920-940 Amherst Street

owner: Nelson Hubbell

years built: 1926

Wright houses had almost no influence in Buffalo. In general larger mansions were built and are still built in the academic styles of eastern architects. The smaller detached houses either echo these styles in their detail or are reduced to uninteresting boxes fronted by “glasses in” porches. Even the double houses of the mid-nineteenth century were rarely built in the twentieth.

The smaller apartments are rather an exception. Although they lacked the positive and creative style of Wright’s work, they suggest the more dignified simplicity and the greater efficiency obtainable by joining small houses together into larger units.

On the whole, despite the opportunities for expansion and equalization of ground coverage within the city limits, twentieth century Buffalo has preferred to mass its small dwellings into apartment towers in imitation of those in eastern cities. With the exception of government housing, the example of these low apartment houses has seldom been followed.