History of the Genesee Block: The Giesser Building

The Giesser Building at 99 Genesee Street is the most recent building to be constructed of the historic buildings restored as part of the Genesee Gateway project.  It was built in 1915 at the sunset of the golden age of commercial activity in the Genesee-Ellicott-Oak neighborhood.  Like the other buildings along this portion of Genesee Street, the Giesser Building was the site of previous pre-1854 development from the earliest phase of commercial growth along the street.

Although modest in scale and decoration, the Giesser Building at 99 Genesee Street is an excellent example of the type of commercial architecture which was being constructed in the early twentieth-century.

Jennifer Walkowski, an Architectural Historian with Clinton Brown Company Architecture, prepared the application necessary for the designation of the Genesee Gateway Historic District.   Below is an excerpt from her findings on the Giesser Building.

In its earliest stages, this parcel at 99 Genesee Street appears to have been occupied by a small wood-framed building.  By 1866 the property was owned by Frank Pfennig and the parcel extended east to include portions of the current 101-103 Genesee Street property.  Pfennig, a German immigrant from Alsace, was a cigar maker by trade and ran a small cigar and tobacco shop from the two-story wood frame building which dates to ca. 1870s.

Around 1880, Pfennig appears to have sold the property at 99 Genesee Street to his neighbor located at 101-103 Genesee Street since the 1870s, Gabriel Giesser. Pfennig remained in the neighborhood, locating his residence and the Frank Pfennig & Sons tobacco shop two doors west to 95 Genesee Street.

Born about 1825 in Württemberg, Germany, Gabriel Giesser and his family would be long-term residents and business owners in this portion of Genesee Street.  Relatively little information is available about the family, but the Giesser family would reside and own property in the Genesee Gateway block between the 1870s and the 1930s and were likely prominent and well-known citizens in the local German community.  Trained in the repair, sharpening and maintenance of knives and cutlery, Giesser's sons Frederick and Charles also trained in the business. 

Cutlery was an important business in the nineteenth-century as knives were intended to last for many years, if not for generations, and had to be sharpened and maintained. In a neighborhood adjacent to some of Buffalo's top butchers, grocers and fresh markets, having good eating utensils was a must for any nineteenth-century family.  Business must have been successful for Gabriel Giesser, who appears to have increased his land and property holdings from the small triangular property originally at 101-103 Genesee Street to a much larger expanded parcel.  Gabriel operated his cutlery business from the wood framed pre-1854 building located at 99 Genesee Street in the 1890s.

Following his father's death around 1900, Charles Giesser appears to have continued the family cutlery trade in the wood framed building at 99 Genesee Street.  Charles Giesser ran his father's cutlery and grinding shop from the property as early as 1890 and even constructed a large brick addition at the rear of the wood framed building in order to modernize and expand his business.  In 1900, Charles and his family also resided in the building; another example of business owners who lived literally above their store which was common throughout nineteenth-century shops.

By 1910, however, the Charles Giesser family had moved their residence to 432 Oak Street.  This is an example of the growing trend in early twentieth-century commercialism, where business owners no longer ran their business from the same building they resided in, although the second floor appears to have served as a small rental apartment during the building's early history.

The Giesser family had an obvious interest in architecture and design and was responsible for two architect-designed commercial buildings along this portion of Genesee Street.  In 1895 Frederike Giesser hired prominent local architect Richard A. Waite to design an elaborate mixed-use commercial and residential building with a notable daylight photography studio space at 101-103 Genesee Street, replacing the family's small earlier wood framed building which housed the early cutlery shop.

The Giesser family must have been rather financially successful by the turn of the twentieth-century since they were able to commission two fashionable buildings along one of Buffalo's busiest and most desirable commercial streets.  Not to be outdone by his mother, Charles Giesser commissioned local Buffalo architect Edward G. Henrich to design and construct a new commercial building for his business in 1915. Located on his family's parcel at 99 and 101-103 Genesee Street, the Giesser Building was constructed along the western side of the Werner Photography Building.

The new brick building was nearly identical in shape and size to the previous wood-framed pre-1854 building which was located at the site, being constructed only slightly wider to connect to the adjacent Werner Photography Building.  The new building was constructed during a period when commercial businesses became increasingly conscious that the appearance of their building acted as a sort of advertisement for the business itself; a fashionable, modern building drew attention and often times became synonymous with the shop within.  Yet tastes had changed from the extravagant, late-Victorian building his mother commissioned at 101-103 Genesee Street; the design of the Giesser Building reflects the era's appreciation of simplicity, minimal ornamentation and less complex design.

Charles Giesser operated his cutlery business at 99 Genesee Street through the late 1930s, eventually expanding his business into selling barber supplies.  Like the other commercial buildings in the Genesee Gateway group, the building also housed other tenants, briefly including photographers Woodson & Wallace in 1925.  The Giesser Building also housed Mrs. Sophie K. Lee who resided in the building as well as selling "hair goods" in 1937.

Giesser ceased operating his cutlery and barber supplies shop on Genesee Street in the early 1940s.  The Giesser Building was next occupied by the Swerdloff-Bestry Company tailors by 1946 and continuing into the 1950s, and likely was housed in the upper floor.  Around this period, the building was purchased by the H. Seeberg Company who operated their Charlie Baker Clothiers company from the Werner Photography Building at 101-103.  The party wall between the neighboring buildings was opened up around 1945 to combine the two retail buildings, and it was during this period that it appears likely the storefront was altered as well (see photo, ca 1980 right). 

By the early 1970s, the Giesser Building was vacant, and like the other buildings along Genesee Street suffered a period of decline, neglect and general decay in the 1970s and 80s.  In 2007 the building was purchased by Genesee Gateway LLC, with support from the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation.

Edward G. Henrich, Architect
Edward George Henrich, architect of the Giesser Building, was born to William and Anna Maria Henrich in Buffalo on February 7, 1876.  William Henrich, a native of Roxheim, Germany, had come to the United States in 1843 as a child, and had become active in politics and business as well as becoming commissioner of public buildings in 1876 and again in 1884 and 1885.  William Henrich founded a lumber business in Buffalo in 1866, and in 1886 opened a mill at 193 Spring Street which was regarded as one of the most modern mills in all of Buffalo.

Edward, the seventh of the eight Henrich children, was a graduate of the old Central High School (1851-89, demolished, located at corner of Genesee Street and Niagara Square on the site of what is now the Walter J. Mahoney State Office Building) before he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the first architectural curriculum in the US had been established in 1868, receiving his degree in architecture in 1899. 

Following his graduation from MIT, one of the most prestigious American architecture programs of his time as it continues to be to this day, Henrich had an architectural career which took him across the county. He practiced as an architect in Boston for two years before working in Seattle for another two years and Los Angeles for an additional year. Edward G. Henrich eventually returned to Buffalo in 1905 and had some success as an architect.  He served as 1st Vice President of the Buffalo Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1916 and 1917, indicating he was engaged in the local architectural community and well known among his peers. 

No other projects can be attributed to Henrich at this point; further research may uncover other examples of his work in Buffalo. His younger brother, Louis, also attended MIT for his architectural degree and had a great deal of success as the designer of the Lincoln Memorial at Gettysburg and buildings at Wellesley College.

Although highly trained, perhaps Henrich did not attain the architectural success in Buffalo he had hoped for and in 1918 he joined his brothers Frederick and William L. in the William Henrich's Sons lumber company founded by his father.  Given that the Giesser Building was constructed around 1915, it may have been his final project as an independent architect.  By the 1910s the William Henrich's Sons Company had expanded beyond just its origins as a planing mill and lumber yard and had become a building supply and contracting company, perhaps due to Edward's involvement in the company. The company operated the Henrich Plywood Company (incorporated in May 1923) which made high grade cabinetry and woodwork for numerous buildings, residences, churches and clubs. The company also operated the Bison Lumber Company (incorporated March 24, 1932).

A 1916 advertisement for the company identified the firm as contractors for the Buffalo Weaving and Belting Building (ca. 1916, located at 260 Chandler Street, demolished), the Eureka Coffee Company Building (1912, located at 102-106 Carroll Street, demolished), All Saints Church (unknown which church this was) and the Buffalo Ford Motor Company Building (likely the ca. 1917 former Ford factory now known as the Tri-Main Building located at 2495 Main Street) among others (see image right).

Perhaps the William Henrich's Sons most prestigious project was providing lumber and interior finish work for Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin D. Martin House at 125 Jewett Parkway (1903-05, National Register 1975, National Historic Landmark 1986).  Henrich became the company's vice-president and served in this role for nearly fifteen years. Edward G. Henrich died at the age of 53 on January 27, 1930 and was buried in Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery (1850, NR 1990).

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

See Also:

Part One- Genesee Gateway Historic District

Part Two-  The H. Seeberg Building

Part Three- The Baldwin Building