Allentown Historic District

Allentown is a neighborhood of about 733 buildings on 29 blocks, roughly half a mile north of downtown Buffalo. Most are houses built between 1850 and 1900 on former farmland, about three fourths of them frame and the rest brick. The inventory counts Italianate, Queen Anne, Eastlake, Second Empire, Stick, Shingle and Colonial Revival buildings, along with plain frame houses. Commercial buildings from the 1890s line Allen Street and upper Elmwood Avenue, and the district also has residential hotels, three churches, schools and a movie theatre. Frederick Law Olmsted worked on its three parks, including Symphony Circle, the first circle he laid out in Buffalo. The street layout results from the meeting of the Holland Land Company grid and the grid of the village of Black Rock, which produces angular blocks in the west. Streets remain tree-lined with closely spaced two- and three-story houses. Surrounding areas change sharply within a block of the boundaries, which marks Allentown as a distinct section of the city.