Despite the severe economic decline the Buffalo region has experienced since the 1950s, there are still some bright spots in the city. One of them is Elmwood Village, one of the nation's largest bohemian/creative class neighborhoods. The neighborhood is really quite an anomaly for a blue collar city like Buffalo.  I describe the area to Cleveland's East Siders as "Cedar-Lee on steriods", and West Siders as "like Detroit Avenue, but a lot more urban".

 

These photos were taken in Fall 2001. Elmwood has really changed a bit since then; more infill, a notch more upscale, and believeit or not, it seems like there's a LOT more pedestrian traffic.  Enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a small portion of Elmwood Village on Christmas Eve/Eruv Chanukah/two days before Boxing Day eh, 2005.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moderators: please move this to the City Photos - USA/World subforum.  Thanks!

Moved.

 

Wonderful shots!  Buffalo really reminds me of a smaller, perhaps more depressed Milwaukee.

Nice. I'm sure the neighborhood isn't what comes to mind for a lot of folks when they hear "Buffalo."

Not at all. That' neighborhood actually looks pretty good. I could live there.

Any city would be happy to have a neighborhood like this. 

I went a Googling Buffalo and found this site. Has numerous links to other sites and lots of great (and devastating) photos....

 

http://fixbuffalo.blogspot.com/

Quite impressive!  No, this isn’t my image of Buffalo at all… I'm really hard pressed to think of a Cleveland, in-city nabe that has Elmwood’s seeming level of foot-traffic (even in obviously crappy  weather) through most of the day -- other than Little Italy... Buffalo residential architecture seems to echo Cleveland's with a base of frame houses, many on large lots like Elmwood's, accentuated by brownstone walk-up apts and mixed-use commercial walking-district buildings.  Like Cleveland, hopefully Buffalo can feed off the obvious strength of this neighborhood.

it's active and a great neighborhood. for sure a great place to live around.

 

however, in appearance it's not more urban looking than detroit avenue.

 

That's some fine low-density urbanism. There are people out, bikes visible and huh?

 

 

People sitting outside in the cold? Must be a great place to be no matter what the weather. A sure sign of a neighborhood worth checking out. If I ever go to Buffalo I'd have to stop here.

That is a fantastic neighborhood, truly one of the most human-scaled and functional city neighborhoods I've visited. I had a chance to explore it a couple months ago. Two or three miles of continuous activity linking downtown/Allentown neighborhood to the art museum. Imagine all the cool mini-neighborhoods of Cleveland (Mayfield Road in Little Italy, Professor Street in Tremont, W. 25th in Ohio City, Clifton Boulevard in Edgewater, W. 65th and Detroit in Detroit-Shoreway, Shaker Square, Coventry and Cedar-Lee) all strung together along one boulevard.

Imagine all the cool mini-neighborhoods of Cleveland (Mayfield Road in Little Italy, Professor Street in Tremont, W. 25th in Ohio City, Clifton Boulevard in Edgewater, W. 65th and Detroit in Detroit-Shoreway, Shaker Square, Coventry and Cedar-Lee) all strung together along one boulevard.

 

One boulevard -- you mean like Euclid Avenue used to be!?!?  :cry: (and could be again)

Someone I went to school told me that Rochester (where he was from) reminded him of the East Side of Cleveland, whereas Buffalo resembled the West Side.

Wow, awesome neighborhood!

Looks good, may have to take a day trip up there.

Thanks for the Elmwood pictures, Dan. I sure love that street. One of the best and most unusual friendships of my life started one summer night several years back right outside The Spot. You never know who you might run into there!

 

The side streets off Elmwood also make for some great urban hiking and surprises. For example, I remember turning east on Bird one time and coming across that Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house that is, I think, one block, maybe two, off Elmwood.

Nice.  Reminds me of Larchmere.

Someone I went to school told me that Rochester (where he was from) reminded him of the East Side of Cleveland, whereas Buffalo resembled the West Side.

 

That's probably a good description.  Buffalo is a very old-school, very ethnic, very Catholic city, with a dominant blue-collar culture that even upper income and young professionals embrace.  (In Buffalo, it's said that you may be Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or an atheist, but you'll still grow up Catholic.  Only in Buffalo do Jews celebrate Shabbat by going out for a fish fry, or Lutherans able to recite the Hail Mary from memory.)  Its suburbs tend to resemble Parma, Brooklyn, Westlake, Strongsville and the like more so than Shaker Heights, Pepper Pike, Gates Mills and the Chagrin River Valley.  Cheektowaga can be more Parma-ish than Parma itself.  (Amherst/Williamsville, though, is like a combination of Beachwood, Solon, Lyndhurst and South Euclid. Like Beachwood and Solon, Amherst is the suburb everybody loves to hate.)

 

Elmwood Village, the Delaware District, Allentown and North Buffalo are more urban/bohemian, where you'll most likely run into the rare Buffalonian that leads the "Stuff White People Like" lifestyle.

 

One thing I noticed about Cleveland is that the Northern Cities/flat a accent is commonplace among the working class/blue collar crowd, but much less so among the white collar and professional set.  However, in Buffalo, almost everybody -- well, almost all the natives -- has the "eyacksint", whether they work "eyat thee pleeyant" or "eyat thee beeyank".  Even television news announcers have the accent.

Great stuff...looks very pleasant.