The Buffalo News recently donated its historic index of articles written between the 1920s to the 1970s to the B&ECPL’s Special Collections Department.
In 2023 the Buffalo News contacted the Library and other partner organizations with a request; would there be an interest in receiving the News’ own index of articles, organized chronologically and by topic? Of course the team at the Grosvenor Room was happy to accept! Now, after completing a preservation microfilming project with the generous support of the University at Buffalo Libraries, this index is available for public access and research.
The index consists of 14 typed ledgers covering the years 1921-1935, and over 175,000 index cards tracking articles written between 1920 through about 1971.
Newly cataloged article ledgers from 1921-1935 from the Buffalo News
This is a fascinating new addition to the B&ECPL’s own work. Librarians have been indexing the Buffalo News, Courier Express, Buffalo Challenger and other local newspapers and publications since the 1920s. The Buffalo News’ index increases the scope of our coverage beyond local news, now providing citations to articles of national and international import. After finding a relevant citation, researchers can immediately access the articles via our Buffalo News microfilm collection.
We invite you to the Grosvenor Room to research articles on a wide variety of subjects, from Abyssinia to Zoos anytime the Central Library is open!
The long serving (and long lived) William Ives in 1916
In the Buffalo Public Library’s annual report for 1901, Superintendent Henry L. Elmendorf described the opening of the BPL’s “first real branch” library at 746 Broadway on the east side of Buffalo. Named for the long serving Chief Librarian of the Buffalo Public, William Ives (1817-1916), it was located a couple of miles from the main location on Lafayette Square. When it opened on August 8th of that year the cost to rent the building was $20 a month and it held a collection of some 3000 volumes, including all of the BPL’s Polish language books to suit needs of the neighborhood. Mr. Elmendorf commented that the creation of more neighborhood outposts like the William Ives “would make a more lasting and beautiful memorial than any marble shaft1” and encouraged the board of directors to commit to building additional branches throughout the city.
William Ives Branch, located in the Dom Polski building in 1912, image from the B&ECPL’s archive
By 1905 the Ives Branch held almost 4500 books with a circulation of 49,416 — meaning that on average each book in the collection was checked out 11 times that year! Shortly after, an opportunity arose for the Ives branch to take up residence in “the new Polish building2” located just down the road at 1079 Broadway called the Dom Polski, which translates to Polish Home.
Women’s group posed in front of the Ives Branch, perhaps members of a local chapter of the Wanda Society, image from the B&ECPL’s archive
For the next 37 years, from 1906-1943, the Ives Branch served as a library and de facto community center under the auspices of beloved librarian Mary Standbridge. Stanbridge was well-known for her rapport with the Polish community aided by a Mrs. Kudlicka, a library assistant fluent in both English and Polish3.
Interior, William Ives Branch, c. 1912. Mary Standbridge and Josepha Kudlicka are behind desk, from the B&ECPL’s archive
The Ives Branch on Fillmore Ave ca. 1965, from the B&ECPL archive.
The Ives Branch would outgrow its space two more times in the succeeding years; first moving to 617 Fillmore Avenue in 1942, then again in 1965 to a new building across the street from Dom Polski. It was then renamed the Fronczak Library after local Doctor Francis Fronczak, who served as the President of the Central Relief Committee, an American group that brought aid to the people of Poland during WWI. The branch was permanently closed in 2005 due to Library funding difficulties.
These days Dom Polski is known as the Matt Urban Center, and continues to serve as a community center for the Broadway Fillmore neighborhood. Two other locations of the library are also still standing and are listed as a private residence and business.
Annual Report of the Buffalo Public Library. (1901). United States: (n.p.). ↩︎
Annual Report of the Buffalo Public Library. (1905). United States: (n.p.). ↩︎
Drzewieniecki, Walter M., and Joanna E. Drzewieniecki-Abugattas. “Public Library Service to American Ethnics: The Polish Community on the Niagara Frontier, New York.” The Journal of Library History (1974-1987), vol. 9, no. 2, 1974, pp. 120–37. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25540560. Accessed 21 Dec. 2023. ↩︎
Mason Winfield – Western New York’s preeminent researcher/writer of all things supernatural, paranormal, mystical, etc. – gave a presentation in our library earlier this month and it’s only fitting that we share some of the resources we have in our collection (some of which Mr. Winfield used in preparation for his talk) for those curious to embark on some spooky research of their own.
For the most comprehensive exploration of WNY’s various haunted histories, we would be remiss not to suggest going directly to the source of what sparked this blog post: Mason Winfield and his oeuvre. Mr. Winfield’s presentation provided a nice overview of Buffalo’s history with the supernatural, so his books would be the ideal place to start if you’re looking for the more in depth details his presentation wasn’t able to cover. Of course there are, and we have them, other books that reveal and discuss haunted locations and happenings throughout the area, but Winfield’s work makes up the bulk of the relevant literature. That said, while you can get a thorough breakdown of these fascinating and creepy histories in entertaining books, there is fun to be had digging into our card catalog and seeing where that takes you!
These subject headings resulted in numerous citations (as you can see in the photograph, the ‘Ghosts’ card I highlight is the seventh index card with related citations, and there are more after it), which could lead to journals, magazines, our newspapers on microfilm, and our vertical files.
Whether it’s the discovery of hidden history, the crazy characters involved, or simply the October Halloween vibes that bring you to our collection, we have plenty of material related to the supernatural for you to get lost in.
There has been a rare sight of late in and around the Tifft Nature Preserve. A roseate spoonbill, whose habitat is generally known to be the coastal areas of Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, has been spotted at local watering holes among our more commonplace blue herons and egrets.
According to a recent Buffalo News article, our migratory visitor seems to be a juvenile that left the nest and struck out on its own, ending up here in Western New York, that will surely fly south for the winter as temperatures cool. Whether or not you’ve had a chance to catch a glimpse of this unusual ornithologic sight in person, you can always get a closer look at the roseate spoonbill in its regular habitat within the pages of our double elephant folio edition of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. Published between 1826-1837, the Birds has been on display here at the library for at least the last 100 years!
Roseate Spoonbill, plate 321 of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. To find out more, visit https://www.audubon.org/birds-of-america/roseate-spoonbillApril Mae Surdam, 3, viewing Audubon Birds of America in the Central Library’s Rare Book Room, Dec. 17, 1963, photog Richard W. Roeller (BN)
Pictorial maps (also known as illustrated, bird’s-eye view and panoramic maps) are a fun and popular form of geographic representation that places artistry over scientific accuracy to better feature elements of a landscape such as historical events, notable people, local products, buildings, industries, and tourist attractions. Some are as old as the history of cartography itself.
Here in the Grosvenor Room of the B&ECPL are pictorial representations of Buffalo and the region from as early as the Smith Brothers’ 1853 aquatint lithograph,
Prior to this latest pictorial of Buffalo, the 1920s through the 1980s saw numerous artists’ renditions of our Niagara region, with illustrated highlights of Buffalo.
A Geographically Correct Map of Erie & Niagara Counties, 1931A Romance Map of the Niagara Frontier, 1931Picture History Map of the Niagara Frontier, 1952Ye Territory of Rich Diversified Resources Served by Niagara Power Service, 1929
The mid-1980s resurgence of pictorial mapmaking saw local artists or large national companies create maps for historical information, or the promotion of regional tourism. Ken Root, Jr., a fourth generation Western New Yorker, created an instructional map with narrative details for persons and events in Buffalo-area history, and Archar Inc., whose maps of large cities proliferated at this time period, created a promotional image complete with the logos of area businesses. Jean Louis Rheault is a Montreal illustrator who has been creating cartographic designs for over three decades.
Buffalo by Ken Root, Jr., 1985Archar, Inc., Buffalo 1982Buffalo by Jean Louis Rheault, 1987
Bravo to these artists and cartographers, and here’s to the next creative mind to highlight our city’s best features.
One recurring bit of library-related nostalgia we sometimes encounter is for the 1887 Buffalo Public Library building, designed by Cyrus Eidlitz and previously located on the site of the current Central Library building on Washington Street.
View of the 1887 Buffalo Public Library building, from NYHeritage.
Despite reports of sagging floors and lack of climate control, the building was a striking example of the Romanesque Revival style, and was much mourned following its demolition in preparation for the current headquarters of B&ECPL.
For those looking to reminisce further, the George Nathan Newman Collection of Photographs of Vanished and Vanishing Buffalo was digitized in 2008 and made available on New York Heritage, where we host some of our digital collections. Newman was an avid photograph collector, and donated a large number to the Grosvenor Library–the collection bearing his name would subsequently be interred in the Rare Book Room.
A cursory survey of the collection shows a large number of buildings now gone, and a surprising sample that have remained. A few days last week, I took a number of photographs of sites featured in the Newman collection. The differences (beyond just the differences in perspective and angle), as you can see below, are a very interesting. Drag the slider for the full effect.
Northeast corner of Washington and Swan Streets. Tower visible in the top right background is the Old Post Office, opened in 1901, current home of the SUNY Erie City Campus. Link to the original photograph @ NYHeritage.org
Many of us are familiar with the story of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company and the Curtiss Wright Corporation, which manufactured airplanes in Buffalo, NY from 1916 to 1946, but did you know that Curtiss trained pilots as well?
This undated brochure describes pilot training services available at the three Curtiss Training Camps in Buffalo, Hammondsport, NY (where Glenn Curtiss first started his eponymous company) and Newport News, VA.
Pilot training did not escape the eyes of the public, and the presence of airplanes over Buffalo was big news, especially in the summer of 1916 when pilot and instructor Phil Rader looped the loop above the area.
Buffalo Evening News 7/19/16 p.12
Students began to arrive and try their hand at getting a pilot’s license. As the Great War dragged on, students became interested in flying to possibly defend their country, as demonstrated by the “English Army Officer” and the “Harvard Men” described below:
Buffalo Evening News 6.29.16 p.1
Buffalo Evening News, August 8, 1916, p. 1
And yes, there were crashes. Unfortunately, the incident described below resulted in the death of instructor Major W.K. Campbell.
Charles Barth was one of eight children born to German immigrants on Buffalo’s East Side in 1895. Growing up in poverty and doing various odd jobs to help support his large family, Barth completed an apprenticeship as a painter and began his first job painting elevated tanks on the waterfront in 1916, work he would return to from time to time. Inspired by a fellow worker to travel and find more work on the open road, Barth began his life of transience only to return to Buffalo for his induction into the U. S. Army Engineer Corps in February of 1918. As an engineer, Barth would have had a hand in numerous construction tasks, such as bridge and road repair, trench digging, removal of land mines, and building barracks, hospitals, shelters and target ranges, but was unlikely to have seen any frontline combat.
Orient Athletic Club, East Lovejoy, circa 1916 [Barth back row, center]Post World War IPostcard to Mother from France, 1918
Barth would remain in Buffalo for a brief period after the war, only to continue his roving lifestyle and slowly build a career as a writer by starting as a poet of greeting card verses. Later, as “Buffalo Chuck” he would become a longtime correspondent for newspapers devoted to migrant workers, such as the Bowery News and the Hobo News, writing articles on hobo-friendly places and the trials and tribulations of the occupants of Skid Row. By 1969 he would begin a campaign to create shelters for the homeless, including war veterans like himself, and publish his two major works of memoir. Shep: a reminiscence depicts his childhood in Buffalo in 1904 growing up in a large family and details his youthful high spirits amid the poverty of his “Iron Island” area, known today as the Lovejoy neighborhood.
Courier Express, November 1964
After Barth died in 1976, his sole-surviving sibling donated his archive of literary material to the B&ECPL, a unique collection of manuscripts, letters, post cards, newspapers and documents that chronicles his life and writings as a hobo/activist and the many connections he made on the road. The Charles P. Barth literary archive, ca. 1916-1980, as well as the manuscripts of his two books, Shep and Hobo Trail to Nowhere, now reside among the collections of the Rare Book Room.
The residents of this city are somewhat familiar with the haunted nature of our architecture; the specter of industrial titans, of a golden age a century past that is embodied in the grand designs of the downtown corridor.
They are again familiar with the evidence of urban decline—a hollowing out, and the places that were born in that period of diminished glory. Held in high regard are those places that survived (or were reborn) into what appears to be a time of new growth.
Just off the corner of Ellicott and Mohawk, the somewhat dive-y venue and bar in the shadow of the Sinclair building is one such site. A tentpole of the scene (punk, indie, et al.), Mohawk Place is undoubtedly a landmark in the recent music history of the city. However, its roots don’t merely go back to its opening in 1990—the management of Mohawk Place themselves note the building’s construction in 1896, and its history as housing for the workers in the city’s theaters and music halls.
The building has gone by a few names: advertisements for lodging list it as the Leroy in 1898; the Hotel Stowell in 1901; and a decidedly anonymous boarding house through much of the 1910s and 1920s. Still within living memory is its tenure as the Theatre Hotel and Restaurant, a moniker that would persist into the later half of the 20th century.
The focus of this piece is that history as presented in newspapers. For many businesses, the bulk of their presence in the historical record are advertisements they placed and articles that featured them. The following clippings are only a small selection of that record.
Notable in the first years of 47 East Mohawk was the preponderance of psychics, spiritualists, and clairvoyants that occupied its premises–some even before the construction of the current building. Perhaps they were drawn there by the convergence of ley-lines and mystical energies beneath the property (or simply the cheap rent).
Buffalo Evening News, June 18, 1895. Buffalo Evening News, September 30, 1898Buffalo Evening News, February 22, 1904Courier-Express, December 9, 1905Courier Express, August 21, 1909
Previously mentioned was the building’s moniker of the Theatre Hotel; the name would first appear in print in the 1927 city directory. It would shortly be followed by a report on the raid of the business by prohibition agents:
Buffalo Evening News, April 25, 1928
Arthur Korst, the “alleged proprietor,” ran afoul of dry laws in the middle years of prohibition, and would continue to do so after his 1928 arrest. His 1933 obituary would characterize him as genial and a great friend to the performers that typified the patronage of the Theatre Hotel. A swimmer, the press took special notice of Korst’s attempt to swim a stretch of the Niagara.
Courier Express, July 14, 1930
The hotel would continue after his death, housing performers for years after. It would make the front page of the Evening News in 1935 following the tragic death of a chorus girl:
A Buffalo newspaper from the 1920s that most closely resembled a sensationalist tabloid, such as today’s National Enquirer or National Star, would be the Daily Star and the Enquirer. While real news stories can be found among its pages, most often the journal that referred to itself as “Greater Buffalo’s Picture Newspaper,” grabbed the reader’s attention with lurid headlines and garish photographs.
Publisher William J. Conners, Jr. was following in his father’s footsteps as the senior Conners bought and ran the Buffalo Enquirer in 1892, later naming it the Morning Express in 1896. When the Buffalo Courier and the Buffalo Express merged in 1926 to form the Courier-Express, father handed the reigns over to his son, who became president and publisher, a post he held until his death in 1951.
Advertising itself as a tabloid picture newspaper that was “easy to read,” the Daily Star sometimes covered stories that were difficult to absorb. When a young boy, Joseph Gervase, is brutally murdered in April 1925, leave it to the Star to show an exclusive photo of the casket in the family home surrounded by grieving relatives.
Equally difficult to accept is the coverage of a nighttime Klan gathering in the town of Elma the following month.
Little else is known about the complete run of this tabloid as our library appears to be the only institution with any holdings, and the six very fragile bindings cannot be handled by patrons except in the rarest of instances. We are just grateful to be able to highlight this unique item in our collections and present parts of this fascinating piece of Buffalo publishing history.
The Grosvenor Room: Genealogy, Local History, Maps, Music & Rare Books 