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Something old, something new
An unsung part of Allentown finally gets its moment in the spotlight
By Jana Eisenberg
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Seated (l-r) Jen Oakley, Gabe Price,
Chris Brown. Standing (l-r) Rich Maklary,
Jared Oakley, Lauren Kostek.
Photo by Jim Bush.
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It would be difficult to live in Buffalo and not know about the historic Allentown district: its blocks of charming homes; Allen Street, its core business and entertainment area; and its well-publicized events like Secrets of Allentown Home Tours and the Arts Festival. On the other hand, it is easy to live here and not be aware of a less developed sector of that district, known as the Kleinhans Community. At the western border of Allentown, and still officially considered part of it, the pocket includes Symphony Circle, Days Park, and parts of Pennsylvania, Plymouth, and Hudson Streets. A surge of interest and investment has been steadily growing there.
Of particular note is that many architects, architects-in-training, and the like have been buying and renovating homes in this portion of the district for themselves to live in. Led in part by the efforts of dedicated resident Chris Brown, president of the Kleinhans Community Association, the movement is growing rapidly. Brown maintains a website (www.kleinhansca.org), where he documents milestones in the neighborhood. He compares parts of the historic neighborhood to New York’s Gramercy Park and feels that any other city would be proud to have such a large designated area deemed historically significant and worthy of preservation.
“Allentown is on the national register,” he says. “When I moved to Buffalo, and specifically to this neighborhood, I sensed a level of value that was not necessarily monetary. The infrastructure and planning that had been done 150 years ago was here. But for the area to flourish, it needed some ‘spit and polish.’ I thought that if the neighborhood’s story was told to the right people, interest would be sparked.”
One of the “right people” to hear the story was local architect and Allentown enthusiast Brad Wales. “The influx of young architects in the Kleinhans Community is directly attributable to Brad’s spreading the word about this ‘diamond-in-the-rough’ neighborhood,” says Brown. “But it did not happen in isolation—they would not have listened to him if they did not believe it themselves.”
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L-r: 314-315 Hudson.
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Rich Maklary was one of Wales’s students, and is now his employee. Maklary, thirty, was one of the most recent to purchase a home in the Kleinhans area. He heard about it through his boss as well as friends and colleagues who are doing the same thing.
He is in the process of renovating the 1876 house on Plymouth Street that he bought for about $25,000. “I wanted to buy a house in Buffalo’s downtown area,” says Maklary. “Brad had filled me in on how the property values here were rising, and that the houses are cheap but not totally dilapidated. For an architect, it is great to be able to buy a house, redesign it, rip it apart, and start all over.”
As for the neighborhood, Maklary, who grew up on Long Island, has high hopes. “I like the idea of being near the center of Allentown and having access to corner stores and restaurants,” he says. “You are close to the action without having to jump in a car.”
He, along with everyone else quoted in this article, feels that Buffalo’s potential as a living city is underutilized. “After six p.m. on weeknights, downtown Buffalo is desolate,” says Maklary. “It would be nice to get people living in the city; to have stores that stay open until midnight—more like Manhattan.”
Another mover and shaker in the community is real estate broker Lauren Kostek. She hooked Maklary up with his house as soon as she heard about it, and does the same for others, actively recruiting people who are looking for a home to renovate and live in. She calls them “owner-occupieds,” and she is one herself.
Kostek has lived in the area since 2005. She and her partner, Gabriel Price, while not architects, are part of the rising tide of community-minded people committing themselves to the unofficial project of vitalizing an under-loved area of the city.
“The work we are doing here is important because we are building a neighborhood,” says Kostek. “When I learned about the work Chris Brown had already done, I realized how lucky I was to have a good neighbor. I started meeting others. I realized it was already a great neighborhood.”
Speaking like the passionate broker she is, she adds: “You can easily fall in love with a house, but a neighborhood is really special. This young energy is a sign of change. People are strongly involved; they want a better life.”
A textbook example of this attitude is Jared Oakley, thirty. An intern architect at the Allen Street firm of Architectural Resources, Oakley and his wife Jen, also thirty, are expecting their first child. They bought their circa-1902 Pennsylvania Street house for $30,000, and got an FHA loan for $60,000 to begin work—which included gutting the entire house to the studs.
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11 Plymouth, home of Chris Brown.
At right, 55 Plymouth.
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Oakley agrees that the Kleinhans community deserves attention. “We worked closely with Chris Brown when we were buying this house,” he says. “It felt like a real neighborhood—I could see my family fitting in here. As an architect, it’s heartwarming to know that I live down the street from Kleinhans Music Hall, an architectural masterpiece, and to have it be a part of my daily life.”
Assistant professor of architecture Hadas Steiner teaches at UB. She is also an “owner-occupier,” having bought and renovated a house in the neighborhood several years ago. She says that these particular younger people are a perfect fit for the neighborhood.
“The new energy that’s coming into the community also brings the knowledge of design and the ability to make things happen,” Steiner says. “It’s a special kind of force that makes them ideal newcomers to rejuvenate these neighborhoods. The homes need a lot of care invested to bring them back.”
Rhona Vogt, thirty-two, an architectural designer with Flynn Battaglia Architects, is another example of this combination of youth, an attraction to things urban, and technical know-how. She and her husband, Marko Stankovic, thirty-one, an engineer, bought their 1890 house on Days Park in 2004 for around $62,000.
“This is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Buffalo, and we liked the density of the buildings; they’re tightly packed, bringing people together,” Vogt says.
They wanted a back yard; they got a park in their front yard. They are attracted to the closeness of the neighborhood, as well. “It is really a tight-knit community; we are active in the Days Park Block Club and know most of our neighbors. We can take a walk and find shopping, dining, drinking, and friends,” Vogt adds.
In their renovations, Vogt and Stankovic note that they tried to maintain some of the original elements, while still upgrading the overall look and making the home more livable by modern standards.
Theorist Steiner holds that this is the true meaning of preservation. “The first historic preservationists understood that preservation doesn’t pretend to try and restore things to exactly the way they were,” she says. “Rather, it sees things through contemporary eyes and understands how they should be now.”
Pertaining to the Kleinhans Community and others like it, she notes, “Old architecture isn’t necessarily valuable; not everything old is worth preserving. Many features of these older structures have been destroyed. In trying to bring them back, there is value in saving and enhancing through new design gestures. The combination of older features with contemporary designs can make them more relevant.”
Jared Oakley nicely sums up the prevailing attitude for positive change. “I am from Buffalo, and I always felt that Buffalo as a city was underestimated,” he says, “both in terms of real estate value and worth as an urban setting. Now we are participating in this sort of renaissance. It’s an upswing in the zeitgeist; there is enthusiasm. I feel like we’re in at the ground level, building a foundation for the next evolution. I don’t know what that will be, but it’s nice to be a part of it.”
Jana Eisenberg is a writer living in Buffalo. As ex-Manhattanites, she and her husband firmly believe in urban dwelling.
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