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    Hamburg Revisited
    Hamburg Revisited
    Hamburg Revisited
    Ebook199 pages1 hour

    Hamburg Revisited

    By John R. Edson

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    Hamburg Revisited chronicles the people who led Hamburg in business, education, religion, and civic events during the town's period of growth in the first half of the 20th century. Led by architects Lawrence Bley and Frank Spangenberg, Hamburg developed its distinctive brick and stone architecture of the 1920s and later boomed with growth in the post-World War II period. Many aerial photographs from 1950 show the growth of housing developments in Hamburg village, Blasdell, and Lake Shore, as well as many landmarks that have been lost in the past 50 years.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439623886
    Hamburg Revisited
    Author

    John R. Edson

    John R. Edson is the author of Hamburg and Hamburg: 1910�1970. A librarian at the Hamburg Public Library for over 20 years and a graduate of Canisius College, he has dedicated himself to preserving Hamburg�s history. Hamburg Revisited showcases vintage photographs from his own photographic archive as well as the collections of the Hamburg town historian, Hamburg Historical Society, and private residents.

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      Book preview

      Hamburg Revisited - John R. Edson

      collection.

      INTRODUCTION

      Hamburg, New York, is a wonderful place to revisit, either in person or through a book. Since the town of Hamburg will celebrate its bicentennial in 2012, I thought this was a good time to write another book and offer 200 more photographs of Hamburg history to our community.

      People ask me many questions about our town. Where exactly was Biehler’s Tea Room, and what really happened to the legendary tunnels of the Nike Base? In Hamburg, when we give driving directions, we often mention what used to be at a location, such as, Turn where the old Twin Fair store used to be. There is a big interest in history in this community.

      When researching Hamburg history, I find many individuals who stand out from all the rest—people who seemed to be running most everything, people whom everyone seemed to love, and people that I wish I could know today. In this book, I wanted to include John W. Kleis, John W. Salisbury, Alma and Franc Titus, Arthur Howe, Elizabeth Seelbach, and Rev. Anthony Bornefeld as special favorites in Hamburg history. John W. Kleis helped his father construct the foundation for First Presbyterian Church in Blasdell with stones from their farm. Many people lay the foundation of a church by their deeds or financial support, but the Kleis men literally laid the foundation with stones and mortar. John W. Salisbury was a man of action, leading so many Hamburg organizations and opening his home to young men who boarded with his family when they first came to Hamburg. Some of his early boarders included Arthur Howe, Dr. Harrison V. Baker, and Donald Sharp. The Titus sisters, Alma and Frankie, reflect the heart of Hamburg, as they taught school in Blasdell for decades. Everyone seems to agree that they loved the schoolchildren, and in return, everyone loved them. I have used many of their personal photographs of life in Blasdell. I have read Elma’s original contract with Blasdell Schools from 1935, which forbids female teachers to get married while employed. Arthur Howe, the namesake for Hamburg High School Howe Athletic Field, comes across as an inspiration even today. Art Howe came to Hamburg in 1920, married one of the other Hamburg High School teachers, settled on Highland Avenue, and actually cleared the land for the baseball diamond when it was still woods. Elizabeth Seelbach is another of my favorites; she served as the second librarian of the Hamburg Free Library for about 20 years, following in the footsteps of the illustrious Miss Amanda Michael. She served in the Red Cross during the First World War as the only woman from Hamburg who actually traveled overseas for the Red Cross. She also had a soprano singing voice. Rev. Anthony Bornefeld was the force behind the construction of the new Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church in 1910. Reverend Bornefeld had the taste for beauty and left his mark on the community. Many of today’s elder Hamburg residents have told me stories about some of these historical people, including Doris Bruce who remembered a Sunday in 1920 when Reverend Bornefeld collapsed at mass shortly before he died.

      Photographs in this book come from several sources: the collections of the Hamburg Historical Society, the Hamburg Town Historian, and many family and personal collections. Many people have given me several of these old photographs, and in some cases these beautiful pictures, such as the boyhood photograph of Dr. Alvah Lord, have been rescued from the curb on trash day.

      Beautiful buildings were plentiful in Hamburg 100 years ago. Two- and three-story brick structures lined the main streets of the Village of Hamburg. Residential streets boasted large, attractive residences with much decorative woodwork, due to the Hamburg Planing Mill that was located on West Union Street. Beginning in 1910, many of the old wooden buildings were replaced with larger structures made of brick and stone. This continued through the 1920s and many old wooden buildings, churches, theaters, and schools were demolished, making way for the new ones. Two Hamburg architects were responsible for most of these designs. Lawrence Bley and his associates designed Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church, the Hamburg Free Library on Center Street, The Palace Theater, St. James Evangelical Church, Armor School, the brick addition on the old Big Tree School on Bayview Road, and many homes throughout the village, including ones on Long Avenue. Frank A. Spangenberg designed the Masonic temple on Buffalo Street and the Hamburg High School, which is now the Pleasant Avenue side of the Union Pleasant Elementary School. Spangenberg also designed many homes throughout the village, including several on South Lake Street. His structures generally used classical elements, namely triangular pediments atop columns, but his signature seemed to be an arch worked in somewhere in the building design. I had hoped to find a decent photograph of Spangenberg for this book, but have been unsuccessful. Throughout the Village of Hamburg, you can spot homes that he designed; generally they break away from the foursquare style of the 1910 era, and they are loaded with influences from other times and places. The Spangenberg signature is an arch somewhere in the building, perhaps a Palladian window, a half-moon window, or a curve to the roofline. Spangenberg died suddenly in 1932, leaving a growing family and a number of unfinished projects.

      Hamburg has a history of gigantic parades and fairs that people anticipate and that attract people from far and near. The Hamburg Volunteer Fire Department organized many parades that attracted thousands of people each summer. The largest celebration on record was the Hamburg Centennial, or Old Home Week, a five-day celebration of the founding of the town in 1812. Many photographs of this event and other firemen’s celebrations show an endless parade of firemen, and the buildings on Main Street were festooned with patriotic bunting and decorations to welcome firemen from other communities. The Erie County Fair was another annual magnet that drew people

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