I thought I would get back into posting neighborhood slideshow tours. These slideshow posts are the best way to show off the city's architectural grandeur because they show buildings in context. Great cities are not composed solely of masterpieces but are mostly made up of simple, everyday, high quality buildings that work together creating great space for human activity. One of these great places is Buffalo's West Village.
The West Village neighborhood occupies a small wedge of streets between the Lower West Side and Downtown. It is possibly Buffalo's oldest neighborhood and is also possibly one of the most important neighborhood efforts to restore the city's health. The neighborhood was originally laid out as the Village of Black Rock. Its street grid hits streets laid out for the Village of New Amsterdam (later Buffalo) at an angle creating interesting urban accidents of geometry. The focal point of the neighborhood is Johnson Park. I believe that this was Buffalo's first park (home site of Buffalo's first Mayor). The park was later redesigned by Olmsted. It is bordered by a wonderful collection of Victorians along with a couple of apartment buildings and the newly renovated Hutch Tech High School. For more on Johnson Park and the West Village, go here.
The West Village is densely filled with an architecturally diverse collection of buildings. At the same time, the neighborhood has a real sense of unity. As a neighborhood, it is unique in Buffalo because it is almost completely composed of brick. In spite of being in the shadow of downtown high rises and in direct relationship to a highly impoverished neighborhood, this part of the city is remarkably intact. In fact it is the only intact 19th century neighborhood remaining that directly borders downtown. For this reason it is very important to Buffalo's growth. Cities need dense neighborhoods to feed their prosperity and cities with lively downtown districts always have direct relationships to unique and prosperous neighborhoods. The West Village can be a bulwark to spread growth into the lower west side. The continued renewal of the West Village combined with similar renewal in the Kleinhans neighborhood a few blocks north offers potential to create a critical mass of prosperity in Buffalo's inner city core.
Today, the West Village has been making steady progress toward being a premier place to live in Buffalo. Dedicated residents have been diligent in fighting the effects of concentrated poverty in and around the neighborhood. They have worked to restore Johnson Park and have fought the relentless and destructive force of poorly managed rental properties. Though the challenges are many, they pale in comparison to past years when the state planned a highway connection at the north edge of the area and when few realized or cared about the historic and architectural significance of the neighborhood. In past decades the West Village suffered all the ills of other aging inner city neighborhoods used as holding pens for poverty. Early urban developers in the 1970's saw potential in the area and began simple renovations of several of the small apartment buildings. They were developed as affordable housing but probably saved this important piece of Buffalo heritage. Restoration of many single-family homes soon followed. In 1980 the neighborhood was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, many new high profile developments have been completed or are on-going in the vicinity. The new Avant building promises to bring million-dollar plus apartments to the eastern edge of the neighborhood. This all bodes well for the West Village and the city. So with that, please enjoy the slideshow, but try and walk these streets in person. These pictures don't do this part of the city justice.
The music included here is by Sam Beam of Iron and Wine with Calexico. It took
many listens before it failed to bring a tear to my eye. Thankfully, this music
is not representative of the current state of this neighborhood.
Very nice. Love the music. Thank you for doing this.