iPorchingi- Buffalo Gets It
Usable front porches a long-time standard for city homes are now making inroads in the eburbs. The unique transitional space of a front porch adds value and livability to existing homes, character to the streetscape, and makes neighborhoods safer by placing more eyes on the street. Front porches also become the setting of some of our favorite lifeis memories. They connect us to not only our outdoor environment but also to the social realm that surrounds us. Porches are seen as an important part of city life. Minneapolis even had a design competition to build a free front porch on a home in need of one!
It used to be that people knew their neighbors. They would wave to them from their front porches and meet them while their children played in a park or on the street. That longing for days gone by is now the hottest trend in residential development: New Urbanism. New Urbanism promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, mixed-use communities with homes close to the street and generous-sized porches.
Sitting on the porch is also seen as therapeutic. University of Louisville School of Medicine professor John Buchino has written a book on the subject. It is called iPorching: A Humorous Look at Americais Favorite Pastime.i The Arizona Republic picks up on the trend:
Doing nothing is the very heart of what folks have taken to calling "porching." It's a newly minted term, but an old pastimeOe"Porching is a way to recharge your batteries," says Buchino. "Most people in America move at a fast pace and I don't think we take time out enough. (Porching) may look like you're doing nothing, but actually, you're taking time to relax, reflect, and to be conscious of the world around you," he says.
Of late, porching has enjoyed a renaissance, thanks in part to neo-traditional neighborhoods where porches are coming back strong after falling from favor after World War II. Porching also is earning cheers in mature neighborhoods where thirty-somethings are re-embracing a vestigial part of their youth.
"Porches are very valuable to building community," Buchino says. "If you're out on your front porch sitting, you're seeing neighbors pass by. They say 'Hello' to you and you say 'Hi' to them, and over time you get to know them, rather than staying in your car, pushing a button, and going into the garage and never seeing each other."
And it continuesOe.
Porching became a way of life as porches spread like kudzu across America by the late 19th and early 20th century. American porches, explains Michael Dolan in his book, "The American Porch: An Informal History of an Informal Place," largely were influenced by the homes slaves built when they first arrived in America around 1620. These essentially African villages featured elevated homes with a roomlike elevated space fronting the outside of the structure. By the 1920s, porches had seen their architectural heyday. After World War II, the spread of air conditioning, cars, and a craving for privacy largely erased porches from America's blueprint.
I have special memories of one particular front porch. My grandmotheris front porch was the gathering spot for her block of Burgard Place. Several of Gramis neighbors were also relatives. I had two grown cousins and two aunts and uncles that also lived on the block. Best of all was what was on her porch: A pink-cushioned, heavy steel glider, which she also called (incorrectly?) 'the davenport.' We put a lot of miles on it. Special times they were.
So Porch sitters take heart. Sitting on the porch is healthy for you and your neighborhood!
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Comment Options
Lou
How does the saying go:
What the father wants to forget, the son wants to remember!
The things the previous generation took for granted...the next generation values.
It comes up all the time whenever someone talks about their old Buffalo neighborhood before they moved to the suburbs and the first thing they say is that they miss their porches and everything they did on them. It was like entertaining without having to entertain...just invite someone over on the porch with a pizza or bring the tv out. No big rear patio with grills, jacuzzis, furniture and landscaping needed. No interior effort was necessary either. Everything needed faced the street.
Most of all people on porches were social but I dont remember them being snobbish. Everyone knew each other....kids could walk to school but unlike the burbs no one told you what color you could paint your house.
All over the country, cities are gentrifying and old homes are coming back. New townhomes and rowhouses are being built but the question remains why those new townhomes and rowhouses arent getting built in Buffalo as infill development....not even on the westside which is the most stable and gentrifying neighborhood in the city.
I think the answer to this question must be answered by the city government. We must bring suburban developers back into the city and make it profitable for them to build high density developments.
I think we must also ask every member of the Buffalo Common Council why there isnt a high density light industrial or high density office park to anchor a community in each district. Not every common council district can count on retail like Elmwoods or Hertel. Remember these were once industrial neighborhoods and now their retail neighborhoods.
If you want the middle class to return to the city, you might want to start by bringing middle class jobs back to the city and matching the job development to the residential development.
Dont just bring back the porches with new urbanism. Bring back the porches, the houses and the employers!
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Brian
The thing I can remember most about my grandmother's front porch was that everyone knew each other. And in some ways it was like one big family. Now I don't even know the neighbors' names across the street, just the wave of their hand.
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Shopitall
When I moved back to Buffalo, there were three things that were non-negotiables when I was looking for a city apartment; off-street parking, radiators, and a great porch!
I found the perfect place with all three: especially the GREAT PORCH!
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STEEL
Our second floor porch on Lancaster Avenue was the grandest room in the house. It had thick wooden railings and was shrouded with a large canvas awing. We ate, relaxed, watched TV, and slept on that porch. It was a wonderfull place to watch the coming and going of the street and even though it was out there in public it was very private. There is nothing better than sitting on a porch like that is a summer rain shower. Too many people neglect to put up their canvas second floor roof awnings. they are really missing out.
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Andrew Kulyk
I can relate to some of the other comments on this thread... as a youngster I lived on Clinton Street and the front porch experience was a ubiquitous part of after dinner and weekend social life. Once our family moved to the burbs our center of gravity moved to the back patio, in a yard surrounded on two sides by a six foot fence and out of sight of the neighbors.
I now serve as Chairman of the Cheektowaga Zoning Board of Appeals, and during my tenure we have received many requests for variances from our homeowners seeking front porches or decks. I am such a proponent of this concept that I petitioned our Town Board to amend our ordinances here in Town to allow front decks or porches without a need for a variance. Not only does a front porch promote social interaction among neighbors, but also serves as additonal sets of eyes and watchdogs for people who might be coming through our neighborhoods for nefarious purposes.
The Town Board adopted this change a little over a year ago, and Cheektowaga residents can now erect a deck, patio or porch, with or without roof or canopy, to within 17' of the sidewalk (house setback is 25'), by simply filing for a building permit. We encourage our homeowners to make this very positive addition to their houses!
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Steve
I have great memories of my front porch in east aurora. I especially loved sitting outside in a rain storm and listening to the rain first hand without getting wet!
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BIA Mod.
Former Buffalo News columnist Philip Langdon wrote about the lifesaving benefit of a porch on St. James Place in his book "A Better Place to Live:"
iThe benefits of a second-floor porch were impressed upon me one hot Labor Day weekend when friends from Pennsylvania came to visit and spent much of the holiday on our second-floor porch. In the evening, as we sat drinking ale, a car came down narrow St. James Place, its engine making a metallic sound n ching - ching - ching nwhich drew our attention. Looking down, my friend Charlie Madigan and I saw the car creeping along in front of us, perhaps going three miles an hour. It scraped the sides of one parked car. Then it scraped a second car. At this point we realized the driver was drunk and shouldn't be at the wheel of an automobile. Charlie ran down the stairs, caught up with the car, and persuaded the driver to pull over. Charlie soon learned the driver's name, talked to him about being Irish, and in a couple of minutes convinced him to entrust him with the car keys. That evening the driver never reached the corner n heavily traveled Elmwood Avenue, where he might have gotten into a serious collision. The episode left me with an increased awareness that sociably designed houses, oriented toward the street, can help people in ways no one is able to foresee.i
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jimOnLafayete
Front porches can make a house a home. When we bought our house, our front porch was in disarray, deck caving in, foundation underneath collapsing, but we saw the potential. We rebuilt it and it has since become an early morning coffee spot, lunch with the kids, dessert bar and even late night beer joint with the neighbors. it has made us appreciate our street, our nieghbors and Buffalo even more. The best thing about the end of winter is the anticipation of the upcoming porch season! So, if you're walking by, say Hello!
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jimOnLafayette
i need to read before hitting submit...
it's jimOnLafayette!
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