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Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm Saturday 9am - 5pm Sunday 9am - 5pm

Restore Our Community Coalition - Buffalo, NY

Nearby non profit organizations

Buffalo Center for Health Equity
14208

Groundwork Buffalo
Hedley Place

Hamlin Park Community & Taxpayers Association
Hedley Place

We want to thank our followers for getting us this far in the journey to restore Humboldt Parkway. We also want to thank our allies in the East Side Parkways Coalition for their continued support and quick action in advocating for the East Side.

We take comfort in the fact that Mrs. Stephanie Barber Geter's efforts have not been in vain. While we have our differences in how this project has been shaped, we're ultimately working towards a shared goal of reducing the generational damage caused by the 33 expressway. 💚

Federal government gives Kensington project the greenlight The State Department of Transportation's environmental assessment of the Kensington Expressway project has received a "finding of no significant harm" from the Federal Highway Administration, allowing the project to move forward. Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected in Buffalo on Friday to make the announc...

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What happened to Humboldt Parkway?

Famed landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Humboldt Parkway in the 1870’s to allow users to travel from The Park (now the nationally-renowned Delaware Park) to The Parade (now Martin Luther King Park). Having previously designed Central Park for New York City, Buffalo would soon host America’s very first park system, where the city’s main parks would be linked by a series of parkways and roundabouts. Users could travel through neighborhoods without leaving the serenity of a park-like atmosphere. Throughout the first half of the 20th Century, six rows of large maple trees provided a canopy for the boulevard, creating value to the newly established Hamlin Park neighborhood, as well as a formal gateway to the Buffalo Museum of Science.

Also included in the Olmsted Park System were Bidwell and Chapin Parkways on Buffalo’s Upper West Side. Both boulevards provide two present-day examples of what Humboldt Parkway once provided for Buffalo’s East Side.

A national trend following World War II attracted scores of families to the outskirts of central cities. The decision to destroy Humboldt Parkway with an expressway was introduced 1946, with little to no knowledge among targeted residents. Despite limited knowledge among residents, a series of illegal tactics in the real estate market, including blockbusting and redlining, ultimately brought change at the direct expense of city residents. With business interests superseding residential concerns, residents remaining in Hamlin Park would witness the horror of a masterpiece landscape disappear throughout the 1960’s.

The new expressway affected Buffalo neighborhoods both physically and psychologically. Significant portions of the city street grid were broken, ironically creating more logistical problems. Many homes were demolished or relocated from the expressway’s path. Property values quickly plummeted. Jefferson and North Fillmore Avenues, the two “main streets” book-ending Hamlin Park, saw dozens of shops and businesses close in the years to come.