Canalside District, Buffalo

Canalside is a historic redevelopment district within Buffalo, New York that was once the western terminus of the Erie Canal. Today, it has become a rich site of development, revival, and activity in Buffalo. The site includes the Commercial Slip, historically reconstructed Erie Canal and Main-Hamburg Canals and a mix of building including: KeyBank Center, the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park and HarborCenter among others.

Originally built in Buffalo, New York in 1825 as the "portal to the west", the Erie Canal Harbor served as the terminus for the passage of goods and passengers from the East Coast across the Great Lakes for much of the 19th century. More importantly for Buffalo, the commercial activity fueled by the harbor helped transform the city into a thriving metropolis. Buffalo's notorious Canal Street was a short distance from the canal terminus.

The area had been the site of the original Village of Buffalo, near a Seneca Indian village on Buffalo Creek. The city eventually expanded outward from the waterfront location.

The Canal, completed in 1825, opened up the western United States to travelers and trade from the east coast. With it came a tremendous increase in Great Lakes freighter traffic at Buffalo harbor, and with that an influx of canal and freighter crewmen who were often paid off in Buffalo and spent freely in the bars and brothels that sprang up in the district, known variously as "Canal Street", "Five Points" "the Flats" and "the Hooks".

In the early 20th century, the district became the home of Italian immigrants, mostly Sicilian. Canal Street's name was changed to Dante Place and the neighborhood became known as Dante Place or "Little Italy." Most of the bars and brothels gave way to three- and four-story brick tenements, each housing multiple families.

By the late 1920s, the Canal had been filled in, and in the 1950s, urban renewal obliterated the historic site.

The Commercial Slip was a remnant of Little Buffalo Creek, which flowed into the Buffalo River just before the larger stream entered Lake Erie. The Commercial Slip formed one boundary of Buffalo's infamous Canal District, and was filled in when the district was marked for urban renewal in the 1950s. By that time, the New York State Thruway and the Skyway and Buffalo Memorial Auditorium had been built over the Canal district, and the Commercial Slip was buried and forgotten.

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