Cleveburn, why not more of this when we plan?
This little nook of the Elmwood Village neighborhood is both ordinary and special, and that is what makes it a great place in the city. This is Cleveburn, a short, one-block cut-through street between Cleveland and Auburn Avenues just East of Elmwood (hence its somewhat awkward sounding name). Its houses are densely built and pushed right up to the street with very small or non-existent front yards. The small yards are steeply sloped up from the narrow sidewalk with stairs pouring down to the street. This gives the street a very strong feeling of enclosure. The street has a variety of housing styles including a few small cottages, bungalows and a solid Victorian or two. Examples of a house style not common to Buffalo can also be found on the street. These are basic two family buildings with two-storey porches. Unlike the ubiquitous Buffalo double that sports a canvas covered second floor porch these houses were designed with solid wood-frame roofs and supporting columns. The double-decker porches give the street a very special charm.
Cleveburn exudes a comfortable relaxed urbanism. The kind you find on the streets of an old seaside resort town. This is the kind of place where you speak to your neighbor across the street or a passing pedestrian from your porch. It was a favorite place for bike riding when I was a kid in the neighborhood. Buffalo would benefit from more of these little cut-thru streets. Legendary urban activist, Jane Jacobs, extolled the virtues of small blocks and narrow streets. She noted that cities thrived on the ability of people to make choices including the choice of path of travel. Today's urban planning is often based on reducing choices, concentration of traffic, and controlling entry and exit. Imagine a place like Buffalo's Waterfront Village built out on the Cleveburn model of urban design. Now that could have been a spectacular neighborhood! Oh well.....
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sbrof
agreed...
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MisterChips
Another fine post, Steel, and I've long admired Cleveburn for all the reasons you say. But if we tried to replicate it today, wouldn't you denounce it as "Disney" and fake?
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STEEL
Only if you do it in pretend old fashioned way. That is not necessary to capture the assets of this street
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Jefferson
Isn't this the street right around the corner from Spot Coffee (Elmwood)?
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UprightCitizen
I love strolling here. When I can't get away to favorite vacation spots like Chautauqua or Cape Cod, I go here for a quick injection of summer quaint.
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chrish
Bravo, Steel! Yes... imagine Erie Basin built this way, densely-packed, human scaled, walkable and amiable. No worries about "fakeness" in replicating this scale, these proportions, and these lots sizes and configurations, if traditional materials are employed and the finely-grained "details of the street" are given their due.
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