Travel to the extreme south end of Buffalo to find a small patch of land that still provides a sense of the old rural countryside that made up this part of the city well into the 1940’s. It is located on an unusually tall and steep (for Buffalo) mound which seems to pop up out of nowhere. This hill marks the start of the Alleghenies as they slowly build in the southern suburbs. The rural-esque land is filled with scrubby underbrush and trees about two to three acres in size, maybe more. On three sides it is densely surrounded by residential streets. It is bordered by a cemetery on the Lackawanna side.
It is the cemetery that brings me to observe the other things on this land. The thickly wooded land holds a haunted house reminiscent of the house in the famous horror movie, Psycho. It sits at the top of the hill looking out over the cemetery. This cemetery connection serves to reinforce its ‘hauntedness’. Adjacent to the house and completely unrelated in any way is a gigantic blue water tower, the most prominent landmark in South Buffalo. Both of these structures have been favorites since childhood.
When I was young my family owned a house on the last circle of McKinley Parkway at the southern edge of the city. It was pretty much in the shadow of the water tower and excitingly close to the ‘haunted’ house. As a kid, there is nothing better than having a wooded lot to play in that is crowned with a haunted house at the top of a hill. The blue water tower added even more intrigue to the place. More daring souls than I would climb the tower and hang out on its catwalks doing all sorts of nefarious things I am sure. In past times it had large areas of graffiti covering the giant blue water tank – proof that the hoodlums were up there.
Giant tanks like this are what give us water pressure in our taps. The higher they are the better. So, the high spot in South Buffalo was the perfect spot for a water tower as the city grew southward. This is the only water tower I have ever gotten so close to. It is absolutely amazing. Its industrial, purely functional form has no relation to its surrounding and is way beyond totally out of scale with neighboring buildings. But, it is a beautiful structure worthy of attention. The shear size is overwhelming and impressive as you approach it. You cannot escape thoughts like – “what if it bursts”. The elements, details, and materials are completely without pretension but beautiful nonetheless. Wonderful shadows are cast and light grazes its curving tank changing its form throughout the day. Even though this does not really qualify as architecture and it is not something you generally want to see in a city neighborhood, the unique setting makes this tower a great landmark in the city.
Then there is the house. It is tucked behind some trees just a few yards from the water tower. It is not anything spectacular architecturally. But it is relatively big and quite old by South Buffalo standards. As you move along neighboring streets you can catch mysterious partial glimpses of it through the trees. As kids we really believed it was haunted. We never saw anyone around it and it looked empty – sort of. Plus it was near a cemetery so the only conclusion we could logically come to was that it was haunted. We would play in the woods and get as close to the house as we dared, but never beyond the edge of the tree line.
Most likely the house was originally at the center of a farm that was gradually sold off as the city encroached. How this relatively large tract of land was left intact is a mystery to me. Please chime in if you know something.
Not too long ago a piece of the remaining land was sold for construction of an assisted living facility. A large chunk of the hill was removed to do that. (I guess working with the existing land form would have required some additional effort). I had assumed that the house was torn down when that project was done. Recently I was in the neighborhood and was delighted to find that this was not the case. As I walked down a path to the house to inspect closer a familiar tingly fear set in. Even as a rational adult those childhood memories crept into my head.
Amazingly the house is little changed after all these years. I noticed that it had a satellite dish. Ghosts don’t watch cable news do they? I did not go beyond the tree line.