Buffalo is paving over its brick streets one block at a time. On Eden Street, a landmark bid has stopped the asphalt for now

By Simon Achterberg

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Buffalo is covering some of its remaining brick streets with asphalt, one block at a time, and mostly without a fight. On a three-block stretch of South Buffalo, the paving has stopped.

The city’s Department of Public Works paused a plan to pave Eden Street, a red-brick roadway that runs east from McKinley Parkway to Abbott Road, after neighbors split over whether to keep it, 7 News WKBW reported on Oct. 29. Preservation Buffalo Niagara has applied to have the street designated a City of Buffalo landmark, noting that its vitrified brick was laid in 1928, the station reported. An item to “designate the Eden Street brick right-of-way (McKinley Parkway to Abbott Road) as a local landmark” was listed on the Preservation Board’s Oct. 29 agenda.

Across town, the outcome went the other way. On the East Side, the city has already paved over the bricks on Daisy Place, and residents there told WKBW this week they were glad to see it happen.

A street that split its block

This is not a simple contest between preservationists and drivers. Some people who like the brick still want it gone.

“I do love the brick, but I think it’s time for it to go,” Molly Griffin told WKBW. Griffin and her mother, Janie Griffin, live on Eden near Abbott Road, and the mother described the sound of it. “There’s bumps all over the place,” she said. “When the snowplows come down, you can just hear it grind. My car is constantly bumping.”

Jim Skrzeczkowski, who grew up on the street, made the same case. “I’ve always thought it should be paved over,” he said. “Aesthetically, it’s really nice to look at and everything, but if you’re here in the wintertime and you’re trying to get around, and for plowing reasons and everything, it’s very difficult.”

Leonidas Longworth argued the opposite. “I’d rather honestly invest in restoring the historic parts of Buffalo and bringing them back to what they used to look like, rather than tearing it all up and replacing it with something easier or cheaper,” he said. WKBW reported that neighbors circulated competing petitions, one to pave the street and one to keep the brick.

Paused, not decided

South District Council Member Chris Scanlon told the station the city wanted to hear from residents first. “So it has been paused,” Scanlon said. “Obviously, this is a public project. This is a public works project. And we want public input on it.”

Public Works scheduled a community meeting for the following Monday, Nov. 2, at the Tosh Collins Community Center, and Scanlon said he planned to attend along with Preservation Buffalo Niagara. “We’ll have a conversation,” he said. The Buffalo Chronicle could not find a published account of what was decided at that meeting, or whether the city has set a date for a decision.

What a landmark designation would change

Under the city’s preservation ordinance, as summarized on its historic preservation page, “the Preservation Board makes a recommendation, and the Common Council makes a decision.” One of the nine criteria covers places that embody “distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style valuable for the study of a period, type, method of construction, or use of indigenous materials.” A candidate must also have “sufficient integrity of location, design, materials, and workmanship to make it worthy of preservation or restoration.”

That last test may matter on Eden Street, where the condition of the brick is the reason some neighbors want it covered. And designation would bring review: the Preservation Board’s own page says it “reviews all exterior work to properties designated as local landmarks or located within local historic districts.” How that would apply to a city-owned street resurfaced by the city’s own Public Works crews is not spelled out on those pages.

Landmarking is not cheap for the people who ask for it. Preservation Buffalo Niagara says on its Local Landmarking Initiative page that an application “typically costs around $2,500,” covering research, writing and photography, two public hearings and the city’s application fee. The group says the program “helps individuals and communities protect the places they love by securing official local landmark status.”

Daisy Place went the other way

On Daisy Place, the city took a different route. WKBW reported Wednesday that Public Works sent postcards asking residents whether they objected to paving, and that, according to the city, no residents voted in opposition. The area’s Council member also requested the work, citing the road’s condition.

“I think it is a beautiful thing because I have been on this street for about 25 years, and this street was terrible,” Ken Lee told the station. “Cars, you could hear them bottoming out when they go here. It was like having its own speed bump.” His neighbor Billy Banks said pedestrians “aren’t going to get hurt by stepping in a sinkhole, basically, and aesthetically, it looks great.”

The city told WKBW the bricks remain intact under the new pavement and could be restored later, and put the estimated cost of restoration at $2 million. Next door, Viola Park is still brick, and resident Madino Osman told the station she would welcome paving. A volunteer survey at BrickStreets.org calls Viola Park “possibly Buffalo’s most unusual remaining brick street in that it encircles an elongated oval park-like median.”

Nicolas Price, who grew up spending time in his grandmother’s neighborhood, summed up the ambivalence. “I liked the bricks because growing up, this is my grandma’s neighborhood, so my whole life I knew the bricks,” he said. “But I am not too mad about change.”

What the city’s paving page does not say

The city’s street resurfacing page says streets are chosen using Public Works’ 1-to-10 rating system and requests made through 311, and are shaped by funding: federal highway grants for main thoroughfares only, Community Development Block Grant money for residential streets in low- and moderate-income areas, state CHIPS aid and city capital bonds. The page does not describe a separate process for brick streets, and the 2026 paving schedule posted there, organized by Council district, does not list Eden Street or Daisy Place.

Those pages leave questions open. Does the city keep an inventory of the brick streets it still has? Who decides when one is paved, and is a postcard with no objections enough? What does the $2 million restoration estimate cover? And if Eden Street becomes a landmark, who would pay to fix the brick that neighbors say is wearing out?

The Buffalo Chronicle is asking the Department of Public Works, Council Member Scanlon’s office, the Preservation Board’s staff and Preservation Buffalo Niagara about the Nov. 2 meeting and the street’s future, and will update this story with their responses.