Built in Buffalo
How
to
Research Local Architecture
Cynthia
Van Ness
While
Buffalo's major
architectural
treasures are increasingly
pictured online, the resources needed to research ordinary houses,
factories, commercial buildings, churches,
and other historic properties are not
online and many may never be
digitized.
Relevant links have
been added wherever possible, but out of necessity, this website
focuses on the wealth of offline sources. This site is best utilized by
those who can do in-person research at:
- Buffalo & Erie County Public Library (BECPL)
- Buffalo History Museum (BHM)
- Arts & Sciences Libraries of the State University of New York at Buffalo (UB)
- And a few other locations.
- If you are a Buffalo property owner, dig out your title search. The title search or "abstract of title" shows the chain of ownership of your parcel of land going back (in most cases) to the Holland Land Company. Having the names of owners gives you a way to utilize city directories, Common Council Proceedings, and other sources listed below.
- A title abstract dating back to (say) 1805 does not mean that your house was built in 1805. It means that the ownership of your plot of ground has been traced back to 1805. Title abstracts do NOT show when structures were erected or demolished on your land. Their sole purpose is to show that no one else has a claim on your land.
- A famous name on
your title does not necessarily mean that a VIP lived in your
house.
Then as now, many prominent Buffalonians invested in land and property
other
than their residences.
- Real estate agents routinely date old Buffalo houses as built in 1900 or another year ending in zero. The City of Buffalo Property database (see below) is equally inaccurate. Don't be wedded to this date. It is just an educated or, more often, an uneducated guess.
- Chances are good that your Buffalo building was built between 1865 and 1965. Precious little survives from before the Civil War, and Buffalo was essentially built out by 1965. To roughly date your building, study the history of American architectural styles and architecture. Here is some recommended reading.
- Wondering if your house was on the Underground Railroad? Here are the sites that we know about.
- If you are unable to travel to Buffalo to do in-person research, here are researchers for hire.
|
KEY
to OWNERSHIP
BECPL = Grosvenor Room of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library BHM = Research Library at the Buffalo History Museum BSC = Butler Library at Buffalo State College UB = One of several libraries at the State University of New York at Buffalo |
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|
Item |
Years Available |
What Will It Tell Me? |
Where Is It? |
| Architectural Plans & Blueprints | Mainly 20th Century | Unfortunately,
there are no large or comprehensive
collections of local architectural plans and blueprints. A lucky
homeowner might find original house plans stuffed in the attic. The
City of Buffalo did not require owners to submit building plans or
drawings until the early 20th century. Nineteenth century house plans
and
blueprints are scarce. Some builders knew how to erect
certain house types without custom blueprints the same way you know how
to cook
certain meals without recipes. Then as now, many average-income families could not afford a private architect and bought house plans from catalogs. Aladdin is one such company and their catalogs are online There are now hundreds of house plan books online in full text at Google Books. We made a list of all we could find. |
Aladdin
Company
Sales Catalogs, 1908-1954 House plan books at Google Books Architectural Records at BHM Building Permits Office Building Technology Heritage Library at Archive.org Find the Plans for Your Old House |
| Atlases | 1854
Quackenboss & Kennedy 1868 Sanborn 1872 Hopkins 1884 Hopkins 1891 Hopkins 1894 American 1915 New Century, vol.1 1915 New Century, vol.2 1915 New Century, vol.3 |
Atlases
published in these years show every
building in Buffalo. Some are digitized, as per the links to the left. See also Sanborn maps. |
BHM
has all
of them Atlases at BECPL |
| Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals | Late 19th century to the present | The Avery Index, a proprietary database, is the premier source for locating articles from architectural periodicals. There are dozens of citations for Buffalo alone. BECPL has the print volumes and UB subscribes to the database. | List of
owning libraries |
| Biographies of Architects | 1857-1978 | The
American Institute of Architects (AIA) has digitized its
member directories
of over 50,000 members who joined before 1978. It gives basic
career information but
not lists of buildings. Biographies of American Architects offers more in the way of narrative, but includes few Buffalonians. |
AIA
Historical Directories Biographies of American Architects Who Died Between 1897-1947 |
| Buffalo Address Books, Dau’s Society Blue Books, Social Registers | 1885-1970s, with some gaps | These directories
concentrated on Buffalo’s
wealthy west side and usually omitted South and East
Buffalo. Like Buffalo City Directories (see below), they contain a
geographic section, which lists families by street address.
The
Buffalo Address Books are online at
NewYorkHeritage.org. |
Buffalo
Address Books Online Social Register, Buffalo: Owning Libraries |
| Buffalo Architecture Map |
19th & 20th century | A
Google map of over 1100 houses & buildings by six major
Buffalo architectural firms, sorted by architect. |
BHM |
| Buffalo City Directories | 1828 to present, with some gaps | City
directories, also called Polk
Directories, list Buffalo
residents in order
by last name, usually including occupations. From 1930 to the
present,
city directories have a street section, listing occupants by address.
For those with deep pockets, EDR (link at right) will compile city
directory reports on a given property. |
BHM BECPL Buffalo Online City Directories EDR Historical Reports Using City Directories |
| Buffalo Common Council Proceedings | 1832 to 1996 | The
City of Buffalo began issuing building permits
as soon as it was incorporated in 1832. Permits required Common
Council approval. If you have a wood frame house, the permit will date
your building. It appears
that permits were not required for masonry or brick buildings until the
early 20th century. For 1832-1887, check the index for the owner’s last name. From 1887-1906, permits are grouped in the index under Permits and arranged by owner’s name. From 1907-1950, the Permits are arranged by address. Original permits from 1895 to present are on file at City Hall, Room 301. |
BHM
has
1832-1854 on
microfilm and 1854-1996 in hard copy BECPL has 1854-1996 in hard copy Full list of owning libraries Common Council Proceedings, 1861-62 Common Council Proceedings, 1991 to present |
| Buffalo Scrapbook Collection | Mainly 20th century | The Grosvenor Room has over 400 scrapbooks of newspaper articles about homes, houses of worship, hotels & taverns, schools, businesses, charities, major buildings, theaters, transportation, and prominent Buffalonians. The scrapbooks are indexed in the Local History File (see below). | BECPL |
| Buffalo Theatres Prior to 1930 | Up to 1930 | This
comprehensive 400 page manuscript is by
theater historian Ranjit Sandhu. It documents every known place with a
stage or screen built in Buffalo prior to 1930, with indexes by name
and address. |
Web
Version BECPL has it in hard copy |
| Building
Structure Inventory Forms
AKA "Blue Forms" |
1970s to present | About 3,000 buildings in Buffalo have been documented since the 1970s on what are informally known as Blue Forms. The best documented neighborhoods are Allentown, Hamlin Park, Broadway-Fillmore, Grant-Ferry- Forest, and Triangle. They may be seen by appointment by contacting the City of Buffalo Preservation Board | Buffalo Preservation Board |
| Business Records | Varies | Studying business records is often the only way to conclusively identify clients, dates, and everything a firm designed. Most Buffalo architects have come and gone without their business records being saved. Try searching WorldCat with the architect's name in the Author field. | Architectural
Records at BHM WorldCat |
| Churches | Extant in 1995 | In 1995, James Napora completed a thesis, Houses of Worship: A Guide to the Religious Architecture of Buffalo, New York, giving a short architectural history of every surviving church in the City of Buffalo. He has graciously consented to allow pages to be reproduced online. | Napora Thesis |
| Deeds & Ownership Records | Approx. 1804 to present | If
you are researching a building that you do not
own and/or do not have a title search for, all
property transactions in Erie County are in the Erie
County
Clerk's office. Some records from 1808-1964 are now online. |
These links are now at Delicious |
| Dissertations & Theses | Mainly 20th century | Many graduate students at UB and elsewhere have devoted their academic years to studying architects, buildings, styles & periods, neighborhoods, city planning, and urban history in Buffalo. UB has the largest collection of theses relevant to Buffalo. | BHM BECPL Syracuse U. UB Architecture & Planning Library |
| Federal & State Census Records | 1810-1930 | In years ending in zero (and some years ending in 5), federal & state census enumerators went door to door collecting demographic data on the members of every household in Erie County. Fortunately for architectural researchers, census records are arranged geographically (by address), so you do not need to know the name of an owner or occupant to find a specific building. Census research will narrow down when a house was built and identify who lived in it. All surviving census records are on microfilm and the federal ones are online at Ancestry.com. Online indexes rarely include addresses, however. | BHM
BECPL BSC UB Online Censuses |
| Frank Lloyd Wright and Darwin Martin Collection | Early 20th century | The
correspondence, photographs, plans, and other
documentation of Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin D.
Martin House
are preserved in the UB Archives. About 600 photos from this collection
are online at UB and NewYorkHeritage.org. |
BHM
Wright
Holdings BECPL Wright Holdings Darwin D. Martin Photograph Collection |
| Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) | Varies | About 50 local buildings have been carefully documented for HABS, many prior to demolition. The original reports are in the Library of Congress and are gradually being digitized. | Historic American Buildings Survey for Buffalo, NY |
|
Historic Resources Intensive Level Surveys |
2003
to present |
Five
neighborhoods
have
been carefully surveyed to the level of individual buildings: Black
Rock, Prospect Hill, Broadway-Fillmore, Triangle (South
Park/Abbot Rd.), and
Grant-Ferry-Forest, which stretches east almost to Emwood.
Includes photos. |
Buffalo Preservation Board Historic Resource Surveys |
| Landmarks & Historic Districts | NA | Is your house or building a designated landmark? Is it in a preservation district or on the National Register? The links at the right show which properties and neighborhoods in Buffalo have which designations. The National Register Information Service is searchable by city/town or name of building. | Landmarks
in
the City of Buffalo Historic Districts in the City of Buffalo National Register Properties in the CIty of Buffalo National Register Information Service |
| Library Catalogs | Updated continually | WorldCat is one colossal database for thousands of libraries around the world. Try a keyword search on Buffalo and architecture. Or search on the names of local architects, "name" buildings, etc. | BHM BECPL WorldCat |
| Maps | 19th to 20th century | Street maps of Buffalo are useful for tracing how the city expanded and developed over time. By comparing older and newer maps, you can see when your neighborhood came into existence. See also Sanborn Maps. | BHM BECPL Online Buffalo Maps UB |
| New
York State Historic Preservation Office Document Imaging |
Varies | This system provides downloadable PDF National Register nominations for thousands of properties across New York state. Users can look up historic buildings and sites within specific municipalities. | Document Imaging |
| Newspapers and Newspaper Indexes | Late 19th century to the present | Newspaper
indexes, whether in the form of
pre-computer card files or online databases, are essential for finding
articles about people, places, things, and events in
Buffalo. BECPL calls their newspaper index the Local History
File.
Buffalo newspapers from 1811 to the present are on microfilm. The New York State Newspaper Project provides a comprehensive list of newspapers published in Erie County and who owns them. |
BHM BECPL Online Newspapers NYS Newspaper Project UB |
| Obituaries | Early 19th century to the present | When one exists, an obituary often provides a wealth of biographical information about the architect or former occupant of your building, including employer, interests, memberships, next of kin, and maybe a photograph. | Obituaries
and Death Notices in
Buffalo, NY |
| Olmsted Parks | 1869 to ca. 1925 | Frederick Law Olmsted and his sons designed about 35 projects for Buffalo & Erie County, including public parks and private residences. To get a list, search the Olmsted Research Guide to the right by city/community. | BHM Olmsted Research Guide |
| Periodical & Journal Articles | Various
years |
Search
on Buffalo
at the National
Trust
Library Index to get citations
for 100 articles about Buffalo
buildings,
neighborhoods, and preservation efforts. Most are from the Buffalo
Preservation Report,
the
prize-winning newspaper of the
Preservation Coalition of Erie County (now Preservation
Buffalo NIagara). Poole's lists articles from a variety of late 19th c. periodicals. Google Books now has lots of American architectural journals online in full text. We made a llist of as many as we could find. |
Architecture
journals at Google Books Manufacturer & Builder, 1869-1894 National Trust Library Index Poole's Index, 1882-1887 Poole's Index, 1887-1892 |
| Photographs | 1840 to present |
Period
photographs are invaluable for
understanding a building's evolution over time. Unfortunately, there
aren't surviving pictures of every single building in Buffalo. Interior
pictures are especially rare. BHM has the largest
collection of
Buffalo house pictures. They are not digitized and must be
viewed in person. |
BHM Image
Collections BECPL Digital Projects BSC Vintage Buffalo Image Links |
| Sanborn Maps | 1880-1990s | Published
roughly every
10 years, these oversized atlases were produced
for fire insurance purposes. They diagram every city building and
structure in great detail and are superb for studying the physical
characteristics of existing and demolished buildings and structures. Local libraries have Sanborns only for the City of Buffalo, not the towns or villages. The exception is BECPL and UB, which subscribe to the Digital Sanborn Maps, which includes all of New York state. |
BHM BECPL BSC UB Sanborn Maps: Who Owns Them Using Fire Insurance Maps |
| Vertical Files (VF) | Mainly 20th century | Few Buffalo architects or buildings have had books written about them. That's where Vertical Files come in. They are collections of newspaper clippings, journal articles, brochures, and pamphlets about city planning, urban design, local architects, and major buildings & residences. | BHM BECPL UB |
| Wills & Estate Papers | 1800 to present | This group of records falls into the Long Shot category. There are cases in which owners leave properties to their heirs, leaving a paper trial that helps document the existence and ownership of houses. | These links
are
now at Delicious |
| Disclaimer: This table of sources and the institutions that own them should not be considered exhaustive. It reflects only what the webmaster has been able to verify at this time. | |||
