Parkways, Avenues, and Circles
The unique feature of the original Olmsted park system plan for Buffalo was the extension of the park experience well beyond the confines of the acreage set aside for park grounds through a system of connecting parkways. The so-called Park Approaches of the original system consisted of four “parkways”, which were 200 feet in width and totaled 3 miles in length, and three “avenues”, which were 100 feet wide and totaling 4 miles in length. Combined, the park approaches added about 125 acres of park lands to the city. The parkways (Chapin, Bidwell, Lincoln and Humboldt) were each designed with two drives, wide greensward spaces, pathways, and several rows of trees. The trees were specifically chosen so as to provide uniformity of species and age, and were planted equidistantly along each row. The longest of the four, Humbolt Parkway, extended for over 1-3/4 miles, linking “The Park” (now Delaware Park) and “The Parade” (now Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park) via a magnificent swath of greenspace. The “avenues” (Richmond, originally called simply “The Avenue”, Porter Avenue and Fillmore Avenue) each had a single drive and no central planting space, but were lined by uniformly planted trees on each side of the roadway.
Along the park approaches, several important junctions were specially laid out and landscaped under the Park Board’s control with Olmsted specifying their designs. Symphony Circle (originally simply called “The Circle”), is 500′ in diameter and is located at the junction of Porter and Richmond Avenues. Agassiz Place, now greatly modified, is 490′ in diameter and is at the junction of former Humboldt Parkway, the carriage concourse of Delaware Park, and Parkside avenue. Soldier’s Place, subsequently renamed Soldiers Circle, is at the junction of Lincoln, Chapin and Bidwell Parkways. It was the largest of the circles, fully 700′ across. It was intended specifically to honor the veterans of the recent Civil War. Bidwell Place, now called Bidwell Circle, is at Bidwell Parkway and Richmond Avenue. Gates Circle (formerly Chapin Place) is at the southern terminus of Chapin Parkway, where it joins Delaware avenue (first called Delaware Street.) Delaware Avenue, it should be noted, was not an Olmsted design and has never been part of the city’s park and parkway system. Despite the prominent residences lining this thoroughfare, it has always carried commercial traffic. Chapin and Bidwell Places are squares, although with circular central medians. Chapin Place was 500’x 420′, and Bidwell Place was 510′ x 465′. The smallest of the Olmsted circles were 300′ in diameter. Ferry Street Circle, is at the junction of Ferry Street and Richmond Avenue. Finally, “The Bank” (no longer existing) was at the junction of Sixth Street (Busti Avenue), Massachusetts Street, and Niagara Street. Later, a connecting park drive, Sheridan Terrace, also entered The Bank linking it to The Front via a strip of land ceded by the Federal government across the periphery of the Fort Porter grounds.
All of these circles had center planting spaces, which added green space to the vista down the roadway, breaking the appearance of unending roadway. They also provided extra setbacks for the houses built along their periphery, with sweeping walkways nestled amidst trees.
The park approaches both served as a means for a visitor to travel from one point in the parks to another without ever leaving the park setting, as well as an extension of the park system to a large portion of the city, in that a resident who might have had to travel a considerable distance to visit one of the three major park grounds could rather easily walk to one of the parkways to partake of a portion of the experience or reach them by a streetcar ride.
The Buffalo park approaches were significant in that they were constructed, maintained and controlled by the Buffalo Board of Park Commissioners, not the regular city authorities. The Board prohibited commercial traffic, and was also able to exert significant control over where normal city streets could access the major parkways. Commercial businesses were also restricted from being established along the approaches, with the Board also able to regulate signs and similar non-residential aspects of these special parts of the Buffalo park system.
Just as the City Beautiful movement brought monuments and large structures to Delaware Park, so too it affected the park approaches. Chapin Place, as designed by Olmsted, was lost when it was completely redone as Gates Circle in the Beaux Arts fashion in 1902. Olmsted’s layout was supplanted by a large fountain and pool with granite walls and seating. Chapin Place and Chapin Parkway had both been named for Col. Edward Payson Chapin (August 16, 1831 – May 27, 1863), a Buffalo attorney and Civil War officer killed at the Battle of Port Hudson, Louisiana; he was posthumously promoted Brigadier General. Chapin Place was re-named Gates Circle after the benefactress who funded the fountain project. Bidwell Place and Bidwell Parkway had both been named for Brigadier General Daniel Davidson Bidwell (August 12, 1819 – October 19, 1864), who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia. He was the senior local officer to be killed in the Civil War. Bidwell Place later was renamed as Colonial Circle. An equestrian statue of General Bidwell by sculptor Sahl Swarz was installed in Colonial Circle in 1924, an installation unanticipated by the original design. Soldiers Place also underwent a name change, to the current designation Soldiers Circle, reflecting the its roadway was redesigned and its central planting area reduced while the outer planting areas were considerably enlarged several years after it was first opened. It was felt that traffic was having difficulty transiting the space under Olmsted’s original plans. Soldiers Circle also received a display of four large naval parrot rifles mounted on carriages and flanked by stacked cannon balls. Colonial Circle also had similar guns and projectile displays.
After 1916, when the functions of the park board were assumed by the city directly, many of the protections afforded the parkways were reduced or were more easily circumvented. Greater access to automobile traffic was granted as the use of automobiles increased. Declared a threat to motorists, the cannons and ammunition stacks were removed from Colonial Circle and from Soldiers Circle in 1936 and 1937, respectively, and relocated to Front Park. Eventually, the center islands of Ferry Street and Agassiz Circles were removed and that of Symphony Circle reduced in size to help facilitate vehicular traffic flow.
Traffic projects were to wreak havoc on the Olmsted parks after the Second World War. A 1946 traffic master plan was the genesis. It proposed several arterial expressways to speed traffic into, out of and around Buffalo. For a time, the plan was only a proposal. But, in the mid-1950s, that plan was ‘dusted off’, updated, and then acted upon. The 3.2 mile long Scajaquada Expressway (NY Route 198) began construction in the 1950s, and opened to traffic on 8 Dec 1959. It runs as a 4 lane limited access divided highway from the Niagara Section of the New York State Thruway (Interstate Highway 198) along over the southern bank of Scajaquada Creek, and it replaced the carriage drive of Delaware Park with a four lane limited access expressway, dividing the magnificent Delaware Park into two sections. It then continues below grade along the western segment of Humboldt Parkway. It was intended to provide a crosstown connection from the Thruway to the Kensington Expressway and thence to downtown or to the main section of the New York State Thruway and to the Buffalo Airport.
Connecting to the Scajaquada Expressway is what came to be known as the Kensington Expressway (NY Route 33) begins downtown and leads to the Buffalo Airport in Cheektowaga, mostly as a below grade, six lane, arterial highway. After considerable discussion, construction began, in three phases. Noteworthy is that the destruction of the Humboldt Parkway greenway was missing from the debates. Early on, in 1960, all of the trees of Humbolt Parkway were felled. When the section from Jefferson Avenue to Harlem Road opened in 1967 the entirety of Humboldt Parkway was completely destroyed. The Humboldt Parkway trees were cut down and the parkway paved over. Moreover, it divided and ultimately destroyed the beautiful vibrant neighborhood which had been formed along its course.
These expressways obliterated the park’s carriage drive and Humboldt Parkway, introduced major new highway access roadways into parkland, and split Delaware Park into two entities. In addition, the huge amounts of rock and soil created by the excavations of the below-grade expressways was dumped into what is now Hoyt Lake, destroying most of its North Bay as well removing much of the lake’s Olmsted-intended character.
The resurgence in interest in Buffalo’s Olmsted parks in the 1980s and 1990s had a positive impact on the Olmsted park approaches. Street lighting was changed, beginning with the original parkways, to special ornamental fixtures. The missing center islands of both Symphony Circle and Ferry Circle were restored in 2002. The work included replacement of the center islands and replication of the central light standards. Agassiz Circle did not benefit, however, and any improvement in its condition is dependent upon downgrading NY Route 198 from expressway status.
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