Recently I took myself on an impromptu East Side tour. It is an area of the city that I hardly know, and as such, offers great opportunity for discovery. I do have vague memories of the Broadway Fillmore area from my childhood. It was my grandmother's favorite shopping destination and I accompanied her there often when it was still in its prime. By the 1970's the once busy retail area on Broadway was fading fast but the surrounding residential neighborhood was still extraordinarily pristine. There was no part of the city more immaculate than this area known for its strong Polish heritage and big extravagant churches. In less than a 15-year period of time the bottom fell out of this inner city enclave. White flight hit Broadway Fillmore with a vengeance. As a prosperous tight knit population fled, the poor filled the void in a story that is familiar to all. Poverty and all its ills consumed the neighborhood, shredding it emotionally, socially and physically.
Eventually even the poor mostly moved on following disinvestment as it continues to chew up the city. What is left is mostly emptiness. Walking these streets today you hear the wind. It is quiet except for an occasional rowdy group on a distant porch. Common are empty lots and shockingly decayed buildings waiting for demolition. Here and there you can still find a perfectly cared for house, a poignant reminder of what once was normal in this neighborhood. The big stone churches stood proud against this decline and decay. They were anchors holding out hope that the old neighborhood could not be wiped away - that 120 years of history could not be forgotten. But their time may be short as well. The Catholic Church has decreed that many of these churches will be closed within a year's time. With small aging congregations and few priests available to staff them, these big stone piles can no longer be maintained. They will be cast off and with them the last direct ties to a major part of Buffalo's history will be lost.
My East Side tour was not planned. I just went where whim would take me. You cannot travel through any part of the East Side without being in contact with a church in some way. As it happens it was a Sunday so my tour quickly focused on these amazing structures. I traveled from steeple to steeple catching a mass at several of them. The interiors are beyond amazing. Photographs don't do them justice. These buildings are true American art treasures (especially during a mass) and should be experienced by all before they are closed and left to a very uncertain future.
It was an intense and sad journey. I could not help imagining all who have passed through these magnificent places. I thought of the great events of their lives focused on these buildings, the Sunday dinners, the holidays, baptisms, weddings and funerals. How could all that be tossed away so easily? As I left these churches, my gaze was invariably focused on the building opposite the church across the street. Commonly there would be a simple wooden house directly on axis with the front door of the church. The families who lived in one of these houses must have been the most devout parishioners in the congregation. To own a house that looked straight down the center aisle to the altar must have been a great honor for its residents and probably gave them a certain elevated status in the community. Imagine living in the most holy house on the block, the house that had a direct view to Jesus. Often these houses were converted to funeral homes. It’s as if no one person should hold such an honor as to live in the holiest house in the parish. These are simple buildings. They are not architecturally important or even physically interesting in most cases. But, they are so very interesting as social artifacts (at least to me they are). Today, with almost no exception they stand empty. There was a day when they ceased to be the most holy house and became ‘discardable’. Now we have reached the point when even the churches themselves can be tossed off. Too big, too old, too far from home and in undesirable neighborhoods we throw these magnificent works of our society in the trash along with our McDonald's wrappers.
This is the first stop on my tour. Stay tuned for more East Side travels. Next Stop Saint Ann's Church.