Sitcom Suburbs

I've driven up and down Millersport Highway many times and never noticed how little variation there was in the homes between Eggert and Bailey. What I saw was undoubtedly "little boxes" in about three or four different styles with some minor variations, in some cases exact copies, of each. In the above photo, with minimal searching, the first and fourth house in the picture, starting from the left, are exact copies of each other, setting a trend that continued down the street, some right next to each other. It's just fascinating how much people wanted to buy their own home in the post WWII era.

However, even though these cookie cutter homes are bunched together on this stretch of Millersport, I think it accomplished the objective of house, yard, and neighborhood, seeing as how the lot sizes are even pretty average by today's standards, the neighbors are close by and the family has ample space in their own quarters. Depending on what each family values home, yard and neighborhood, then that would determine the extent to which these Millersport homes satisfied the ideals of the sitcom suburbs. The developers sure used the lots they had to fullest, leaving land untouched. That being said, I think today's suburbanites have a little different idea as to what their land should be as well as their home and neighborhood. Land values are high in today's suburbs, but that is because the more land one has, the more valuable the property and the house is. The new suburbanites, many of whom have lived in the suburbs most or some of their lives , see a need for more land because that is what most post WWII homes were lacking, a nice chunk of land, maybe 3/4 to 1 acre. With that amount of land it is possible to put a pool and swing set and maybe even a patio and still have room for a good football game. Often, with a large plot of land, people can have the freedom to build a bigger house, which keeps with the original ideals, but molds them to fit the current times. As far as neighborhoods go, some people dislike being close to neighbors, or anyone for that matter, and some people can't get close enough with their neighbors. I think this particular example of proximity between homes is a good example of not too far and not too close.

Overall, the Millersport homes are still viewed as starter houses for many modest families who are new to married life and/or parenthood. They are moderate and give a nice taste of the home as a place of peace and relaxation, land where the children can play, and neighbors whom one can ask to watch the children or two eggs for a cake. Those same ideals are still in place today, but just modified to be bigger and a little better to fit the changing times of today and the future. 

Buffalo Architecture

I decided to take the second option and go exploring around North Buffalo, the Villages of Williamsville and Kenmore, as well as the Town of Tonawanda. North Buffalo is an architectural gold mine because of the variation of styles and span of time in which they were built. Also, some of the houses were not done justice by the pictures because of the sheer size of some of these houses; they just seemed to keep going back, across or both as I looked from different angles.

These American Foursquare styles are numerous around North Buffalo and Kenmore. This particular house is in Kenmore on Parkwood Ave. which is just west of Colvin and just north of Kenmore Ave. The features on this house are almost uniform for all other houses of this style, which includes two and a half stories, the boxy, symmetrical structure and the off center entrance. Some have a front porch, which this one does,as well as a what looks to be a wood- burning fireplace, which may be a result of the early 20th century construction date of this home.

This particular Victorian was on the corner of Woodward and Florence Pkwy. in the Parkside neighborhood of North Buffalo. This particular house would be considered a Queen Anne because of the porch on the front of the house, which is essential to any Queen Anne Victorian. However, there was no tower on this house, but even through the color choice was exactly spot on, one could still see the ornate spindle work and the texture of the exterior. This was an example of the camera not be able to do justice to the enormity and beauty of the house which was built anywhere from 1894-1899, so says the neighbor.

 Located at 232 Crescent Ave., this is an example of the Stick style Victorian home ranging from 1860 to 1890 and a very clean example of what the angularity should be on this type of home, in that it is very pleasing to the eye. It seems to have a wood construction and the "stick" exterior if evident at the top of the house. Also, as of November 1, its paint is in keeping with  a stick style, has a nice contrast in its colors.

This house at 440 Lincoln Pkwy. in Buffalo, was found by accident and is a more recent example of the federal style of architecture. The slope of the roof has a medium pitch to it and the windows are the standard five across the top and four on the bottom for this type of house. Also, each individual window has twelve panes of glass, seeing as how it was nearly impossible to make large panes of the glass in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, but this one I believe was built in the 1920's.

This house, at the corner of Linden and Amherst St. was another come across by accident, is not really anything on the list that can be matched perfectly, but in my opinion it could be considered a Georgian home because of the symmetrically placed chimney,at the end of the wall and symmetrically placed dormer windows at the top of the house. If I had to venture a guess, it would that this house was built in the 1910's to 20's.

This house shocked me when I looked across the street because it looked extremely similar to the Darwin Martin House. However, this house is located at 30 Tillinghast Pl. just east of Colvin by Nichols School. It has the Prairie features with the broad horizontal forms, low square chimney and overall a very horizontal appearance. Also, it just seems to have an organic appearance with the nature around, not seeming as if it was cleared to make way for, but as a structure that is just there and blending in with nature, which was the intended design.

 This example of a ranch style home is in the Town of Tonawanda of Glendale Dr. It is all brick and only story. the ranch is all brick and has a spacious floor plan because of just the one floor.

This Tudor style house is located at 331 Lincoln Pkwy in Buffalo. It has designs in the brick, specifically above the windows and small windows, both characteristic of the early 20th century Tudor style. Also, the deep pitched is also evident along with the prominent chimney.

 Lastly, this house, built in 1872, originally as a church (it says "Ye Olde Church" above the doorway) on S. Cayuga Rd. in Williamsville, baffles me as to what type of architectural style it best fits. I am going to take a shot and say that it could be a later Greek Revival, without the columns because of the placement of the window at the top of the structure, which is similar to the Theodore Roosevelt inauguration house. However, the offset nature of the windows and the door could be 17th century ideas that the New Englanders thought looked good in that time.

After two hours of driving and picture taking, I realized the many styles of architecture and the detail and craftsmanship with which many of these homes were built. It allows one to appreciate the former wealth and taste of past Buffalonians.


MAP : http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?oe=UTF-8&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=118062023533157223665.0004940937d02daaef24d&t=h&z=13

Traveling the World

When Americans think of Europe, they think of the major/capital cities like London, Paris, Rome, Athens. Most families go for about two or three weeks because they want to hit all the major sight-seeing spots like the Eiffel Tower, the islands of Santorini, or a boat ride in Venice, but enjoy the beauty and history of the land that are likely to only see once in their lifetime because these trips can be costly. Historical significance seems to be another theme in the European travel guide because Americans like to see architectural marvels from before the time of Christ and other attractions that were considered ruins long before our Founding Fathers had been born. America is ethnically and culturally diverse, perhaps like no other nation in the world and Americans want to see something that is distinctly Irish or German or Polish so they can see what their traditions have evolved from; the original model, if you will. Americans want to see places where they have only read about or heard stories of. they want authentic Italian food from Italy, they want beer from Germany and maybe even some croissants in France in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Americans, like Europeans, want to see major attractions, world wonders, places to go and objects to see before you die, but even though they have read about and possibly seen it on television, actually experiencing it in person is much more powerful and an everlasting memory, which is ultimately what Americans desire when they travel Europe.

Europeans traveling to America are bombarded with many different options across the country, but it depends what part they intend to visit, but if they want to go coast to coast, one travel site has the Grand Canyon, Universal Studios, and  Red Rock Canyon in Colorado as their top three overall destinations in the U.S. Others on the list include Miami Beach, Ground Zero in NYC and Sea World. It seems as if the travel agencies are catering to the likes of the Europeans or other foreigners in showing a healthy mix of natural grandeur and man-made marvels. the Golden Gate Bridge, Hollywood and Central Park in NYC as well as the Statue of Liberty seem to be other highly attractive places in which Europeans don't often see in their own lands because of the famous architects or brilliant minds who helped develop the relatively new country in America. Europeans seem to like the natural beauty that has been there for millions of years, along with the mix of new technology and design  in America, seeing as how it is a couple of thousand years the junior of most of the established sight seeing spots of Europe. Some Europeans may even come to see the art that is seeing 8 million people try and traverse 469 square miles of NYC, while getting to their destination on time. Others may just come to see all those people and then drive 30 minutes out of the City and see farmland as far as the eye can see. Beaches, architectural marvels and even museums are commonplace amongst the travel guides for the United States, which leads one to believe those traits are what make America is distinctly American because the variety and input from a vast array of cultures and nationalities, not found in Europe because those are the origins of America; the United States just brings all those idea into one place, making the diversity and variety in a comparably small area unique to America. America has some of the most publicized history, of which is also targeted and such powerful building in Washington, D.C. are also sights to been seen, not only for their beauty, but because the most powerful people in the world work there everyday.

Europeans have the notion that America is still young and new, but that is part of the attraction as well as the diversity of culture and nationality that makes America the melting pot it is, which is what many European come here for, in my opinion. I think the themes of diversity and grandeur have been clearly laid out as the two main reasons Europeans come to experience America, which would be, in my view, correct values to place on the United States.

NYC/London

London has a distinct, royal look to it, mainly because a great succession of royal families have built it over the last several centuries to what we see today. the buildings are very ornate and represent the 16th, 17th, and 18th century tastes of style and architecture of the periods in which they were built. The designs on the stone buildings is very ornate and the stone buildings are commonly found throughout the city. The Royal taste was only for the best materials to be used on such buildings as the British Parliament buildings (which is the orange-looking one on the left) and other Royal/government buildings. Not many of the structures look to rise above 10 stories. It also appears that London appears to maintain as much greenspace as possible, especially along the body of water that runs through the 

city.

The next two pictures are of New York City, in which skyscrapers are numerous and hide many of the smaller buildings next to them. Unlike London, New York had a few different ethnic groups in the 19th century and varying degrees of wealth, which both factored into the design and size of the buildings. London also had some more room to work with in terms of area, whereas New York's frame of mind was to keep going up to achieve the desired space they needed. The skyscrapers are also mixed in with older buildings, which is an American thing because new buildings seemed to represent the opportunity to show wealth, but most importantly, progress. Old buildings were seen as a peace of the past, not necessarily planned to continue into the future, but the skyscrapers made them less noticeable and made them less relied upon. Also, I have observed, that the more important/powerful a company is, the taller the building that is built and the more windows it has.

It seems that London maintains is Royal appearance because the people that live there, mostly are English, and the people who make the decisions about the landscape of the city enjoy their English roots. New York was at one time the largest immigrant center int he world and the type of architecture that is shown in NY is because of the different ideas coming from varying parts of the world.

Buffalo's West Side

I chose the West Side of Buffalo, particularly because my father's side of the family all lived on the West Side at one point during the early to mid 20th century. The West Side has always been well known for its strong Italian heritage and population. While Italians still remain on the West Side, running a handful of restaurants, the Hispanic population has mostly made it their own enclave.

Even though the West Side is predominantly Puerto Rican, many African American, Middle Eastern, Central American, Somali, and Burmese immigrants currently live there. Unlike many other parts of Buffalo, the West Side still has many factors going in its favor like Buffalo State College and Kleinhans Music Hall. However, the neighborhood itself, is older than it looks because the money isn't there to fund for repairs. Street after street was lined with houses that were in disrepair and buildings and lots that were vacant. even though the Puerto Ricans have made the West Side mostly their own, the Italian infastructure is still there seeing as how each house and building was built in the early 20th century, which marked the Italians biggest influx of citizens.

The houses are moderate, wood built homes, that are mostly three- stories and could house one or two families. Also, I noticed that the houses were spaced close together, which I never fully understood, but my best guess was a strong sense of community and not a whole lot of space to work with.

Buffalo was a major industrial city, with the West Side playing a pivotal role in the shipping and import of goods into the city, which is what many of the Italians did to make a living. Italians also brought their own culture with them in the way of food, of which there are still quite a few Italian restaurants left in the area, specifically Left Bank, which is located on Rhode Island St. and Mineo and Sapio Italian Sausage. However, when the city suffered suburbanization in the post- WWII era and deinsudtrialization the Italians moved to the suburbs and left what they had built behind. Still prime for immigrants some 60 years after the first wave, Puerto Ricans have made it their home in Buffalo.

Many corner stores have their products painted on the sides of the stores, which was commonplace among the two or three corner stores that I saw on my journey. The Hispanic transformation is evident as there is now a Puerto Rican Day Parade that takes places on Niagara St., which is also known as Avenida San Juan, just like the actual one in Puerto Rico.The Niagara Cafe serves Chicken with rice and beans, which is a staple of Puerto Rican food and is a quite popular restaurant among its residents.




Even though the West Side still has a lot of work to so to make the neighborhood a place where children can roam free and large sections are not an eyesore,  parts of the West Side are being kept up and are being preserved and restored. There is hope for the West Side of Buffalo, that is does not remain in urban blight and does not carry the characteristics of the post-WWII "Noir City".

Parking Meters Today

Finding information about Parking meters was hard enough, especially because with the new technology, there are many different kinds of meters and models. It wasn't so much the meter itself that interested me, but the jobs, financing and other technologies that had to do with paid public parking in general.I checked out a New York Times article that had to do with parking meters in their infancy, but that wasn't my focus, so I entered "parking meters" in the search field of the NY Times site and found a rather interesting article on the City of Chicago and their steps to privatize public parking, but brought the city something like $1.2 billion in revenue, which was a foundation of the City's budget, seeing as how it was such a large sum of money and Chicago, like everyone else is trying to refine their budget in the economic times. After I got useful information that article I began to look back in the search terms and found one more on San Francisco and the common theme among the various articles was that public parking was so much a part of large cities budgets, they probably couldn't do without it. Also, I found that these larger cities were all looking to somehow make the parking business more efficient through the use of technologies to make it easier for patrons to pay, easily find a spot and increase the turnover of parking spaces that were vital to a city's economy. I had never realized, living in Western New York, where the parking meter technology isn't exactly state of the art, how much effort was going into making the burden fall less onto the patrons and more into the hands of a municipality.

My next task was to find the different variations of public parking throughout the U.S. and even in other countries. On a whim, I did a Google search and came up with this website authored by a man who used to work for the Oklahoma City Parking Authority and was extremely interested in the different technologies and methods of controlling public parking. Unfortunately, the man died about ten years ago, but his site lives, with some useful information. For example, in the U.K handheld parking meters are used get information from the internet about people who had prepaid for a parking pass for a certain spot and knew the description of the car and the license plate number within a matter of seconds, so that no one else was allowed to take that prepaid spot. Also, the devices would allow the Parking Attendants to direct people to open spaces, also made available through a computer network. Also, in the UK as well as in America, people  can pay with any form of payment -cash, credit, debit. Also, the stations where one pays for parking are starting to be more centralized, eliminating the mechanical meters that most of us think of when we envision parking meters. The new feature of these centralized stations is a printed receipt that displays the time, date, and meter location, and how much time one has purchased, instead of a meter counting down the minutes.

Overall, I was surprised at how much information there was about parking meters and how important the revenue they generate is to city pocketbooks. The man from Oklahoma City, now deceased, really gave a nice summary, which I used as a starting point for my research. His efforts were not wasted when he made that site.

Village of Kenmore

I wanted to take a closer look at the Village of Kenmore, because living in Amherst, I get to see the lovely Village of Williamsville quite often, so I thought, why not?

Kenmore is a small village, only 1.2 square miles, yet was rated as one of the top 10 most desirable places to live in the United States in 2009. It has it's own police department, trash services and highway department. The stretch on Delaware Ave. from Euclid to Delaware Rd. is the part where it really feels like you can just go for a walk in a community, in the truest sense of the word. Many houses in Kenmore began being constructed in the early 1900's, with the second wave coming right after World War II. The stores that line Delaware Ave. are from between the turn of the 20th century and about the late 1940's.

 

 

 This particular building is a unisex barber shop on the southeast corner of Delaware Ave. and Euclid Ave. Above the business is an active apartment that looks to be from the early 20th century because of the window crowns in the brick (better view in the top picture. The barber shop was not open when I went, but there is also a partial fire escape at the back of the building leading from the above apartment. In my opinion, I believe that at one time, the whole dwelling was a house for a well-off family that "pulled themselves up by the bootstraps" in the Industrial age. It would have been a modest home, but large nonetheless. The only discernible repair from the original design is on the front, where there is a stone facade.

I noticed a pattern with the window crowns on the whole street and it made me think that all of these buildings were built in the same 20-year period. Also, a pattern that arose was the occupancy of apartments above the businesses. This was one of a few that had some sort of remodeling done to the front of the building to make it look more modern, but in no way changed the structure of the building.

Located at the northwest corner of Lincoln Blvd. and Delaware Ave, this was a rather odd building in that it curved around the side and didn't come to a point. As one can see, the "Dollar General" sign was affixed to the front of the building and made no attempt to cover up any part of the structure as some businesses do with old buildings, part of the reason Kenmore still looks like a village because it integrates commercializing while still keeping the character of the building.

Kenmore is still a village that has a strong sense of community. Even though many cars traverse Delaware Ave. daily, they are kept in check at a strict speed of 30mph and the Kenmore Police are waiting. However, even though many buildings in the Village are from the early 20th century, Kenmore maintains a character that very few can claim, that small town feel where a family can go for a walk down Delaware or someone can ride their bike, or maybe even sit at the gazebo on the corner of Delaware Ave. and Delaware Rd. and watch the slow- moving traffic hum along. Parents don't have to fret over their children walking to school or to a friend's house because sidewalks are everywhere ( so are the stop signs) and that's what makes Kenmore remain a community-oriented village.