Torn-Down Tuesday: Main & Amherst in the 1940s

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

It might be difficult to recognize today’s corner of Main and Amherst in your mind by looking at this photo.

Looking north on Main Street at the Amherst Street intersection, 1940s. (Buffalo Stories archives)

The intersection today is quite different.

Two International Railway Company street cars ambling alongside vehicular traffic is one of those pieces of Buffalo’s past that is difficult to imagine if you don’t remember them running.

And then there’s the Mischler’s Tavern building, which dates to the 1880s and was built before East Amherst Street was constructed.

Buffalo Cement Works, east side of Main Street, 1884. (Buffalo Stories archives)

When this photograph was taken in 1884, the east side of Main Street near Amherst was dominated by Lewis Bennett’s Buffalo Cement Works.

Today, this intersection is dominated by the Amherst Street MetroRail station, the site of which would have been behind the left shoulder of the photographer of the Mischler’s Tavern/street car photo. Had that he turned around, he would have seen the Central Park Market building where the MetroRail station now stands.

Central Park Market building. (Buffalo Stories archives)