Canal Street was the name of
a thoroughfare as well as a district in Buffalo
in the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Originally called
Rock Street, Canal Street ran parallel to and just to the west of
the famed
Erie Canal at its western
terminus in Buffalo. The area had been the site of the original
Village of Buffalo, near a
Seneca
Indian village on
Buffalo
Creek. The city eventually expanded outward from the waterfront
location.
The Canal, completed in 1825, opened up the western United States
to travelers and trade from the east coast.
With it came a
tremendous increase in Great Lakes
freighter traffic at Buffalo harbor, and with that
an influx of canal and freighter crewmen who were often paid off in
Buffalo and spent freely in the bars and brothels that sprang up in
the district, known variously as "Canal Street", "Five Points" "the
Flats" and "the Hooks".
In the early 20th century, the district became the home of Italian
immigrants, mostly Sicilian. Canal Street's name was changed to
Dante Place and the neighborhood became known as Dante Place or
"Little Italy." Most of the bars and brothels gave way to three-
and four-story brick tenements, each housing multiple
families.
Throughout its existence, the neighborhood suffered numerous fires,
explosions, and other disasters. By the late 1920s, the Canal had
been filled in, and in the 1950s,
urban
renewal obliterated the historic site. In recent years, an Erie
Canal Redevelopment project has unearthed building foundations from
the Canal-era neighborhood and restored the
Commercial Slip, which formed the original
natural outlet of Little Buffalo Creek into the
Buffalo River. These restoration
efforts resulted in the opening of the
Erie Canal Harbor in 2008.
References
- Vogel, M.N., Patton, E.J., Redding, P.F. America's
Crossroads: Buffalo's Canal Street/Dante Place. Buffalo, NY:
Western New York Heritage Press, ©1993 (ISBN 1-878097-12-1)
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