The centerpiece of Buffalo’s Olmsted parks and parkways system is the vast grounds originally known simply as “The Park”. In 1896, it was renamed Delaware Park, as three additional grounds were being added to the system. At 350 acres in size it is one of the relatively few true “parks” Frederick Law Olmsted created, and the only one in the Buffalo system. To Olmsted, only a very large, naturalistic site which would completely shield the visitor from the bustle and cares of the city could be considered a “park”. Smaller sites he categorized as “pleasure grounds”. This park was also the first for which Olmsted was given the opportunity to personally select the site to be used. In keeping with all of Olmsted’s great parks, Delaware Park has three prime elements: a prominent water feature (the “Gala Water”, presently named “Hoyt Lake”) which was originally 42 acres in area and was formed by damming Scajaquada Creek, a large meadow of about 120 acres, and significant wooded areas. None of those elements preexisted at the site; Scajaquada Creek was a shallow sluggish stream, the meadow area was partially wooded, and the forested section was inconsistent in density and desirability of species; all required extensive reworking and engineering to shape them to the landscape Olmsted and Vaux envisioned.
The site was able to make great use of three surrounding properties as augmentation to the new park: the grounds of Forest Lawn Cemetery, the future Parkside residential community for which Olmsted also made the plans, and the grounds of the Buffalo Insane Asylum, also an Olmsted-Vaux commission. Located in what at the time was the outskirts of Buffalo, the park was crossed by only a single city street. In a manner similar to his treatment of the traverse roads in New York’s Central Park, he kept Delaware street (later, “avenue”) at a lower grade than much of the surrounding park, with a viaduct to carry the park’s carriage road above it, and shielded from the park from it by thick plantings. For an extended period of time, a wooden picket fence was erected along Delaware avenue to keep out intruders and preserve the plantings. Olmsted and Vaux also laid out broad new parkways to connect this park with The Parade and The Front, the two smaller pleasure grounds of his original Buffalo design, and extend the park experience much deeper into the city.
Olmsted’s partner Calvert Vaux prepared the designs for the park’s original buildings and structures. He drew plans for a boathouse (constructed in 1875, expanded under the direction of Eugene L. Holmes in 1885, and then demolished in 1900), a highly detailed gazebo overlooking the lake (the “Spire House”, constructed in 1875, but removed at an indeterminate time between 1927 and 1951), a dwelling with an office for the park superintendent, plus associated barns and outbuildings (“The Farmstead”; constructed in 1875, torn down to provide parking for the zoo in 1950); a pair of elaborate covered seats to shelter park users waiting for boat rides on the lake (constructed in 1875, removed before 1951); the Gala Water bridge at the western end of the park lake (constructed in 1874, demolished and replaced by an iron bridge of similar appearance in 1890, then replaced again in 1901 by the present bridge); and a large stone viaduct (also built in 1874, replaced with a new viaduct in 1935, which was in turn twice more reconstructed), which carried the park carriage Concourse over Delaware street (now Delaware Avenue). In contrast to his designs for the elaborate Parade House at The Parade, and an even more embellished (but never built) music stand for the Front, Vaux’s structures for the Park were keyed to blending with the landscape. The Spire House was the sole exception, and the role of its pagoda-like form was to provide a bit of whimsy, also a hallmark of an Olmsted and Vaux design collaboration.
The park boathouse housed a small fleet of rental rowboats as well as providing a place for shelter and light refreshments, both operated by a contractor. Olmsted showed a personal interest in the concept of the boats; in his correspondence with the Park Board he included his suggested names for the boats (“flower” names) shown sketched as small pennants. Both the restaurant and the boats proved immediately quite popular. A very wide deck over the boat storage area provided plentiful space for passive leisure and enjoyment of the lake.
The popularity was so strong that, as noted above, the boathouse was expanded within ten years of use, with the size of the structure being more than doubled.
At the other side of the park, fewer visitor amenities were initially provided. Olmsted had been of the opinion that the Farmstead might also prove an attraction, potentially with a dairy barn which could provide cups of milk and perhaps sandwiches for attendees. He had provided such an amenity in New York’s Central Park – “The Dairy” – but in Buffalo that arrangement did not come to fruition. One reason for the difference may have been that The Farmstead was primarily a combination of private residence and working site. It was the home and the office of the Park Superintendent, and the barns and outbuildings constructed there housed the working equipment of the park, including the steam roller and the watering wagons. It also provided storage space for the myriad supplies used in the maintenance of the parks and parkways, and it quartered the park’s working horses, as well as sheltering the flock of sheep which in the early years tended the meadow. Nearby was the park quarry, located adjacent to the present Parkside Lodge, which was a working stone quarry for the park system, complete with a large stone crusher.
In 1886 the park was expanded on its southern side by the gift of twelve acres of land between Lincoln parkway and Rumsey road. The new lands were in memory of Dexter P. Rumsey, a prominent Buffalo businessman and an original member of the Park Board, presented by his widow and his daughter. The new area was heavily wooded, and included a small ravine. Olmsted drew up plans for the addition, which included a stone arch bridge carrying one pedestrian walk over another. This is the bridge better known today as the “ivy bridge” or the “dell span”.
In 1898 a rectangular raised bandstand with a Spanish tile roofed was added at the Gala Water’s edge, near to the Lincoln parkway bridge. At the same time, the Vaux designed covered seats were relocated back from the water edge and reoriented so that the seating faced the water. Designed by Buffalo architects Loverin & Whalen, the Delaware park bandstand was razed about 1940. The covered seats appear to have been removed about the same time.
Parts of the original design for Delaware Park were damaged by the use of a large portion of the grounds around the lake for the Pan American Exhibition of 1901. In anticipation of the exposition, the wood frame boat house was replaced by a larger 3-story masonry building, much more prominently sited in comparison to the original, which was designed by architect E. B. Green of Buffalo. The structure was expanded in 1912, as the number of park visitors continued to increase. Two large marble structures in the mode of the City Beautiful movement then sweeping the country were also prominently situated within the park – the Historical Society building which served as the New York State pavilion during the exhibition, and the Albright Art Gallery, later with an expanded footprint as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, now the AKG art gallery, which replaced grounds which were formerly the park nursery, adjoining Elmwood avenue and the main park drive. A marble-embellished bridge (complete with plaster lion figures, which were not intended as permanent fixtures) replaced the earlier iron bridge (which had replicated Vaux’s design with a close copy made of iron) spanning the Gala Water for the park drive. The park’s lake became a “Venetian lagoon”, complete with a gondola and an electric fountain. The Pan-American Exhibition itself occupied the northwest corner of the park, as well as considerable private acreage bordered by Elmwood avenue on the west, Delaware avenue on the east and the belt line railroad tracks to the north. Exhibition gates were set up at the Meadow and at the head of Lincoln Parkway.
In 1911, a large greenhouse was constructed to the south of the new art gallery, replacing a collection of propagation beds and cold frames frames; the area occupied by the old facility was then planted with trees and shrubs.
A permanent zoological collection was established adjacent to The Farmstead in the 1890s, augmenting the flock of sheep which grazed upon the park meadow with small herds of deer, elk and American bison in enclosures and the construction of a set of bear pits. Soon after, a large barn structure was erected to support the increased animal population. A seal tank was added. Gifts and loans of other species continued the growth. In 1912, the brick elephant house was constructed. Then, in the 1930’s, the zoo was considerably enlarged at that location as part of a Works Progress Administration project.
A nine hole golf course was laid out on the meadow in the early 1900s. In 1930 it was replaced by a permanent 18-hole course, effectively taking over the entire meadow except for its use as a vista by non-participants. Any casual use was at risk of both the ire of the players and the trajectory of their golfballs.
In the middle of the park meadow, there is a large boulder on a mound. It is the marker for the resting place of 300 American soldiers who died of disease while encamped nearby during the War of 1812. For a number of years, there were a pair of willow trees to mark each end of the two burial trenchs, but those trees are now gone. A boulder and bronze plaque were added to the gravesite in conjunction with the great Grand Army of the Republic encampment held at Buffalo in 1896. Soon after, a pair of surplus naval Parrott rifles were emplaced at either side of the boulder. The cannon were removed, due to deterioration, about 1979; located dismounted and in outside storage, that pair are the two artillery pieces reconditioned and placed at Front Park in 2014.
The boulder was the second monument to be placed in the park. The first was a bust of Mozart, on a tall granite pedestal, donated in May of 1894. Times had shifted within the Board of Park Commissioners. Previously, the Board had staunchly adhered to Olmsted’s principles, and resisted ostentatious structures and statuary as well as organized sporting events in The Park as inconsistent with the intent of a idylic natural landscape.
The park quarry had been disestablished as a working quarry in 1897 and the huge steam stone crusher and other quarry equipment sold; the price of stone obtained commercially had dropped considerably and it was more economical to purchase whatever stone would be needed for park purposes. Soon thereafter, initial steps were taken with a view to integrate it into the park landscape and make it accessible to parkgoers. It was a space about 700 feet long, about 300 wide at its greatest breadth, and about 25 feet deep. Groundwater created a pond about 300 feet long and 40 feet wide. The pool rather quickly became an impromptu site for youngsters to sail toy boats, and to use as a skating site in winter.
J. C. Olmsted had met with the commissioners at the park in September of 1897 to discuss options for creating a sunken garden in the quarry. Nothing concrete came of the concept for several years. Indeed, for a time it came to be partially used as a dumping site for zoo waste; however, a rodent issue caused that practice to be discontinued. In 1908, the old quarry was drained of accumulating groundwater, and the first lawns and gardens in the spot were planted, the area becoming known as “The Ledges”. (A parallel project, moving the park horse stables from the vicinity of the greenhouses near Elmwood avenue, was dropped due to strong opposition of Parkside avenue residents.) A rustic timber footbridge was built over the quarry in the summer of 1911, a considerable convenience for the park’s golfers as well as providing an opportunity to admire the landscape below.
Twelve lawn bowling “rinks” had been constructed in the park along Parkside avenue, near Florence avenue, in 1910, with another three added in 1915. Sited at Parkside avenue and originally overlooking the park quarry, the Parkside Lodge – originally referred to as the Park Locker House – was constructed to provide shower and locker space for golfers and for lawn bowlers. It opened in May, 1914; its construction was not without controversy, as membership in the new Buffalo Golf Club or the Lawn Bowling Association had priority on locker rental and for use of the building’s club rooms. Both entities entailed membership fees. Rent of a locker for non-club members was $5 for the season, a substantial sum for the younger participants in baseball or lawn tennis. Fees which were relatively large, and which favored private entities rather than individual park users were a marked change from past park practices and drew considerable criticism.
In 1921 the two stone arch bridges leading from the meadow to the Parkside Lodge were opened. They replaced the earlier timber structure. Today, only the roadway and railings are visible, at ground level, as the quarry was completely filled in with construction debris when the Kensington Expressway was constructed.
In 1945, the Buffalo Police Radio Station and communications tower were constructed on the South Meadow drive of the park. Despite all the changes in communications technology since then, the sizable yellow brick structure and 235 foot tall steel tower remain. Its construction had been a prime case of “park land is vacant land” syndrome. The structures are no longer used for communications purposes; so now one must ask, “Why they have not been removed from an Olmsted landscape?”
The most significant and massive intrusion onto Olmsted’s design occurred about 1960, when an expressway was extended across the park, separating it into two sections and bringing the roar of traffic into the heart of the park. As a part of the construction, significant portions of the park lake were filled. The lake, long suffering from upstream pollution, became little more than an open sewer, and retained little of its original shoreline. An early 1980s effort to clean the lake further reduced the shoreline and tunneled the polluted waters of the creek underground and separated from the water of the park lake.
Efforts to restore the Olmsted design have made progress, particularly in the past twenty years. However, they have also met with occasional resistance from competing interests. Considerable strides have been made under the care of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, and a heightened awareness of Olmsted’s intentions has been fostered. Still, several additional opportunities await for Delaware Park to be back again to the full glory of its past, most notably a restoration of the lake shorelines and (most importantly) the downgrading of the expressway which presently splits the park.
260501