Torn-Down Tuesday: Elmwood Music Hall

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.

 

1932. Buffalo Stories archives

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.

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Steve Cichon

Steve Cichon writes about Buffalo’s pop culture history. His stories of Buffalo's past have appeared more than 1600 times in The Buffalo News. He's a proud Buffalonian helping the world experience the city he loves. Since the earliest days of the internet, Cichon's been creating content celebrating the people, places, and ideas that make Buffalo unique and special. The 25-year veteran of Buffalo radio and television has written five books and curates The Buffalo Stories Archives-- hundreds of thousands of books, images, and audio/visual media which tell the stories of who we are in Western New York.