner of Main and Goodell Streets, the Theater Historic District is not only significant as Buffalo's traditional and enduring entertainment district, which has been given a new lease on life, but also for the architectural grandeur of its buildings, most of which were constructed around the turn of the century in the Beaux-Arts Neoclassical style and feature exquisitely detailed terra cotta decoration. Examples include the Pierce Building (651 Main St.), the Alleyway Theatre (672 Main St.; quite unlike the others, this was constructed in 1941 in the Streamline Moderne style), the Perron Building (674 Main St.), the Market Arcade (617 Main St.), and the centerpiece of the district, Shea's Performing Arts Center (646 Main St.) (updated Sep 2017)

In addition to these historic districts, among the many individual buildings in downtown Buffalo of architectural significance are the...

• 42.88662-78.879335 Buffalo City Hall, 65 Niagara Square, ☏ +1 716-851-4200. M-F 8AM-5PM. The second-tallest building in Buffalo and one of the world's finest examples of Art Deco architecture. The Buffalo City Hall Observation Deck offers unparalleled views over Buffalo and its surroundings, Lake Erie, and Canada. On clear days, the mist from Niagara Falls can be seen over the northern horizon. Guests take the elevator as far as the 25th floor, then ascend a stairwell for the remaining three floors. Free. (updated Apr 2024)
• 42.883134-78.876596 Guaranty Building, 140 Pearl St. (Metro Rail: Church), ☏ +1 716-854-0003. Interpretive center open M-F 8:30AM-5PM or by appointment with Preservation Buffalo Niagara. Erected in 1896, the Guaranty Building was one of the earliest high-rise office buildings in Buffalo, an architectural wonder in ruddy terra cotta designed by the "Father of the Skyscraper" himself, Louis Sullivan. With breathtaking vertical lines, exquisite Art Nouveau ornamentation all over the façade, and a design that is a near-perfect embodiment of the "form follows function" credo, the building was for many years the headquarters of the Buffalo Prudential Insurance Company (hence its alternate name, the Prudential Building) and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1975. There's an interpretive center in the northeast corner of the lobby with exhibits on Sullivan and his partner, Dankmar Adler, the building's history and architecture, and the history of its current occupant, the law firm of Hodgson Russ, now the oldest continually operating business in Buffalo. Guided tours are also offered by appointment. (updated Jan 2017)
• 42.882926-78.8760917 St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral, 128 Pearl St. (Metro Rail: Church), ☏ +1 716-855-0900. Services Su 8AM & 10AM, M-F 12:05PM. The seat of the Episcopal Diocese of Western New York, St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral is the most architecturally distinguished church in Buffalo — built by Richard Upjohn in 1849 to replace an earlier structure built on the same site, the church has been named a National Historic Landmark, the U.S. government's highest level of recognition for a man-made structure, and it was the tallest building in Buffalo until 1912.  

There are three in Allentown and the Delaware District that will be of especial interest to architecture buffs:

• The 42.898916-78.8753528 Allentown Historic District. North of downtown lies the first Buffalo neighborhood to be listed on the National Register, with history that dates back to the middle and late 19th century. It's characterized by small but lovely two-story brick houses in the Italianate, Gothic Revival, Second Empire, and other typical styles of the time. Among Allentown's most architecturally exquisite buildings are the Allendale Theatre and the seven houses that make up the Tiffts Row, both of which are on Allen Street; the William Dorsheimer House on Delaware Avenue, and the former Buffalo Catholic Institute building on Main and Virginia Streets that is now home to the Church of Scientology. (updated Sep 2017)
• The 42.905787-78.871979 Delaware Avenue Historic District. Though there's period architecture to be found along the whole length of Delaware Avenue, the listed district consists of the stretch between North and Bryant Streets, dubbed "Millionaire's Row". The opulence of Millionaire's Row testifies to the fact that Buffalo once had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the U.S. Most of the mansions have since been converted to office space for local corporations and not-for-profit groups. Among the many mansions along this stretch of Delaware Avenue are the Butler Mansion (at #672), the Clement Mansion (at #786, now the local chapter of the American Red Cross), the Richmond-Lockwood House (at #844), and the Charles W. Goodyear House (at #888). (updated Sep 2017)

• The 42.909386-78.86875310 Linwood Local Historic District. This district consists of the blocks bounded by Linwood Avenue, North Street, Delaware Avenue, and West Ferry Street, as well as the corresponding properties on the opposite sides of Linwood and West Ferry, and the properties on the opposite side of Delaware north of Bryant Street. Like the adjacent Millionaire's Row, Linwood Avenue rose to prominence after the Civil War as a playground of Buffalo's rapidly growing aristocracy, who built mansions there in a setting that was and is bucolic yet distinctly urban; unlike Millionaire's Row, the majority of the old houses in the Linwood Historic District are still used as private residences. Substantial wood-frame houses in the Colonial Revival, Queen Anne, Shingle, and other turn-of-the-century styles are the rule here; these include the Charles R. Huntley House (#440 Linwood Avenue), the unusual Henry Crane House (#420), and the Albert J. Wright House (#242). (updated Sep 2017)

Forest Lawn Cemetery is also the site of a mausoleum designed by renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright:

• 42.922962-78.86258411 Blue-Sky Mausoleum, 1411 Delaware Ave. (in Section 15 of Forest Lawn Cemetery, accessible from Delaware Avenue or Main Street entrance; Metro Bus 11, 18, 25, 26 or 29; Metro Rail: Delavan-Canisius College), ☏ +1 716-885-1600. Daily 8AM-5PM, summer until 7PM. Forest Lawn Cemetery, whose vast, manicured green space full of sprawling shade trees and songbirds was one of his favorite places in Buffalo, is the site of the mausoleum Frank Lloyd Wright planned some time between 1925 and 1928 as the final resting place of his friend and benefactor, Darwin D. Martin. Though Martin's fortune was obliterated by the great stock market crash of 1929, the Blue-Sky Mausoleum was completed in 2004 to the original blueprints, and supervised by Anthony Puttnam, an architect trained by Wright himself. An exemplary adaptation of Wright's "organic" Prairie-style architecture, the mausoleum consists of twenty-four double-tier crypts contained in sprawling, horizontal slabs of white Vermont granite embedded into a gently sloping lawn next to Crystal Lake, with a stout monolith crowning its summit. The architect described his design as "a burial facing the open sky — a dignified great headstone commune to all." For exceptionally dedicated admirers of Wright, crypts are available for purchase (call for pricing and other details). As for Martin himself, he died penniless in 1935 and was buried quietly in a different grave in Forest Lawn that was long left unmarked, but was finally adorned with a headstone in 2007 courtesy of the Forest Lawn Heritage Foundation.  

More and more, Buffalo's exquisite and well-preserved architecture has grabbed the attention of locals and tourists alike. However, aside from the resplendent Olmsted park and parkway system that's described in more detail below, the Elmwood Village does not really boast the same caliber of architectural treasures as can be found in neighboring areas like Allentown and the Delaware District. Elmwood Avenue itself is largely made up of newer commercial storefronts of no architectural distinction; the side streets are characterized by ample two- and three-story wood-frame residences in styles popular just after the turn of the last century, such as the Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Shingle styles, and occasionally in older styles such as Italianate and Romanesque Revival. Though these houses are a good deal less elegant than the ones you'll see in the Delaware District, they're extraordinarily well-preserved — and that architectural integrity, recounting the history of the Elmwood Village as one of Buffalo's first "streetcar suburbs", was the rationale for the creation of the Elmwood West Historic District in December 2012. Comprising essentially the entirety of the Elmwood Village west of Elmwood Avenue, the Elmwood West Historic District is 275 acres (115 ha) in area, and was by far the largest historic district in Buffalo to be inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places until March 2016, when it eclipsed by the even larger Elmwood East Historic District, a 406-acre (169 ha) expanse on the other side of Elmwood Avenue that shares essentially the same characteristics as its counterpart.

One place in the Elmwood Village where buildings of truly spectacular architectural distinction can be seen is Lincoln Parkway. The mansions located there are on average a few decades newer than the ones on Delaware Avenue's "Millionaire's Row", but no less grand and sumptuous: proud stone sentinels in the Beaux-Arts, Tudor Revival, and Colonial Revival styles standing guard over a tranquil, broad, and verdant thoroughfare just behind the Albright-Knox.

Also located near Lincoln Parkway is the 42.925852-78.87531312 William R. Heath House, at 76 Soldiers Pl. at the south end of the parkway. The Heath House is the first of several houses in Buffalo designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for top executives of the Larkin Soap Company; sadly, unlike its counterpart, North Buffalo's Darwin D. Martin House, the Heath House is privately owned and not open for tours.

Without a doubt the Elmwood Village's greatest architectural treasure, however, is the magnificent Richardson-Olmsted Complex, a Nationally Registered Historic Place and National Historic Landmark located adjacent to Buffalo State College. Situated on 91 acres (36 ha) of land bounded by Elmwood Avenue, Forest Avenue, Rees Street, and Rockwell Road, the Richardson-Olmsted Complex consists of eleven edifices designed in 1870 by architect H. H. Richardson in red Medina sandstone, representing arguably the apex of his signature Richardsonian Romanesque style. The landscaping of the grounds was the work of Frederick Law Olmsted, fresh off the completion of the first phase of Buffalo's park system; a young Stanford White, later a partner in the illustrious New York City firm of McKim, Mead and White, also served as an associate architect on the project. For over a century, the complex was the home of the Buffalo State Hospital, an asylum for mentally ill people whose twin-towered Administration Building still looms 161 feet (49m) over the neighborhood; the Administration Building is flanked by ten residential buildings, five on each side. The operations of the Buffalo Psychiatric Center moved in 1994 to a modern building closer to Elmwood Avenue, leaving the historic buildings vacant; luckily, thanks to the preservation tax breaks available to National Register-listed properties as well as a grant of $100 million from the New York state government, these magnificent buildings are undergoing structural stabilization and thorough rehabilitation with an eye to redevelopment. The Hotel Henry, a luxury boutique hotel and "urban resort", opened in April 2017 in the former Administration Building; additional ideas floated for the reuse of other parts of the complex include a museum dedicated to the distinguished architecture of Buffalo and Western New York.

More and more, Buffalo's exquisite and well-preserved architecture has grabbed the attention of locals and tourists alike. As of March 2020, there are 12 historic neighborhoods in Buffalo listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as 11 additional ones that have been granted landmark status by the Buffalo Preservation Board. Three of those districts are located in North Buffalo:

• The Parkside East Historic District. Bounded by Main Street on its southeast, Humboldt Parkway on its south, Parkside Avenue, Amherst Street and Colvin Avenue on its west, and the Belt Line railroad on its north and northeast, this district comprises pretty much the entirety of the neighborhood Buffalonians know simply as "Parkside". Though located within the city limits, Parkside was one of the first neighborhoods of Buffalo that might be called "suburban"; its architectural significance comes not only from the leafy, curvilinear layout of its streets — as described in the History section, the work of eminent landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted — but also from the large two- and three-story wood-frame houses that occupy those streets, constructed in styles typical of upper-class residential architecture from 1870 through 1930 such as the Queen Anne, Bungalow, Craftsman, and Colonial Revival styles. Prominent among the historic and/or architecturally notable buildings of Parkside include the William Sydney Wicks House at 124 Jewett Parkway, the Walter V. Davidson House at 57 Tillinghast Place, and — of course — the Darwin D. Martin House, described in detail at the end of this section. (updated Sep 2017)
• The Parkside West Historic District. Though it's located in the neighborhood Buffalonians know as Park Meadow, this district is so named because it was originally intended by Frederick Law Olmsted as a western extension to Parkside. The neighborhood is much newer than Parkside — no meaningful development occurred there until after the Pan-American Exposition, with most houses in the area constructed between 1920 and the beginning of World War II — and the degree to which the motley patchwork of real estate companies that developed the neighborhood kept to Olmsted's original plan is inconsistent (especially the further you get from Delaware Park). Thus, the Parkside West Historic District is not nearly as significant for its landscape design as for the architecture of the buildings themselves — the neighborhood is a veritable showcase for some of Buffalo's best examples of aristocratic mansions in styles popular during the interwar period, such as the French Château, Tudorbethan, and Colonial Revival. These include the Howard Kellogg House at 12 Middlesex Road, the Mary Goodyear House at 115 Meadow Road, and the breathtaking Annie Lang Miller House at 175 Nottingham Terrace. (updated Sep 2017)
• The 42.956407-78.8234113 University Park Historic District. Located on 45 acres (18 ha) of land in University Heights, bounded roughly by Main Street, Capen Boulevard, Kenmore Avenue, and the rear property line of the houses on the west side of University Avenue, University Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011 as part of the Suburban Development of Buffalo, New York multiple-property submission - and it is indeed distinctly suburban in character; a remarkably intact example of a planned residential subdivision of the 1910s and '20s, complete with ornate entrance gates of the same type that can be found along Main Street in the adjacent early suburbs of Eggertsville and Snyder. The attraction of University Park for architecture buffs is not the presence of any outstanding individual buildings (though the Edward Diebolt House at 62 Niagara Falls Boulevard was listed separately on the National Register in 2006), but rather the leafy, verdant streetscape, designed as a quiet respite from the bustle of city life, as well as the homogeneity of its housing stock, which consists of single-family Colonial Revival, Craftsman, American Foursquare, and Bungalow homes which, though stylistically similar, are somewhat less ornate and more modest in size than the houses of Parkside. (updated Sep 2017)

Additionally, though it is not listed on either the local, state or national historic registers, another neighborhood that's noteworthy for aficionados of history and architecture is 42.956407-78.8234114 Central Park. This neighborhood immediately north of Parkside, across the Belt Line tracks, was laid out beginning in 1890 by Lewis Bennett, who worked his way up from canal boat repairman to owner of the immense Bennett Limestone Quarry, which was located just across Main Street in the East Side neighborhood now known as Highland Park, Central Park's streets are filled with some of the finest housing stock in Buffalo. Examples include the Bayliss-Oishei House at 360 Depew Avenue, the old Central Park Station, the only former station of the Belt Line railroad still standing, at 10 Starin Avenue, and the Edward Barcalo House at 371 Depew Avenue (yes, the man who invented the Barcalounger). (updated Sep 2017)

Parkside is also the home of what is undoubtedly the premier attraction in Buffalo for architecture buffs:

• 42.936335-78.8481115 Darwin D. Martin House Complex, 125 Jewett Pkwy. (Metro Bus 8 or 11; Metro Rail: Amherst Street), ☏ +1 716-856-3858. Basic Tours leave M W Sa 11AM, noon, & 1PM; Su 12:30PM, 1PM & 1:30PM; In-Depth Tours leave M W F Sa 11AM, Su 12:30PM. The most important work of the first half of Frank Lloyd Wright's career, and the first commission for that renowned architect outside of Chicago, the Darwin D. Martin Complex is one of the crown jewels of Buffalo's huge architectural cornucopia. The complex includes not only the Darwin D. Martin House itself — built in 1904-05 for the president of the Larkin Soap Company and Wright's longtime friend and benefactor — but also the George Barton House, where Martin's daughter and son-in-law lived, the Gardener's Cottage, and three buildings — a carriage house, conservatory and pergola — which were demolished in 1962 and reconstructed according to Wright's original blueprints in 2007, the first Frank Lloyd Wright buildings ever to be rebuilt after demolition. Following over half a century of neglect, vandalism, and decay, the complex was purchased by the Martin House Restoration Corporation in 1994, with the extensive restoration process finally completed in 2010. For many local residents, the rebirth of the Darwin D. Martin House symbolizes the increased attention Buffalo's citizens are paying to their city's world-class architecture. A one-hour Basic Tour is offered, as well as a more extensive two-hour In-Depth Tour. Basic tour $15, $13 seniors, $10 students, members free; In-Depth Tours $30, $28 seniors, $25 students and members.  

The Darwin Martin House is not the only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in North Buffalo. Another one, the 42.942056-78.85385916 Walter V. Davidson House, can also be found in Parkside. Located at 57 Tillinghast Place in the northwest extremity of the neighborhood, the Davidson House was designed for its namesake, who was an executive at the Larkin Company between 1906 and 1913, thereafter founding the Davidson Shoe Company. Though it's noticeably smaller and more unassuming than the Darwin Martin House — the smaller budget Wright worked with in constructing the Davidson House was perhaps a forerunner of the "Usonian" houses he designed for middle-class clients toward the end of his career — its modest scale belies a stunning two-story living room dominated by a massive bay window at its east end. Sadly, the Walter Davidson House is privately owned and not open for tours.

More and more, Buffalo's exquisite and well-preserved architecture has grabbed the attention of locals and tourists alike. As of March 2020, there are 12 historic neighborhoods in Buffalo listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as 11 additional ones that have been granted landmark status by the Buffalo Preservation Board. Five of those districts are located on the West Side:

• 42.900515-78.88676717 Fargo Estate Historic District. Covering an irregularly-shaped expanse of 49 acres (20 ha) on the south slope of Prospect Hill bounded very roughly by Prospect Avenue, Hudson Street, Normal Avenue, York Street, and Porter Avenue, the Fargo Estate Historic District is situated right next door to the Allentown Historical District, with which it shares some similarities especially in terms of architecture. The district's namesake is the opulent country manor that once occupied two and a half of these blocks — home to William Fargo, a onetime Buffalo mayor and millionaire shipping magnate who went down in history as co-founder of Wells, Fargo & Co. — but the Fargo Estate itself was short-lived, existing only for two decades before Fargo's heirs subdivided the land into residential lots around 1890. What you'll see here now is a tract of two- and three-story wood-frame or brick houses that date to between roughly 1880 and 1930 and were once home to a middle-class Italian-American community; one of the most historically intact residential neighborhoods on the West Side. Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne, and Colonial Revival styles dominate, along with some later styles such as Craftsman and American Foursquare. Today, it's the intactness of the period streetscape, more so than any individual buildings, that's at the heart of the Fargo Estate's appeal to fans of architecture and urban design. However, if you're interested in seeing some neighborhood historical and architectural landmarks, you can head to the former Plymouth Methodist Episcopal Church at 453 Porter Ave., built in 1911 and now home to the Karpeles Manuscript Library, or the lovely Second Empire-style Engine No. 2 and Hook and Ladder No. 9 fire house (1875, 310 Jersey St.) Another facet of the district's history is exemplified by Life Memorial Park at the corner of Porter and Normal Avenues, a pleasant garden established in 1992 in commemoration of local victims of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. (updated Nov 2017)
• 42.934943-78.90063418 Market Square Historic District. This small historic district is centered on the three blocks of Amherst Street between Niagara and Tonawanda Streets, represents what was originally the village center of Lower Black Rock; the wide grassy esplanade flanking each side of Amherst Street's westernmost block, now filled with historic monuments and interpretive panels, was once the site of a large public market gifted to the village by its founder, Peter Porter. In contrast to what was once called Upper Black Rock, which became heavily industrialized after annexation and grew into an integral part of the city, Lower Black Rock retained its independent spirit and, even in the present day, still has the look and feel of a small village. The architecture of the buildings here — which include some of the oldest extant houses in Buffalo — comprises fine examples of such styles as the Italianate, Queen Anne, Greek Revival, and Federal. The red-brick Gothic St. John's United Evangelical Church (81 Amherst St., 1890), the Federal-style Jacob Schmidt House and Tavern and Stephen W. Howell House and Store (71 Amherst St. and 189 Dearborn St. respectively, both c. 1830), and the gargantuan St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church (161 East St., 1912) are some of the historic sites to be found in the Market Square Historic District. (updated Nov 2017)
• 42.903307-78.89571919 Prospect Hill Historic District. Located on the waterfront near the foot of the Peace Bridge at the west end of the larger neighborhood with which it shares its name, the Prospect Hill Historic District is a 21-acre (8.5ha), five-block cluster of single- and two-family homes bounded roughly by Busti Avenue, Rhode Island Street, Niagara Street, Columbus Parkway, 7th Street, and Porter Avenue. The houses in the district span a relatively long period of history — from the 1850s through the 1950s, roughly — during which time Prospect Hill's evolution from a proto-suburban scattering of houses and small farms on the outskirts of town to a well-off inner-city neighborhood populated by the upper crust of Buffalo's Italian-American community was set into motion largely by Frederick Law Olmsted's park system, the far western reaches of which — Front Park, Porter Avenue, and Prospect Park — abut the district. Though it held up to Buffalo's late 20th-century decline better than most West Side neighborhoods and remains a desirable address today, sadly, the majority of Prospect Hill's most historic buildings have been lost to the wrecking ball over time — notably, the castlelike Fort Porter (built in 1844 at the north end of Front Park and used by the military as a customs and guard house) and the Tuscan villa-style Colonel Samuel Wilkeson House (c. 1863, once located at 771 Busti Ave.) were demolished for two separate expansions of the Peace Bridge plaza, in 1926 and 2013 respectively. However, the district still contains a number of handsome homes in a wide variety of architectural styles. (updated Nov 2017)
• 42.918824-78.89928820 Upper Black Rock Local Historic District. Comprising the buildings on either side of Niagara Street between Breckenridge Street and Lafayette Avenue, as well as the adjacent buildings to the west on Mason Street, this is a remarkably intact period streetscape that dates from the years between 1885 and 1915, when the Upper Rock was a buzzing industrial district at the crossroads of numerous methods of transportation — the old warehouses and factory buildings on the west side of the street back up directly onto the New York Central Railroad tracks and what was once the Erie Canal, while the east side of the street is characterized by houses and storefronts serving the working-class residents of the neighborhood. Some of the buildings you'll see in the Upper Black Rock Historic District are the former Sterling Engine Company (1246-1270 Niagara St.), built in 1907 and now redeveloped as the home of Resurgence Brewery, and the old Union Meeting House (44 Breckenridge St.), which predates all other buildings in the district as the oldest extant church building in Buffalo, erected in 1827. (updated Nov 2017)
• 42.892253-78.87922121 West Village Historic District. Much like the Fargo Estate Historic District, the West Village is a period residential neighborhood located on the site of what was once a large private estate: in this case, that of Buffalo's first mayor, Dr. Ebenezer Johnson, which was sold to developers after he left town in 1850. The West Village is the closest part of the West Side to downtown — 22 acres (9 ha) bounded by South Elmwood Avenue, Tracy Street, Carolina Street, Whitney Place, and West Chippewa Street — and it contains a veritable encyclopedia of late-19th Century architectural styles, with the Italianate, French Second Empire, Romanesque Revival, and Gothic Revival all well-represented. In addition, the single-family dwellings that dominated the neighborhood through the 1800s were joined around the turn of the century by a few handsome brownstone apartment buildings. As with the Fargo Estate district, the appeal of the West Village doesn't have as much to do with individual buildings as with its overarching identity as an unusually intact example of an attractive mid-19th Century residential district — as well as its street pattern, where the radial avenues laid out by Joseph Ellicott in Buffalo meet the diagonally-tilted old South Black Rock gridiron in an irregular labyrinth centered on Johnson Park, deeded to the city by the former mayor on what was once the site of his front lawn and redesigned by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1876. Nonetheless, the Gothic Revival Prospect Avenue Baptist Church at 262 Prospect Ave. (corner of Georgia St.), built in 1867 and enlarged in 1881, is a real beauty. (updated Nov 2017)

Prospect Hill is also home to one of the Niagara Frontier's six Frank Lloyd Wright buildings:

• 42.900635-78.90187822 Fontana Boathouse, 40 Porter Ave. (Metro Bus 22), ☏ +1 716-362-3140. Open for tours (Apr-Sep: check website for schedule, Oct-Mar: by appointment only). The only boathouse ever designed by the eminent Frank Lloyd Wright, the Charles and Marie Fontana Boathouse has perhaps the most unusual history of any of Buffalo's Wright buildings. Designed in 1905 (contemporaneously with Wright's most famous Buffalo commissions, the lost Larkin Administration Building and the very-much-alive Darwin D. Martin House), it was intended to be built for the University of Wisconsin Boat Club in Madison, but was instead built in Buffalo — in 2007, over a century after Wright's design was finalized — and only thanks to the dogged efforts of a local group of Wright aficionados financed largely by Buffalo-born screenwriter Tom Fontana. The only alteration to the original design was the replacement of the stucco on the exterior walls with concrete. The Fontana Boathouse does double duty today as both the working boathouse of the West Side Rowing Club and a destination for the growing legion of architectural tourists who come to Buffalo to see the works of Wright and other greats. It's also available to rent for private events. Tours $10.  

South Buffalo's main contribution to Buffalo's rich architectural heritage is the grain elevators of the former industrial district. It was in Buffalo where Joseph Dart built the first grain elevator in 1843, and today Elevator Alley is still the largest single collection of grain elevators in the world. Long derided as eyesores, these rock-solid monoliths were saved from the wrecking ball largely by virtue of how expensive it would have been to demolish them. These days, though, Buffalonians have taken to embracing their scrappy industrial history, with grain elevators being repurposed for a variety of uses.

As well, South Buffalo contains a number of neighborhoods that are interesting to fans of historic architecture. In the entire city, there are 12 historic districts listed on the National Register of Historic Places as well as 11 additional ones that have been granted landmark status by the Buffalo Preservation Board, and although only two of them are located in South Buffalo, there are also a couple of "unofficial" ones that are notable.

• Slightly over 13 acres (5.3 ha) in size, the Cobblestone Local Historic District is bounded by Perry Street, Columbia Street, South Park Avenue, and Illinois Street, and also includes the two blocks of Michigan Avenue north of the Buffalo River, where the historic fireboat Edward M. Cotter is docked. Dating to the 1820s and '30s, in its day this was one of the nation's nastiest slums, populated by poor Irish industrial laborers and crisscrossed with a network of man-made shipping lanes that radiated out from the harbor, by which factories received raw materials shipped across the Great Lakes or sent finished products on their way to market via the Erie Canal. The neighborhood began to decline in importance around the turn of the century, when the canals were filled in, and as the Irish, with newfound political and social clout, gradually became well-off enough to move to the much safer, still-semirural lands south of the Buffalo River. The Cobblestone District's main attraction to history buffs today are the streets themselves — many are still paved with the granite blocks that gave the neighborhood its name, brought over as ballast in the hulls of lake freighters and discarded at port. As for the buildings in between, most of them have been demolished, with the exception of a collection of 19th- and early 20th-century brick industrial buildings between Illinois and Mississippi Streets (anchored by the Bendin Building, a five-story warehouse at 95 Perry Street) that are now being actively restored as bars, restaurants, office space, and loft apartments.
• Though it's not yet been named to any historic register, The Triangle is a charming expanse of turn-of-the-century homes that's well worth a visit for architecture fans. The district is aptly named: the classic boundaries of The Triangle are South Park Avenue on the northeast, Amber Street on the south, and Hopkins Street on the west, though the streets west of Heacock Park on the other side of South Park Avenue share essentially the same identity. The Triangle started out as rural farmland belonging to Reuben Heacock, a wealthy banker and industrialist, but its history really began in the 1890s, when Frederick Law Olmsted was called back to Buffalo to design a southern extension to his park system. At the time, urban development in South Buffalo lagged far behind the rest of the city, from which it was separated not only by the Buffalo River but also a series of busy railroad tracks — and in wet weather, the swamps around the riverbanks would often flood, cutting off what few roads led north. Before beginning his work, Olmsted stated that city leaders needed to make South Buffalo more easily accessible from the rest of the city and to mitigate the constant flooding problems. The city responded by building more streets and dredging the river into a concrete channel, and as soon as Olmsted's park system opened, The Triangle began developing into a classic turn-of-the-century "streetcar suburb" with South Park Avenue as its main shopping street. Today, the side streets of The Triangle are dominated by homes that date from the 1890s to the 1930s and reflect the architectural fashions of that period: wood-frame houses in the Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Craftsman, and American Foursquare styles, many of which were partially prefabricated "kit houses" available through mail-order catalogs. Peppered among them are a few larger buildings, including some fairly impressive churches, Holy Family Catholic Church at 1887 South Park Avenue and St. Jude's Episcopal Church at 124 Macamley Street among them.

• Proposed for the National Register of Historic Places, the Larkin Local Historic District is centered on the corner of Seneca and Swan Streets, in a part of Buffalo once known as The Hydraulics. Named for the Hydraulic Canal, built in 1828 by local entrepreneur Reuben Heacock, this was supposed to be one of the foremost industrial districts in the world — but the canal was only big enough to support a few tanneries, slaughterhouses, and other industries. Luckily, The Hydraulics' proximity to the railroads preserved its importance as a center of industry even after the canal was filled in, and it soon came to be dominated by the Larkin Company, a mail-order giant whose huge campus of factory buildings was centered around its beautiful Administration Building, designed by Darwin Martin's close friend Frank Lloyd Wright. The company went out of business in 1943, wracked by the effects of the Great Depression combined with a decline in popularity of catalog sales, but most of Larkinville's buildings (with the notable exception of Wright's Administration Building; see below) still stand and, in many cases, have been renovated and restored for offices. These include the gargantuan Larkin Factory Complex at 701 Seneca Street and Terminal Warehouse Building at 726 Exchange Street; the U Building at 239 Van Rensselaer Street, which now houses offices, and the Kamman Building at 755 Seneca Street, now the home of a local architectural firm. At the center of it all is 42.876316-78.84958523 Larkin Square, with pleasant greenery, restaurants and food trucks, and frequent special events.

• 42.877248-78.85184924 Remains of the Larkin Administration Building, between Swan Street and Seneca Street adjacent to the New York Central Railroad tracks (Metro Bus 15 or 18). The last remnant of the Larkin Administration Building is this 20-foot (6-m) brick and sandstone exterior wall. Built in 1906, the Administration Building was the most majestic Frank Lloyd Wright building in Buffalo and the prototypical adaptation of his favored Prairie Style to a large office building. Five stories tall and faced in dark red sandstone brick adorned with bas-relief sculptures and with two waterfall-like fountains flanking the entrance, the building consisted of offices arranged around the perimeter, with balconies looking onto a central court. The Administration Building's interior walls were of hard cream-colored brick with accents in Greek magnesite, and it boasted a state-of-the-art ventilation system and lighting and electrical fixtures designed by Wright. After the Larkin Company's bankruptcy in 1943, the Administration Building was left abandoned and decaying, and was eventually purchased by a trucking company who demolished it in 1950 to make room for a parking lot. The wall was restored in 2003; adjacent to it is an interpretive plaque with information on Larkin Company history and Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural legacy in Buffalo.  

For the architecture buff, the East Side's main claim to fame are the magnificent churches that pepper the landscape liberally. These palatial edifices represent styles popular in the second half of the 19th century: Gothic, Romanesque, and Renaissance Revival (with the "Polish Cathedral" style of floor plan especially common in the dense cluster of churches around Broadway-Fillmore), and serve as relics of the East Side's bygone days as home to populous and prosperous communities of Catholics from Germany, Poland, and elsewhere. While some of the churches carry on as active parishes and some have been sold off to outside buyers and repurposed for various uses, others remain vacant and deteriorating, with uncertain futures ahead of them. See the Historic Churches of Buffalo's East Side tour for more information about these architectural treasures.

Leaving aside monumental structures of the most obvious historical notability, such as the churches and the Central Terminal (described below), the preservation movement took far longer to take root on the East Side than elsewhere in the city. It was not until well into the 21st century when meaningful efforts to preserve the district's architectural heritage began, by which point many if not most of its historic buildings had already been lost. Still today, out of the 23 historic districts in Buffalo that are recognized by either the National Register of Historic Places or the Buffalo Preservation Board, only four of them are found on the East Side, despite the fact that it comprises nearly half the city's land area — and it's interesting to note that three of those (the Broadway-Fillmore, High Street, and Michigan-Sycamore Local Historic Districts) were established not proactively, in recognition of their historic integrity in a more general sense, but rather reactively, as the results of grassroots community efforts to rescue specific buildings against the already-impending demolition plans of local developers.

• 42.893381-78.83749525 Broadway-Fillmore Local Historic District. On the East Side, the designation of historic districts is generally not so much intended as a stimulus for restoration than as a preventative measure (often a last-ditch one) to forestall the imminent destruction of the historic built environment. The Broadway-Fillmore Local Historic District, an irregularly-shaped expanse of 70 acres (28 ha) centered around the corner of the two namesake streets and also encompassing the few blocks east of the Broadway Market, is a textbook example of this, chosen in part because it's a relatively dense cluster of period buildings amidst an East Side that's more and more succumbing to the plague of vacant lots. Of course the neighborhood is rich in historical and architectural importance too: the houses and commercial buildings here represent a mix of 19th- and early 20th-century styles and together tell two different stories: that of the vibrant Polish-American community that it was once at the heart of, and the devastation wrought on that community by the post-World War II trends of suburbanization and economic stagnation. Some of the most prominent ones you'll see here are the magnificent Beaux-Arts style Union Stockyards Bank (1910) at 949 Broadway, the Streamline Moderne building across the street at 950 Broadway (1940) that was home to Eckhardt's and later Kobacker's department stores, the humble but handsome Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle (1895) at 612 Fillmore Avenue, and the majestic Corpus Christi RC Church (1909) at 199 Clark Street. (updated Mar 2019)
• 42.92124-78.85172726 Hamlin Park Historic District. The United States' largest residential preservation district with a majority-black population, Hamlin Park is an attractive middle-class area that's listed on both the national and local historic registers — it's a triangle bounded by East Ferry Street on the south, Main Street on the northwest, and Humboldt Parkway on the northeast (the locally listed portion includes only what's east of Jefferson Avenue). The neighborhood is divided into two parts: the northern half is the older one, dating to about 1890, with curvilinear streets as an imitation of the Olmsted-designed streetscape in nearby Parkside. The southern half was the site of the Buffalo Driving Park, a racetrack owned by Cicero Hamlin (hence the neighborhood's name) that closed in 1912 and became a residential neighborhood thereafter, with the more-or-less gridiron street pattern that's common to the rest of the East Side. By the 1920s, the streets of Hamlin Park were filled with handsome pattern-book houses in the Craftsman, Bungalow, and American Foursquare styles, home to a population of middle-class Germans as well as Jews who migrated north from the Ellicott District. As well, in 1912, the new campus of Canisius College was built on Main Street and, over the next decades, came to dominate the northern half of the neighborhood. Today, despite the destruction of its main thoroughfare, Humboldt Parkway, Hamlin Park has preserved its historic integrity remarkably well: it has almost none of the abandonment, blight and vacant lots that plague other East Side areas. Its significance today for architecture buffs has more to do with the period streetscape as a whole rather than any individual building, though the Stone Farmhouse at 60 Hedley Place, dating to about 1850, is notable as one of only two such houses left within Buffalo's city limits. (updated Dec 2017)
• 42.900287-78.86147827 High Street Local Historic District. Located in the Fruit Belt — a neighborhood that's on the cusp of radical change thanks to the presence on its western flank of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Corridor, a huge engine of the region's emerging high-tech economy that will employ some 17,000 people when complete — Buffalo's smallest historic district comprises three properties on both sides of High Street between Maple and Mulberry Streets. The buildings that make up the district are the former High Street Baptist Church at 215 High Street, built in 1883 and now home to the Promiseland Missionary Baptist Church, a red brick church in a hybrid Romanesque and Gothic style whose stout, angled bell tower has long been a neighborhood landmark; the three-story Italianate at 195 High Street built in 1875 as home to Henry Schirmer's meat market and now the site of the High Street Deli, the oldest continuously operating food market in the city; and the 1871 Meidenbauer-Morgan House at 204 High Street, the long-vacant home of a succession of two local doctors whose planned demolition to make way for a new grocery store was the factor that spurred the historic district's creation. (updated Dec 2017)
• 42.889112-78.86695728 Michigan-Sycamore Local Historic District. This is the smallest historic district in Buffalo, at only a quarter of an acre (1,050 square meters) in area, consisting in its entirety of three adjoining Near East Side properties at the corner of Sycamore Street and Michigan Avenue (hence its name) that represent some of the only remaining pre-Civil War architecture in the vicinity of downtown, yet were under serious threat of demolition at the time the district was created. The Eliza Quirk Boarding House at 72 Sycamore is the most famous of them, built in 1848 as a boardinghouse but named for a subsequent owner, a prominent Buffalo madam; it's now being redeveloped as apartments and office space. For their part, 82 Sycamore Street (c. 1847) was a grocery store and boardinghouse owned by Theodore and Louisa Stover, and 608 Michigan Avenue (c. 1900s or early '10s) was an auto glass shop for many years; they're both vacant today. (updated Mar 2020)

• 42.889639-78.83076829 New York Central Terminal, 495 Paderewski Drive (Metro Bus 4 or 23). Check website for tour schedule. All tours begin at 11AM and last approximately 2-2½ hours. Of all the magnificent train stations built in Buffalo at the height of the railroad era (when it was second only to Chicago as a railway hub), the Central Terminal was the grandest — and today it's the only one left standing. The Central Terminal opened for business a few months before the stock market crash of 1929 and served as the gateway to Buffalo for passengers on the New York Central Railroad (and, later, Amtrak) until 1979, when it was shuttered as a cost-cutting measure. The building spent the next twenty years being passed from owner to owner; by 1997, the year the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation acquired it for $1 plus back taxes, the Terminal had fallen victim to the ravages of vandalism and more than a few harsh Buffalo winters. Despite all that, it's still one of the architectural wonders of Buffalo: an Art Deco masterpiece designed by the New York City firm of Fellheimer & Wagner, the same ones who designed Grand Central Station in Manhattan sixteen years previously, with a tower that rises 272 feet (83 meters) over old Polonia, the tallest building in Buffalo outside of downtown. Today, despite the overwhelming scale of the task at hand, the CTRC has made a good deal of headway in stabilizing and renovating the building. The best way to see the inside of the Central Terminal is on one of the docent-led historical tours (which cover various areas of the passenger concourse and tower, depending on the status of the renovations) that occur once a month from May to September. But if you're not in town for one of those, there are occasional special events held inside the concourse that are open to the public (including a train show and an annual Oktoberfest celebration), and "ghost tours" in the two weeks or so leading up to Halloween are also a hit. Historical tours $15; check website for admission rates to other tours and events.