By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
During the first decades of the 20th century, the Elmwood Music Hall was Buffalo’s top convention, speech-making, and musical concert space. It was also a popular site for sporting events like boxing and high school basketball.
Originally built as an armory, the building left much to be desired as an event venue. During one 1936 address meant for all of Buffalo’s WPA workers, little was heard other than a series of “blasts, snorts, rasps and gurgles” because of the hall’s “abominable acoustics.”
Regardless, for two generations, the place always had something going on, whether it was Boy Scouts, suffragettes, prohibitionists, or speeches from a long line of presidential candidates and New York governors — including both Presidents Roosevelt.
Beyond the bad acoustics, the hall also had structural issues. The building was deemed unsafe, condemned, and torn down in 1938. Two federal government-sponsored, Depression-era projects helped replace the building at Elmwood and Virginia where Family Dollar now sits — both Memorial Auditorium and Kleinhans Music Hall opened in 1940.