Olmsted's Corridor of Light, Buffalo NY

Frederick Law Olmsted designed America's first park and parkway system in 1868 for Buffalo New York.
Symphony Circle, his first "sylvan hub," designed in 1874, was followed by Ferry Circle in the 1890s.
In 2002, we celebrated this Corridor of Light with the restoration of the center islands at Symphony and Ferry Circles.

Photos: left, courtesy of E. Bruce Garver, right, courtesy of the Bflo News.

THE LIGHT HAS RETURNED

On November 1, 2002, friends and neighbors celebrated the return of the lights at Ferry Circle and Symphony Circle in the City of Buffalo. Although part of Frederick Law Olmsted's original parkway design, the circles were removed in 1938. In an amazing public-private collaboration which included Mayor Anthony Masiello, City of Buffalo, Erie County, US Federal Government, The Olmsted Parks Conservancy, The Richmond Neighborhood Community Association, Symphony Circle Steering Committee, Kleinhans Community Association, Colgate Industries and the Rupp Foundation, the circles have been re-born and the 5-light ornamental standard as its crowning glory was restored.

On November 1, 2002, the center island at Symphony Circle was restored after nearly 12 years of continual, focused renewal. This historic event will bring together -- for the first time ever -- the fully implemented visions of internationally famed designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Eliel and Eero Saarinen for Symphony Circle. Olmsted designed the overall Symphony Circle greenspace in 1874 and the Saarinen's designed Kleinhans Music Hall and the reflecting pool in Symphony Circle in 1939.

The following narrative is a brief history of Symphony Circle:

Symphony Circle, from Buffalo of Today,The Queen City of The Lakes, 1893.

Buffalo has an extraordinary legacy of six major parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted's landscape architectural firm during the 19th century. While the parks that his firm designed are beautiful, it is the parkways which linked his first three Buffalo parks that made the parkway system here the first of its kind in America. When Olmsted designed Buffalo's parkway system in 1868 he envisioned broad expansive thoroughfares planted with double rows of American Elms to link his parks. Where the parkways had strategically placed junctures, he designed spacious circles of green that would serve as a link between Buffalo's original three parks (The Front, The Parade, and The Park) and their connecting parkways. The first of these circles was known as the North Street Circle (or simply the Circle) at the junction of Porter Avenue, Richmond Avenue, North Street, Pennsylvania Street and Wadsworth Street.

Olmsted wrote in 1868 that a ride down one of the parkways he designed would be "in the midst of a scene of sylvan beauty, and with the sounds and sites of the ordinary town business, if not wholly shut out, removed to some distance and placed in obscurity." Olmsted stated that his parkways would "thus be more park-like than town-like."

Symphony Circle, circa 1895 looking towards Porter Ave.

As the first major juncture from Porter Avenue to Richmond Avenue, the Circle was designed for relaxed social interaction against a backdrop of artfully developed urban greenspace.

According to Olmsted's plan, the Circle and the Front were connected by Porter Avenue. The street that radiated easterly from The Circle marked the northern boundary of Buffalo at the time and was aptly named North Street. In the 1860s the northern part of the city was populated by Buffalonians residing in country estates or homes that surrounded residential pleasure grounds, also known as pocket parks.

View of Circle looking towards Richmond Avenue, about 1890.

These country or suburban retreats were part of the 19th century rural movement popularized by landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing in the 1840s and 1850s. With the continued growth of Buffalo after the Civil War the area around the Circle became increasingly populated. Olmsted intended the Circle to be an area hallmarked by large homes but he also wanted to ensure that his park design would encourage social interaction between all classes of people - an idea that Olmsted tried diligently to build into all his parks.

While Delaware Park was designed for rural beauty and a nearby escape from the city, Olmsted envisioned his parkways and circles in a way that people could be "seen coming together in carriages, on horseback and on foot, and the concourse of animated life which will thus be formed, must in itself be made, if possible, an attractive and diverting spectacle."

Within Buffalo, a unique feature of the Circle was its design of three concentric circular paths. The outer circle and middle inner circle were pedestrian paths, while the innermost circle was the carriageway. The impact of this design created an inherently pedestrian green that encouraged social interaction.

The fathers of Buffalo's park system initiated its construction in the early 1870s. After the initial parks were laid out, the construction team focused on the connecting parkways and circles. The Circle received its first grading in 1873. Because the northwest quadrant of the Circle was a burying ground for the village of Black Rock, bodies interred there were moved to Buffalo's city cemetery, Forest Lawn.

View of Circle looking towards First Presbyterian Church.

In 1874 the Buffalo Park Commissioners requested that the plan for the Circle be revised. In August of 1874 Olmsted sent a revised plan of the Circle to the Commissioners at which time it was accepted and implemented. The revised plan included park benches and fountains with vases and flowers. The design also featured a five-light gas standard in the center of the Circle. The gas light standard was created in 1879 at which time the Circle's park design was completed but its impact on Buffalo's history was just beginning.

Beginning in 1877 and continuing until 1896, wealthy Buffalonians constructed large mansions designed by significant architects around the Circle and on North Street. Well known residents who called the Circle home included Alexander Meldrum, John Larkin, Frank Goodyear, Josiah Jewett, George Birge, Trueman Avery and the Kittinger family.

Their palatial homes were designed by local and nationally known architectural firms such as Green and Wicks, Holmes and Little, Swan and Falkner, Richard Waite, Little and Browne, J. L. Silsbee, Edward Kent, Milton E. Beebe, Warner and Brockett, and E.A.P. Newcomb.

The First Presbyterian Church on the Circle began construction in 1889, when it was decided that the church should move from its original site on Shelton Square in downtown Buffalo to the Circle. Mrs. Trueman (Delia) Avery donated the land on the Circle across from her home to the church in memory of her parents, Stephen Goodwin Austin (1791-1872), and Lavinia Hurd Austin (1807- 1884.)

Avery Mansion (1892-1938), site of Kleinhans Music Hall.

The Circle's social history is the stuff of legend. The large estates on the north side of North Street in the proximity of the Circle boasted of building lots with depths of 600 feet and were famous for their expansive gardens. Events including tea parties, gala balls, weddings and cutter races down Richmond Avenue from Ferry Circle to Symphony Circle are examples of the well documented 19th century social affairs that revolved around the Circle.

Unfortunately, the 20th century took its toll on Olmsted's 19th century vision. As the original owners of the large homes on the Circle passed away, their heirs chose to sell their homesteads instead of retaining them. As early as 1920 it became increasingly difficult to find buyers who wished to purchase these large mansions and maintain them as single family homes.

Charitable institutions began purchasing the homes on the Circle for use as communal living quarters. Sometimes these homes were used as shelter for people of moderate means; in other cases, they were used as nursing homes. The Great Depression took its toll on these mansions to an even greater extent as some estates were converted to rooming houses at that time.

In the mid-1930s Edward Kleinhans, a famed local retailer, passed away and bequeathed a great sum of money to the City of Buffalo to be used for the erection of a new music hall as a memorial to his wife, Mary Seaton Kleinhans and his mother, Mary Livingston Kleinhans.

The Avery family, which had played such an important part in the Circle's original grandiose development by ensuring that the First Presbyterian Church and their own estate were built there continued to have a hand in the development of the Circle. Mr. and Mrs. Avery's daughter Lavinia McCormick Mitchell offered her family's estate to the City of Buffalo for a nominal sum as a site for Kleinhans Music Hall. After much debate, the 3½ acre site of the Avery estate on the Circle was chosen for the new hall. The music hall committee was impressed with the park-like beauty of the Circle and selected the site over all other proposed locations.

The music hall was built between 1938-1940 and designed by the Finnish-American father-and-son team of Eliel and Eero Saarinen in the International style. The architects studied the Circle at great length with the intent to have their hall be an organic design to compliment the Circle. The architects themselves said in 1940 that Kleinhans music hall has "'grown up' from its site and soil and has formed itself accordingly-just as have the surrounding trees grown up from their site and soil and formed themselves accordingly." In an article published in 1998, the New York Times said that "Of all the buildings that have gone up in Buffalo in the last 75 years, the most influential by far is the Kleinhans Music Hall..." The building has undergone a renovation in recent years and is very much as it was when completed in 1940 and has been designated a national historic landmark. The music hall's reflecting pool which outlines the smaller auditorium directly facing Symphony Circle was restored in 2001 after being filled in decades ago.

The music hall has played host to many musical celebrities through the years. Popular musical legends like Judy Garland and Aretha Franklin as well as those from the classical music world have performed there and many famous Americans have visited Kleinhans Music Hall. Marian Anderson said that Kleinhans is "unsurpassed by any other" music hall. Eleanor Roosevelt said "how wonderful if every city in America could have such a music hall" when she commented about Kleinhans.

Automobiles and the Circle's light standard existed at the same time until 1938 when the center island was removed.

While Kleinhans Music Hall gave a new focus and life to the Circle, it too exacted its toll on Olmsted's greenspace. The music hall encroached upon the Circle and the perceived increased traffic demands necessitated that the streets bordering it and the Circle be widened and its five-light standard be removed.

In 1958 the Circle was renamed Symphony Circle so as to closely associate its name with Kleinhans Music Hall and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Olmsted had hoped that public monuments would be placed
on Symphony Circle such as this bust of Chopin.

Olmsted wrote in 1868 that a site such as the Circle would "offer suitable positions for fountains, statues, trophies and public monuments." Two such bronze monuments exist on Symphony Circle. The first is a bust of composer Giuseppe Verdi, designed by Henry Schmitt in 1907 and executed by A. De Cianno. It was erected from donations by the Italians of Buffalo and 30,000 people attended its dedication. The statue was moved to Symphony Circle from the intersection of Niagara and Elmwood Streets. The second bust on the quadrant outside Kleinhans Music Hall is that of composer Frederick Chopin, sculpted by Joseph C. Mazur in 1925. This work was originally installed in front of the Museum of Science in 1929 and moved in 1974 to the present site. It was the gift of the Chopin Singing Society.

Kleinhans Music Hall

Both busts were restored by the Buffalo Arts Commission in the 1990's. Verdi's bust, which was cracked, was recast. The restored original has been moved to Forest Lawn Cemetery. Both pieces receive annual treatment to maintain their luster and beauty.

In 1992 after 50 years of insensitive alterations to Olmsted's plan, the Symphony Circle Steering Committee was formed in conjunction with the Friends of Olmsted (now Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy) to restore the Circle to its former glory.

The Committee has been directly responsible for planning and overseeing the renovation and restoration of Symphony Circle with the ultimate goal of returning it as closely as possible to its original design. During two project phases the following improvements have been accomplished: inner circle sidewalks re-created; trees planted in memory of William B. Hoyt; flower gardens re-created; Central Park luminaires installed; trees planted on streetscape; Kleinhans' outer circle sidewalk re-created; benches installed; lawn restored; litter containers installed; and street trees edged and mulched.

Gardens on Symphony Circle quadrant with existing homes.

Thanks to initial government funding, neighborhood group contributions, recent Mayor Masiello Neighborhood Matching Fund Grants, and Legislator Judy Fisher's Special Projects Fund the above work has been made possible. In 1999 thanks to city and county funding, a Federal matching grant enabled the establishment of a water system for each garden, the re-creation of 4 additional gardens (shrub/perennial) -- as existed in Olmsted's original design.

Also accomplished in 1999 was the re-creation of a missing element of The Circle -- a section of greenspace at the corner of the First Presbyterian Church -- that existed in Olmsted's original design.

In addition to improvements made to the Circle itself, the northwest quadrant retains its residential flavor and the restored Birge Mansion on the northeast quadrant is a reminder of the grand homes that once dominated it. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent on the restoration of the great Kleinhans Music Hall on the southwest quadrant and reuse of Grace Manor Nursing Home on Symphony Circle's southwest quadrant.

A Victorian-era girl pushes a baby stroller around Symphony Circle.

While in the first 125 years of the Circle's history the buildings that have surrounded it have largely changed from residential to institutional or civic in nature, Symphony Circle is still intimately tied to its surrounding neighborhood as represented by the Kleinhans Community Association. Buffalonians of the 21st century will follow in the footsteps of their 19th and 20th century predecessors when they enjoy the use of Symphony Circle. Residents and visitors of the area will continue to use the Circle to picnic, to socialize while resting on park benches and to enjoy picturesque serenity in the middle of the city. In this way, Olmsted has reached his stated goals of creating a pleasure ground with restorative properties as well as one that fully integrates folks from all social classes in the city. Because of this, Symphony Circle is one of the best kept examples of Olmsted's legacy in Buffalo.

Frederick Law Olmsted's design of the Circle from 1874.

The Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy is a not-for-profit membership organization. The Conservancy is dedicated to the preservation, restoration, and enhancement of Buffalo's historic Olmsted Park and Parkway system, America's first park network.

For more information, please write us at The Parkside Lodge, 84 Parkside Avenue, Buffalo, New York 14214, or call 716-838-1249 or FAX 716-835-1300.

The Symphony Circle Steering Commitee is associated with the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy and has the responsibility of planning and supervising the restoration and maintenance of Symphony Circle. Its members are: Ann Angelo, Facilitator; Chris Brown; Sue Byron; Gary Carrol; Jim Cookfair; Joe Delaney; Bill Lindner; Paul McDonnell; Mary Jane Mills; and Dave Granville/Dan Durawa, Consultants.

CREDITS
Research & Text by:
Chris Brown

Copyright 2002 Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Inc. and Kleinhans Community Association

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