The Stuff Torn Down Before The Stuff Torn Down.

I picked up a great new book a few weeks ago.  It is a reprint of a book titled "The Picture Book of Earlier Buffalo".  It first came out in 1912 published by the Buffalo Historical Society as the 16th volume of the Buffalo Historical society Publications series.  It is a picture book of earliest Buffalo showing scenes that no longer exist and are recognizable only by the description of location in the text.  The original book was published during a time of massive growth in Buffalo.  That growth in the early 20th century was quickly eliminating remnants of Buffalo's original settlement and canal days.  The photo book was a celebration of both the old city and the one that was quickly replacing it.

The reproduction is unusual in that it is a straight reprint with no introduction or explanation of the book.  At first I was a bit put off by the book.  Almost nothing in it can be traced to anything familiar about Buffalo.  It could have been any city.  But it is not any city that is depicted.  It is Buffalo and as I delved deeper into its text and images it became riveting reading.  The book looks back into the first 100 years of the city, lamenting losses and celebrating advances.  Today, almost 100 years after the original publication it is interesting to see parallels with modern city building and changes.  The new stuff replacing the old back in 1912 is now itself nearing the century mark or more and it now is being removed for something else, though quite often not for the better.  One very interesting chapter titled 'Vanished Main Street' provides a poignant description of the changing city and its neighborhoods which is just as valid today as it was then.



Here are a few lines from the chapter:

"Whoever lives in a city like Buffalo, and gives any heed to the changing countenance of the town, must often be impressed with the declining fortunes of old houses.  The home of the well-to-do resident, built in the 30's or 40's, [that's 1830's, 1840's] was then the pride of a somewhat primitive neighborhood.  Well and honestly put up, it bespoke the dignity of labor, the taste and refinement of its owner.  Within its walls, for a generation or more, dwelt a worthy household.  It was surrounded, at first, by an ample garden, where fruits flourished and happy children played. Then set in the inevitable succession of change.  The father and mother go to their rest; the children scatter.  The growing town encroaches; the garden is despoiled, cut up in lots, smart new structures crowd each other.  Perhaps the older residence lingers on, through a second generation of alien occupancy.  It is leased to most excellent people, who take as lodgers and boarders a few persons of high respectability.   With its good old furniture and careful service, it in renowned in the town; it begins to advertise; but always as "select," and charges are in keeping.  Presently something elsewhere, a shade newer and smarter, takes precedence.  The erstwhile home, scene of all the domestic blisses and sorrows begins to be known as the 'old' so-and-so house; and as a place of lodgment and food, it steadily cheapens; the neighborhood declines into untidiness, with hint in its atmosphere of boiled cabbage."  (I love that line)  "Presently it seeks the patronage of the impecunious, who do not object to bare hallways and rickety stairs and dubious odors.  Last stage of all, it stands a while empty, locked, with cobwebbed windows and placards on the walls, till the march of improvement comes down the street and the old home disappears in a few loads of brick and plaster, and there arises on its site a new Pride of the Neighborhood."

The downtown we know today was the original residential heart of Buffalo.  Canal Side was the rough and tumble business center.  As the city prospered and matured its residents moved further up town to make way for the city we know today.  Reminders of that earlier era are few but, 'holdouts' remain.  The Squier Mansion on Main Street is a great example of the typical Main Street home of the 1800's.  The buildings all around it today are the second generation that came along in the early 1900's.  The changes that occurred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century where drastic.  In 1912 this book would have been a shocking reminder of how much the city had changed.  The 13 story Guaranty Building, for instance, replaced a few two story wood frame houses that where barely more than shacks.  Many were probably original houses from the Village of Buffalo.  A truly fascinating book would be one showing each of the sites depicted as it is now.  Absent that, I highly recommend this one for the history buff and anyone who is inflicted with Buffaloina (the disease of wanting to know everything about Buffalo).

Get the book at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Museum gift shop.

Images are from the book.