Buffalo Building Permits Index, 1887-1906

If you’ve ever tried to find out when a Buffalo building was built, you may have looked through the volumes of the Common Council Proceedings in the Grosvenor Room. For many years, building permits were approved by the Common Council and listed in the published annual proceedings.  Permits were required for wood frame buildings (most houses), but not for brick or stone construction. The permits listed in the Proceedings usually provide this brief description:

• The name of the permit requestor (builder/home owner/business name)
• Dimensions of proposed construction
• Location–lot number, address, street name, and/or distance from nearby streets

1901 Buffalo Common Council Proceedings, page 1671

You can estimate when a house was built by using other sources, such as the Buffalo property records or city directories, and then browse the relevant years of the Proceedings.  Each volume has an index at the front with a section for Permits. 

For 1887 to 1906, this Permit section is in alphabetical order by the last name of the permit requestor, not by the street. We recently created an index by address/street to make searching a lot easier for these years. This was an extensive project for our staff, and we are happy to finally make it available online!

Click here for the Index, 1887-1906.

Click here for instructions and tips for using the Index.

While this Index and the Common Council Proceedings provide a good start for research, for more information on a Buffalo building, contact the Permit & Inspection Services office at City Hall:

Permit & Inspection Services

65 Niagara Square, Room 301

Buffalo, NY 14202

Phone: 716-851-4926

In-Person Rare Book Viewing Temporarily Suspended Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

Yes, the library is open now but, unfortunately, we are not able to have rare book viewings at this time due to the pandemic and the need for social distancing. General collection items, Grosvenor Room materials, the Telling the Story exhibit and the Mark Twain Room are all accessible, but the Rare Book Collection is not at this time. We are sorry if this causes any inconvenience.

Our Rare Book Viewing Room is simply too small to have more than one person by the social distancing standards so that space has been converted into a staff member’s office (because her workstation in our workroom was too close to another staff member). The Library is not allowing any programs and/or group visits for the foreseeable future either. Library hours are also shortened to 10 – 6 Monday – Friday and 10 -4 Saturday.

Rare Book Viewing Room–For now a librarian’s workspace due to the pandemic.

The good news is that you can always check out the many and varied items we have available for viewing in our Digital Collections! Here you may view online unique examples of American and Western New York history, manuscripts and early book history examples, diaries and journals, photo collections and more. The advantage to the digital format is that it allows you to “zoom in” and see things you might otherwise miss–especially in photographs. Happy viewing!

Small sampling of items viewable in Digital Collections.