One of the outstanding features of the Kleinhans community is its diversity and inclusiveness. Many residents have their own special stories telling their rich experiences living in the neighborhood. Most of these stories are oral living history that singularly are one voice but when combined yield a rich tapestry of community living in an urban neighborhood. This page will be dedicated to preserving oral history and the many colorful stories which make up the Kleinhans neighborhood. If you have your own stories, please send them to Chris Brown. Anything that you'd might like to share about your experiences living in the neighborhood would be of interest - family history, experiences visiting friends, raising families, etc. Even ghost stories are welcome! Noted author Mason Winfield is seeking stories about haunted houses in the Allentown area, so stories can evolve beyond the mundane.
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The following recollection is from Joan Diana, who recounts her family history. Joan's family
purchased 26 Orton Place in the 1930s, her relatives purchased the house a few
doors down at 34 Orton Place, so Joan has a rich family history on Orton Place.
After many years on Orton Place, Joan with her son Nick left Orton Place. Sadly,
they will be missed, but their family homestead found caring hands in its new owners
and Joan's family memories constitute an important legacy in the neighborhood.
From Joan: I know a friend of a friend whose parents owned the little grocery store that stood on Wadsworth. If memory serves me correctly it was right about where the [Grace Manor] nursing home's parking lot ends. On the corner of Pennsylvania and Plymouth (where Chuck's barber shop is now, 321 Penn.) there was a little Mom and Pop grocery store that sold penny candy etc. Right across the street there was Gullo's drug store (315 Pennsylvania). On Allen street, my mother used to shop at the NuWay Market, which in now Holly Farms. Down the street on the corner of Elmwood and Allen there was a Deco's and a drug store was where Eminent Design is now. The entrance to the Towne Restaurant, was once a beauty shop where my mother had her hair done for years. It was owned by Angie Lobue who was related to the DiLapo's who owned the Cloister Restaurant on Delaware and Virginia. Angie DiLapo and her husband Jimmy had a pink house built on Lincoln Parkway near the rose gardens. - 1 - |
The LoBue's, DiLapo's, Judge Latona, and many more were very close
friends to the Scioli family who lived downstairs at 34 Orton Place. The
Scioli's had many political ties and entertained big time at 34 Orton.
Frannie Scioli had a maid named Willa Mae. Willa Mae was very nice and kept us
kids in line. Frannie also would employ the help of another maid when she
had dinner parties.
The DiLapo's would show up in a big, shiny green Imperial with the big wings on the end. Angie DiLapo was bigger than life. She had platinum hair, piled high on her head. She had a great figure for an older woman. She was extremely stylish and often wore white or natural mink coats. She reminded me of one of the Gabor sisters. She had that same kind of flamboyance that the actresses demonstrated. My father's brother, Uncle Herman and his wife Aunt Marge, owned one of the very first wholesale stores in Buffalo (this was in the late 50's). It was on the corner of Allen and Main where the deli now stands. They sold dishes, silverware (the real stuff) and jewelry etc. Lots of fun memories: I remember the popcorn man coming down Orton on warm Sunday afternoons to peddle his wares, as well as the "fruit man" bellowing "apples, bananas, oranges, straw-ber-r-r-r-ies". I can remember a horse and carriage picking up garbage like the scavengers do today in their pick-up trucks or vans. The horses droppings would be used to fertilize my father's bushes he planted in the front. -Joan Diana
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I found your wonderful site this morning and wanted to thank all of you for reclaiming this beautiful area. My name is Rosanne Dibartolo Bushnell and I now live in Manassas VA but was born and grew up at 250 Pennsylvania St. I lived there from 1949-1970. I have wonderful memories of a peaceful neighborhood where all the homes were beautifully kept. 250 Pennsylvania was brown and I remember sitting on that incredible porch as a child and watching the world, my world go by. My brothers and I would play under the chestnut trees, there were 3 along the Fargo side and one on the Pennsylvania side. Chestnuts were like currency among the kids. we would gather them and somehow feel so rich. The beautiful prickly pods opening to that incredibly rich looking brown nut. We all gathered bags and bags of them and never knew what to do with them. We ultimately made roads under the trees and played with cars..making little cities.The popcorn man, with his whistle and his heavy step. He always looked so tired to me. I would get a bag of popcorn for five cents. He has a pump thing that put very yellow butter on it. It was so delicious. (My parents (Angelo and Rose DiBartolo) owned the home and we lived downstairs, my maternal grandparents lived upstairs until my grandfather's death in the 60's. The Insana's moved in upstairs and eventually bought the house from my mother after my fathers death, this was sometime in the early to mid 70's.
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I remember doing all my Christmas shopping in the aisles of Gullo's pharmacy. Getting things for .25 and .50 cents for all my brothers and sister and parents. I literally would spend hours there finding the right things for the right price. If anyone did that now, they would call the police...:). I was so sad to see that store all boarded up the last few times I have come through the West Side. The other store I really remember is Massaro's. They had a butcher, who I believe was the grandfather and an incredible penny candy section. Was a great store.
Even when I was small, I would try to imagine the history of that neighborhood with the hitching posts across the street on the Fargo side in front of that incredible apartment house. Is that apartment house still there? I actually never went in there but I always imagined it was elegant. I remember hearing the fog horns from Lake Erie and the air raid sirens in the 50's enveloping that neighborhood. It was a wonderful place to grow up in the fifties and sixties. It felt safe and clean and beautiful. Well, enough of the memory lane stuff. Thanks again for all the wonderful work you do. Cheers Rosanne Bushnell - 4 - |
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330 Hudson Street recently changed hands, changing the property from an absentee owned property to an owner-occupied site. The new owner opened the home to thousands of visitors during the 2002 and 2003 Secrets of Allentown interior tour of historic homes.
On the tour Mary A Witherspoon (formerly Caligiuri), a woman who grew up in the home in the 1930s visited the home and was excited by the restoration activities by Ms. Drummer. Mary shared:
“My father purchased the house at 330 Hudson in 1938 from a Mr. Ricotta. My first impression as a girl of fourteen was awe. The high ceilings, hardwood floors, marble fireplaces and a working telephone were just beautiful. The house consisted of an upper and lower flat. In the attic we discovered a trunk full of handwritten music from Dr. Werner who was an earlier owner of the house from the late 1880s and early 1890s. We donated it to the Grosvenor Library. We would walk to Holy Cross church and shop at the Columbia market. I remember my mother picking out live chickens from the market on Pennsylvania Street between Niagara St. and Prospect St. - 5 - |
The grocery store at West Ave. and Hudson St. was owned by Sam Gino. The store at Hudson St. and Cottage St. was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Chemali and later by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. On Saturday we would go to the matinee at the Allendale theater for a nickel. We could board the street car on West Ave and go downtown for three cents. Our neighbors at 336 Hudson (also known as 10 Orton Place) were Mr. and Mrs. Carol Douglas.
When I married in 1953 my husband and I moved into the remodeled upper flat. I remember the houses on the east side of Hudson Street being demolished in the early 1960s to make room for a playground where my children later rode their bikes. 330 Hudson Street was sold for approximately $8,000 in 1969 when my widowed mother became to old to live on her own. I was recently were given a tour by the new owners of the house and was amazed at what they uncovered and all the work they were doing. I am looking forward to seeing the completion and restoration of this grand old home which holds lots of happy memories.” - 6 - |
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The following note was penned by a former resident of the neighborhood who lived near
the Hudson Street/Plymouth Avenue intersection:
My family lived at 302 Hudson St. until my parents sold the property in 1984. My childhood is there and I always look back fondly to those days. Our house went up in flames probably in 1990 and is now a vacant lot. But 18 Plymouth (still there) was just on the other side of the fence, and I remember loving the character which 18 Plymouth had, even as a 7 year old. The house was always off limits though, because of its funeral home past (which at the time was still its incarnation)... but i loved walking by it and always admiring its beauty throughout my young life, whether it was being adventurous and going to the corner store on Pennsylvania and Plymouth instead of the one in front of our home (on Cottage and Hudson Streets), or as the years went by, the Hudson Street kids playing the Plymouth street kids in a game of hockey on their turf (Kleinhans parking lot), or delivering the papers in the neighborhood until I was 14, when we finally moved to a single family home in another part of the west side. I always had a passion for 18 Plymouth. I have since grown up, had a family of my own, and in my determination to stay in the west side, I was working in a neighborhood and I fell in love with a home for sale in the Parkside district (how ironic, huh), so that is where we happily are today. - 7 - |
Last night (4/15/04), I had this dream that I was in the backyard of our old home on Hudson Street and everything was alive, including 18 Plymouth. It was as clear as the sun. As I started my day (for real), I could not get this image out of my head. It was as if it was calling me home. So I went back to the old neighborhood with an itch to walk back there once again. So I pretended to have a job along the utility poles (my job does give me that authorization, by the way...), so I decided to scope out 18 Plymouth also, and it saddened me to see how far it has fallen from grace, I felt a touch of hope when I saw the "For Sale" sign, and gave me that feeling again. The same feeling I had when I saw the "For Sale" sign at our would-be home in North Buffalo. But this one is a bit more special.
I came across your web site and was delighted to hear of those who have kept a vigil throughout these years, but also felt disgust in what others have taken from it. I wish there was more I can do to help save this local treasure and personal jewel. It is one of the few tangible links to my childhood and I hope this home and loving owners can find each other. I wish it could be me. I suppose I can always keep on dreaming... Although it is no longer my neighborhood, it will always be in my heart, so thank you for watching over it... Sincerely Yours, Elias Benavides 11 Russell St. - 8 - |
Kleinhans Community Association
c/o 34 Orton Place, Buffalo NY 14201, (716) 884-1914
Visit our web site on
the Internet: http://kleinhansca.org