The block of Hudson Street between Orton Place and Plymouth Avenue is quite fascinating. The houses at each corner of the north side of Hudson Street - 336 Hudson and 314 Hudson - stand like sentinels with towers overlooking each corner. Both houses were built in 1888 and among the last to be built along Hudson Street. There was a large house built about 1864 that occupied the space where 314 and 318 Hudson Street are today. The house was demolished in 1888, and 4 houses built on the site: 314 Hudson, 318 Hudson, 322 Hudson and 11 Plymouth. 322 Hudson was lost years ago in a fire.
336 Hudson, also known as 10 Orton Place has led an interesting, if charmed existence. In the late 1880s and early 1890s it was an elegant boarding house. It is a significant Queen Anne structure that retains all of its original features. A three-storey round tower, topped by a semi-round hip roof, stands next to a second-story porch covered by the main gable roof. The pedimented gable end at the front house is a polygonal Palladian-style shallow oriel. A second-storey tower is covered by a witch’s cap topped by a crocket. The tower rides the wrap-around porch supported by square posts. In the 20th century, the house was covered with asphalt shingling. The house was restored in the early 1990s by Larry Bartz. In 1995 and 1996 it had fallen on hard times and became a base for alleged drug dealing and prostitution. After being vacant for a period of months, the home was purchased and rescued by Dr. Susan Persico at the end of 1997. She has restored the home and made it a viable and livable 3-unit apartment building.
Across the street there are several interesting houses. Originally, there were only three houses on this block. The first home to be constructed here was at 309 Hudson Street. It is an Italianate frame house that was the home of Mrs. H. C. Snow. Mrs. Snow owned the land on Hudson from Cottage Street all the way to 321 Hudson Street and maintained a good sized country home and gardens. In the September, 1887 edition of the Real Estate and Builder’s Monthly, the house was advertised for sale by agents Hume and Sanford for $12,000 and was described as a “two story frame, modern, lot, 165 x 66.” It was priced at $12,000, which was considered an expensive house in its day.
Today, Mrs. Snow’s estate has become the One Stop Party Store, which according to 911 incident reports is well known to our local police force (47 911 calls were logged to this address from September, 1997 through August, 1998 - the highest volume on Hudson St. within KCA boundaries). The 1860s-era Italianate eave brackets can still be observed adorning Mrs. Snow’s original home.
A point of interest may be the homes across Cottage Street. The houses at 136, 142 and 144 Cottage St. are alleged sites of drug dealing and prostitution. They were featured in the February 9, 1999 Buffalo News article “A civil action” and the February 11, 1999 ARTVOICE article “The Perfect Spot.” 146 Cottage, a large frame house at Hudson Street, was abandoned for many years before finally being demolished in March 1999. Sadly, the site is now an abandoned, weeded lot.
The next house to be constructed on this section of Hudson St. was the home of Mr. Franklin A. Wade at 321 Hudson Street. The oldest brick house on this block, it was constructed in 1865. Mr. Wade was a manufacturer and dealer in lard, lubricating and illuminating oils who worked at 51 Main Street. The house is a good example of Italianate architecture. The house was designed with paired scroll-like brackets with pendants under the front eaves and is given distinction with the upper sash second story windows having a border of stained glass panes. Today, Mr. Wade’s former house is the home of the Weber family.
Another home that was a good example of a rural cottage is the modest Italianate house at 323 Hudson. It was built in 1865 by Bela Colegrove, Justice of the Peace. Soon after the house was complete, it was sold to Mrs. Maria Rice, widow of Victor M. Rice, a supervisor of public instruction. Originally Mrs. Rice’s home was situated on a 100 foot lot. The homes at 315, 329 and 331 Hudson Street were later additions to the neighborhood, being built on the Rice and Snow estates. The house at 315 Hudson, constructed in 1890 on the Snow estate, is an excellent architectural example of the shingle style, being constructed of brick and frame. Recently 315 Hudson was abandoned for about 1˝ years and foreclosed by HUD. In January 2000, Robert Beavers purchased the home from HUD, turning the property from an abandoned dwelling to an owner-occupied house.
On the north side of Hudson Street within this block are also some historic and notable homes. At the southwest corner of Hudson and West, 270 Hudson, is a Victorian building converted to 2-units with storefront. The building is occupied by the owner who operated the deli until it closed in 1999. The deli was said to have been the best storefront plan on the lower West side. The building itself is noteworthy for its use of vinyl siding as a preservation tool. Vinyl siding encapsulates the original clapboards while exposing the detailed Victorian window mouldings. The project was overseen by the former Lower West Side Resource and Development Corporation. The building was well known for its bright red paint and during the renovation, several samples of vinyl siding were reviewed with the contractor and there was a slight upcharge for the solid red color vinyl - there is more pigment in it and it is therefore more expensive. The whole job was done for $10,000 and which included some minor carpentry and a few windows. State funds were used for some of the renovation, although the state wouldn't pay for any part of the building considered commercial so the 20% of the job benefitting the commercial portion was borne by the building owner. Mr. Martinez, the owner, is one of the longest-term residents of Hudson Street, living through its good years and bad. More success stories like the rehab of this building are needed on Hudson Street! The building was recently sold and the deli reopened in 2001.
At the southeast corner of Hudson Street and West Avenue, a community garden was created on the site of a demolished house. In 1999 the community garden received enhancements and upgrades. Many foundation stones were placed there from nearby West Avenue homes which were demolished in the fall of 1999. At 294 Hudson Street was a large abandoned apartment house now owned by the City of Buffalo. It burned on Halloween, 2001 and was immediately demolished. The site of the building may be targeted for new construction in the near future. As already noted, 314 Hudson Street and 318 Hudson Street were built in 1888 on the site of an earlier home constructed in 1860 for Charles Lamphier, a building and sign painter. A few years later, Mr. Lamphier had a new neighbor who built the attractive Italianate frame 1˝ story cottage home at 334 Hudson Street in 1866. His new neighbor was James W. Ruger, associated with the J. S. Ruger & Co. Iron Works, a manufacturer of cracker, bread and biscuit machines. Mr. Ruger’s property extended to where 330 Hudson Street is today and he built a barn in the back of his house for his horse. He needed it too, because his daily commute was to his office at 239 Seneca Street - too far for walking! About two years later, these families were joined by a third, the family of Thomas M. Cutting, who built the house at 324 Hudson Street about 1869. Mr. Cutting was an insurance agent and civic constable. As the land in this area became more desirable by the late 1870s, these early pioneers sold some of their land to new owners who wished to build here. Mr. Ruger sold some of his land for the large 2˝ story brick Italianate home that was constructed next to his house at 330 Hudson Street. One of the first owners of that home was Mr. and Mrs. L. T. Kimball. The house is still notable for its Italianate details including paired brackets and eave dentils. The house is also notable for its double door entrance with elliptical transom. The house sold in 2001 to a family member of the owner of 16 Orton Place. The new owner plans to live in 330 Hudson Street, thus transforming it from an absentee owned property to an owner-occupied site. 330, 334 and 336 Hudson Street together are significant for a less overtly visible reason: they reveal the economic diversity that existed for Buffalonians in the Victorian era. Each house was built next to each other during a different decade (334 in the 1860s, 330 in the 1870s and 336 in the 1880s), and it is easy to see that when built, 330 Hudson and 336 Hudson were much more expensive houses than 334 Hudson. As we traverse into the next millennium, it seems as though modern Buffalonians need to rediscover what their Victorian counterparts knew a century ago - that it’s okay to have mixed housing values within a geographic boundary.
Beyond the KCA boundaries Hudson Street has seen its share of struggles, although several important buildings still exist in this area. From an architectural and historical perspective, the most important is 224 Hudson Street, the former First Free Baptist Church constructed in 1881. The congregation was formed in 1850 by the influential and persuasive Rev. George H. Ball and after owning preexisting churches, raised enough funds to build their own church on Hudson Street. The church was designed by the architectural firm of Porter and Percival and may be the only ecclesiastical building left standing in the city from that firm. It is an outstanding example of Victorian Gothic Revival ecclesiastical architecture. The Baptists sold the church to the Buffalo Methodist Union, disbanded and held its last service in the building on 10/14/1923.
This section of Hudson Street was written about by Joann Wypijewski in her essay “Buffalo’s Lower West Side,” which appeared in Milton Rogovin’s 1994 photographic work entitled Triptychs Buffalo’s Lower West Side Revisited (W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., NYC). The following passage from the essay is included here which gives a taste for this section of Hudson Street. In the following narrative, Adelmo Nati describes how his father, after arriving from Italy, purchased his first home on Hudson Street:
When we moved to the West Side and my dad bought the house at 266 Hudson, I think he paid $15,000. After I was married about a year, I bought the house next door, at 262. It was a little bit smaller; I think I bought it for $11,000 or $12,000ùsomething like that. My dad, I bet you, he spent another $15,000 to $16,000 to fix his house. He was one of those guys who couldn't stop. He was always improving it, painting it. Every summer he'd be scraping, painting. He had a backyard where he planted peach trees and cherry trees. His house was probably the best-kept house in the neighborhood. The house next door to me, which would have been 260, [258 is the actual house number-CB] Mr. Parisi lived thereùand his house was immaculate. When my dad sold the house, in 1978, he sold it for $15,000 too. So he didn't lose any money, didn't make any, but he did make money in the sense that he paid off the house and paid for the improvements with the rent that he got.
But then after we sold the houses, our heart was still there on the West Side. For a while, we still went to church at Immaculate Conception; we used to go see Martinez, who owned the corner store, 'cause we were really good friends with them. And we would like to go and see what the neighborhood looked like. And I'll tell you that within a few years after my dad was gone, both houses just started deteriorating. Like the paint would come off and nobody would paint it. Even now if I happen to be around the West Side I go up on Hudson Street, and there's a few houses that have gotten torn down. I shake my head and can't believe it because that was a pretty clean neighborhood, pretty well kept back thenùespecially in the '60s.
The neighborhood started to change probably around the late 60s. A lot of the old Italians were moving outùdying out, let's put it that wayùand their kids didn't want to stay around. I wouldn't say it was bad, to be honest about it. We never had any problem. I had a good job as a machinist at Worthington; I was making good money. My kids always had a lot of toys. We had a backyard, and all these Puerto Rican kids would always come around and play with our kids. So we got along with everybody. If there ever was any problems, in fact, the Puerto Ricans would protect us. It was nice because from there you could walk to Niagara Street and there was Columbia Market; Tops was there. You could walk downtown. In the summertime the kids used to like to go to Front Park. They used to have a circus come every year, and the kids used to go to swim. For us, we had a really good time. But then my dad was getting kind of old and the house was a three-family house and we did have some problems with tenants. Lot of them were poor and wouldn't pay the rent. So eventually my dad sold the house, I think to an Arabian, who bought it for business; he rented it.
In recent years, many residents have worked hard to make Hudson Street an enjoyable place to live.
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