After his completion of the Delaware Park and Parkway system with Calvert Vaux throughout Buffalo, New York, Frederick Law Olmsted declared Buffalo as “the best planned city, as to its streets, public places and grounds, in the United States, if not the world.” Inspired largely by the baroque styling of Paris, France, Olmstead wished to create a park within urban Buffalo but rather put the city of Buffalo in a park system. The parks were non-gated and easily accessible for all patrons creating an ever changing green space across an urban vista. Olmsted’s plan only added value to the existing urban fabric consisting of numerous natural and architectural landmarks. Buffalo had prized itself as a commercial and industrial hub at this time. It’s location on the Buffalo River and Lake Erie made it a viable center for railroads and grain-milling. After posting rapid population growth between the early 1800’s and 1950, reaching a high of 580,000 civilians within a metropolitan region of one million, one would be surprised to see the cities condition today. After posting 6 straight decades of population decline, the urban fabric that was once a center for industry and commerce has become like one of many rust belt cities that have struggled to remain proficient in the twenty-first century. The collapse of the grain-mill industry may have been the most crippling to Buffalo’s economy. Today the shorelines of the Buffalo River are besieged by the abandoned grain silos that once defined its skyline and are often in disarray. Shipping through Buffalo became obsolete with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the railways once vital to the harbor area were superseded by other forms of travel. For the last several decades, poverty, segregat...
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...rban landscape. In some instances, cities saw success with various projects. Buffalo rezoned in anticipation of a growing and prosperous city-scape which proved to be erroneous with the loss of industry and the influx of lower-income families. Today, the remnants of a terrifically designed city are still available in Buffalo. From the beautiful tree-lined parkways of Bidwell and Chapin to the framed view of City Hall along Court Street, Buffalo has worth as a metropolitan landscape. However, many residents long for the untapped potential. Eight million people visited the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901. Buffalo: The City of Lights was on display to the world. Unforeseen consequences squandered Buffalo’s attempt to remain a top metropolitan city in the twenty-first century but there are plenty of signs improvement which can only give hope for the future.
To appreciate a row house neighborhood, one must first look at the plan as a whole before looking at the individual blocks and houses. The city’s goal to build a neighborhood that can be seen as a singular unit is made clear in plan, at both a larger scale (the entire urban plan) and a smaller scale (the scheme of the individual houses). Around 1850, the city began to carve out blocks and streets, with the idea of orienting them around squares and small residential parks. This Victorian style plan organized rectangular blocks around rounded gardens and squares that separated the row houses from major streets. The emphasis on public spaces and gardens to provide relief from the ene...
Phillips, E. Barbara. City Lights: Urban-Suburban Life in the Global Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
During the 1920’s, Atlantic City was famous for gambling and drinking. People all over would visit for entertainment and to get rich. After world war two crime and corruption took over the streets causing the city to enter an economic decline. Also following the war, cars became more available which led to the decrease of time spent at the city, people no longer had to wait for a train, they can now visit for a little and leave whenever. Less people staying at the hotels for longer, took away more of the cities money. In 1972, “ The New Yorker” published an article called the The Search for Marvin Garden’s by John McPhee who was smart and talented monopoly player. In the article, McPhee persuades Americans to be weary of what trying to become rich in order to be happy can produce and instead search for happiness in
Chicago in the 1920s was a turning point for the development of ethnic neighborhoods. After the opening of the first rail connection from New York to Chicago in the 1840s, immigration sky rocketed from that point on. Majority of the immigrants to Chicago were Europeans. The Irish, Italians, eastern European Jews, Germans, and Mexicans were among the most common ethnicities to reside in Chicago. These groups made up the greater part of Chicago. The sudden increase in immigration to Chicago in the 1920s soon led to an even further distinguished separation of ethnicities in neighborhoods. The overall development of these neighborhoods deeply impacted how Chicago is sectioned off nowadays. Without these ethnicities immigrating to Chicago almost 100 years ago, Chicago neighborhoods would not be as culturally defined and shaped as they are today.
New Amsterdam became New York and changed hands from the Dutch to the English. But it is not only Dutch place names and styles of architecture scattered across the five boroughs and all of the Empire State that beat witness to this moment in history. The values of openness, tolerance, liberalism and engagement with the world remain the hallmarks of New York, city and state alike. They have made it one of the economic, intellectual and cultural centers of the
...ldings that create such a beautiful area. Buffalo is a charming city that has such a profound history. Whether a native or a tourist, anybody can see that history is all around the city, whether it is the houses or the buildings on the Erie Basin Marina. Frank Lloyd Wright has had such a huge contribution to the Queen City, from houses, to administrative buildings. Western New York has been graced by one of the greatest architects of all time, and the people of this great city should be proud of its history. Buffalo has one-of-a-kind designs that attract tourists from all over. Frank Lloyd Wright was an architect who was ahead of his time. He won several awards and different recognitions all over the world for his phenomenal, and creative work. Buffalo’s architectural landscape has been forever embellished because of Frank Lloyd Wright and his innovative designs.
Dumenil, Lynn, ed. "New York City." The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Social History. N.p.: Oxford UP, 2012. Oxford Reference. Web. 8 Apr. 2013.
In The Artificial River, Carol Sheriff describes how when the digging of the Erie Canal began on July 4, 1817, no one would have been able to predict that the canal would even be considered a paradox of progress. One of the major contradictions of progress was whether or not triumphing art over nature was even considered progress. People were not sure during the nineteenth century if changing the environment for industrialization was necessarily a good thing. Another contradiction to progress that resulted from the Erie Canal was when people started holding the state government responsible for all their financial misfortunes. An additional contradiction to progress that the Erie Canal displayed was how many of its workers were either children, or men that lived lives that were intemperate and disrespectful to women. As American history students look back at the Erie Canal today, they generally only imagine how the canal was extraordinary for the residents of New York, but not all the issues and problems it also produced.
... line the canal today. The development of the railroad in the 19th century and the automobile in the 20th century sealed the fate of the Erie Canal.
Landscape architecture has been around since the beginning of time, but it was not until Frederick Law Olmsted came along that the idea of integrating design into the landscape with plants, water, and structures that it turned into a thriving profession. To many, Olmsted is considered “a pioneer in the profession of landscape architecture, an urban planner, and a social philosopher, one of the first theoreticians and activists behind the national park and conservation movements” (Kalfus 1). Growing up, he did not ever graduate from formal schooling and just sat in on a few classes while at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. Instead, he acquired his education from being out in the world through traveling and reading. He had a hard childhood. His mother died when he was just four years old and on his journeys around the world to Europe and China, he became sickly with seasickness, paralysis of the arm, typhoid fever, apoplexy, sumac poisoning, and at times suffered from depression. For many years he went on a journey within himself to find out whom he really was and what he wanted to do with his life, career wise. Frederick had one brother, John Hull, who died in 1857. This left Olmsted feeling empty and at loss of what to do. That was when Calvert Vaux came and filled the space in Olmsted’s life that his brother left. Vaux convinced Olmsted to enter the Central Park Commissioner’s design competition with their design entitled the “Greensward Plan.” With the success in that project, Olmsted figured out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, which was to become a landscape architect. Olmsted practiced from the years of 1857 up until he retired in 1895. Olmsted’s two boys, adopted son John Charles and biological son Frederick La...
In this article, the author writes about the Urban Renewal Plan and what it did to a community in Oakland, California. The West Oakland community was found in 1852 and had a diverse population living there. That article says that upper-class people would be living next door to working class people. After the World Wars that changed because lower income families started moving to the area looking for jobs. The jobs they had were created because of the war. When the war ended these people lost their jobs. At the same time, the Urban Renewal Plan was put into place. This plan set out to remove slums in urban places. This plan would relocated families, demolish houses and create low-income housing. When a family was relocated they received little
New York City has always been an example of how diversity can exist in a successful and peaceful place. Full of action, enthusiasm, and a combination of many cultures, New York is rich in every sense of the word. For example, taking a walk down the busy streets not only opens your eyes to the small but meaningful details of the city and the different people that revive it but also the numerous worlds that are somehow fused in this magical city, like Little Italy, Chinatown, Little Syria, Korea Town, and many others.
Gentrification is the keystone for the progression of the basic standards of living in urban environments. A prerequisite for the advancement of urban areas is an improvement of housing, dining, and general social services. One of the most revered and illustrious examples of gentrification in an urban setting is New York City. New York City’s gentrification projects are seen as a model for gentrification for not only America, but also the rest of the world. Gentrification in an urban setting is much more complex and has deeper ramifications than seen at face value. With changes in housing, modifications to the quality of life in the surrounding area must be considered as well. Constant lifestyle changes in a community can push out life-time
The current size, inherent values, and economic status of the United States owes greatly to the paramount figures and events that took place during the Early National Period of the country. However, while there is no doubt that such events- and the figures behind them- were of great importance and have molded the country into the pristine product that it is today, the various construction projects of that time have gone largely unnoticed. Canals, being one of the most prominent advances in transportation, are prime examples of forgotten catalysts of the American nation. The construction of canals- particularly the Erie Canal- during the 19th century played a key role in the geographic, economic, and cultural development of the country by allowing an easier and faster mode of transport, and contributing greatly to the preservation of the Union during the Civil War.
In the early 1900’s, Mr. William T. Love had a dream of developing a community in Niagara Falls, NY that would have cheaply generated