Genesee Block: You've Come a Long Way

The Genesee Block is shining once again, thanks to a $12 million redevelopment by Genesee Gateway LLC consisting of CityView Properties and the Wendt Foundation.  Rechristened 'Genesee Gateway,' the string of properties offers 60,000 sq.ft. of retail and office space designed by Flynn Battaglia Architects.  The south side of Genesee Street between Ellicott and Oak streets was also recently designated a local historic district.  Jennifer Walkowski, an Architectural Historian with Clinton Brown Company Architecture, prepared the documentation and application necessary for the designation. 

"The Genesee Gateway Historic District was created as a local historic district by the City of Buffalo in summer 2010," says Walkowski.  "It went through the normal channels of the Buffalo Preservation Board and the Common Council before the Mayor signed it."

According to Walkowski, the City then submitted it to the National Park Service via the State Historic Preservation Office to be certified for tax purposes. NPS reviews these local districts with the same criteria as National Register districts. 

In order to be eligible for the State and Federal historic preservation tax credit programs a building needs to be both 1) listed individually or in a district on the National Register OR in an NPS certified local historic district (as we established at Genesee Gateway) and 2) located in an eligible census tract (at or below the State median income level). NPS certified the local Genesee Gateway Historic District in November 2010, and since they are already in a qualified census tract, the buildings now meet both requirements for taking advantage of tax credits.

The buildings of the Genesee Gateway Historic District represent the commercial heritage of the City of Buffalo from its early pre-Civil War era to the early twentieth-century when the city was at the height of its international prominence.  They range from utilitarian, vernacular designs to high-style architect-designed buildings.  The collection of buildings spans a century of commercial development in Buffalo and highlights the shifting functions and needs for commercial architecture as well as the increasing desire to express commercial prowess through ornate, lavish exterior appearances.  Many of the buildings were constructed by and for Buffalo's prominent German community; a group which contributed mayors, business tycoons, judges and other elected officials to the Buffalo political landscape.

Washington Market, 1890

The Genesee Block is a largely intact portion of the once-thriving Genesee-Ellicott-Oak neighborhood which grew up around the Washington Market (1854, demolished 1965) in the nineteenth-century.  Following the demise of the market in the 1960s and the devastating effects of Urban Renewal-era projects in the area, much of the historic neighborhood has been lost, making the Genesee Gateway block a rare survivor from this early era in Buffalo's history. 

Architecture in the neighborhood reflects the changing trends in retailing spanning over 100 years, and features examples designed by some of Buffalo's most prominent architects. 

The Genesee-Ellicott-Oak neighborhood began its history in the early 1800s as an area of transition between the settled Village of Buffalo and the rural fringe further east, with sparse settlement along the Genesee Street spine.  This area was located in an area known as the "Outer Lots," meaning it was not a part of the innermost core of the settlement, which was centered on Niagara Square. The "Outer Lots" were in the early 1800s a transitional area between the "Inner Lots" and the vast, rural eastern regions of Western New York.

Commercial development began in earnest in the pre-Civil War era, quickly boosted by the opening of the Washington Market in 1856.  The commercial enterprises drew patrons and customers from the thriving Market, catering to a wide variety of consumer needs.  It was a neighborhood where many business owners and their families lived above the store, adding a vibrant self-sufficient residential component to the neighborhood as well. 

The Washington Market (1912 photo right), known as the largest Market in New York State west of the Hudson River, drew thousands of people to this neighborhood throughout the nineteenth-century.  As tastes and incomes changed, many early Civil War-era buildings were replaced by a variety of large and small commercial buildings during the late nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries.  Several of Buffalo's most prominent architects, including the firm of Esenwein and Johnson and Richard A. Waite, created elegant commercial structures in the neighborhood, indicating the high status of the neighborhood at the peak of its prominence.

This area of downtown faced hard times, both architecturally and economically, following the opening of the Kensington Expressway and the Oak-Elm Arterial.  The resulting highways funneled both residents and businesses out of the area, leading to the neighborhood's general blight and neglect.  Several buildings have been demolished, with several others threatened with demolition, and the neighborhood remains in a precipitous state on the verge of being lost. 

Genesee Block, 1940s

As traffic in the Genesee-Ellicott-Oak neighborhood shifted from the pedestrian-oriented to the car-oriented lifestyle of the late twentieth-century, residents and businesses left the area for Buffalo's eastern suburbs.  The Genesee-Ellicott-Oak neighborhood and the Genesee Gateway Historic District suffered from disinvestment, neglect, urban decay and blight through much of the 1970s and into the 1990s.

Misguided rehabilitation attempts which began in the 1980s also contributed to some of the issues with buildings in the proposed district.  Many buildings in the neighborhood and in surrounding areas were demolished, replaced with parking lots in many cases.  Those buildings in the area which survived decades of neglect, vacancy and even the wrecking-ball in many cases have been modified with features such as vinyl windows, boarded up storefronts and some removal of historic features.

Over the past few years new development projects including Oak School Lofts, IS Lofts, Ellicott Lofts, Ellicott Commons, and the Washington Market café and grocery store have spurred new hope for this neglected neighborhood.  The most prominent group of buildings in this neighborhood is the Genesee Gateway block which literally serves as a gateway into Downtown Buffalo from the Kensington Expressway and the airport and suburbs further east.

Each of the buildings in the Genesee Gateway Historic District is unique in its design, details and construction.  These buildings all have fascinating stories to tell about the lives of business and tradesmen in Buffalo; some became prominent local figures, while others were just common, every-day people who worked hard to make a life for themselves.  We'll profile the individual buildings making up the Genesee Block in upcoming posts.

Source: Local Historic District Application, May 17, 2010.  Clinton Brown Company Architecture.