Michigan Avenue Heritage Corridor

The Michigan Avenue Corridor was founded to preserve the roots of freedom and the heritage of Buffalo's East Side. Byron W. Brown, Mayor. City of Buffalo Office of Strategic Planning, Timothy J. Wanamaker, Executive Director. The dawn of the Industrial Age signaled the first wave of the Great Migration from the South. A new generation of African Americans looked to the North for a better quality of life. Plentiful work. In the early 1900s, African Americans continued to arrive from nearly everywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. They came from the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Florida. In Buffalo they found plentiful work. They worked as laborers in booming steel mills and factories and as servants, cooks and chauffeurs for the wealthy. Newcomers to Buffalo founded black-owned hotels, nightclubs, funeral parlors, drug stores, restaurants and social groups. Savvy entrepreneur Dan Montgomery owned three hotel and supper clubs famous for their steak dinners. The Lower East Side was home to Sims and Towne New and Used Furniture Store, Jones Brothers Mortuary and the Maloney School of Beauty Culture. Brown Bomber Cab Co., Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. Manhattan Hotel and Supper Club. Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. Buffalo was a famous stop on the jazz circuit. The Colored Musicians Club. The Colored Musicians Club evolved from Local 533 of the American Federation of Musicians, founded in 1917. In 1934, led by Ray Jackson and Lloyd Plummer, some of the union members purchased the building at 145 Broadway. Jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton and Billy Holiday and others, would sometimes "jam" there after a local gig. Today the Colored Musicians Club members remain active in the ommunity and hold music lessons for local youth. Little Harlem Hotel and Nightclub. The Little Harlem Hotel and Nightclub opened in 1934 at 496 Michigan Avenue. The club was famous for its Chinese food and decor and became a favorite of literary and entertainment circles. Harlem Renaissance personalities and jazz greats such as Cab Callaway, Billy Eckstine and Sarah Vaughan, among others were entertained here. Heavyweight champ Joe Louis visited the Little Harlem Hotel when he came to Buffalo. It remained a favorite meeting place for African American political and business leaders until it was destroyed by fire in 1993. The famous Little Harlem Hotel and Nightclub. Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. Little Harlem Hotel and Nightclub. Buffalo, NY was far away from the oppressive Jim Crow laws of segregation that emerged following Reconstruction in the South. Stepping Stones: 1920s: Physicians Ivorite L. Scruggs, Ezekial Nelson, Theodore Kakaza and H.H. Lewis established their practices along William Street. Attorneys Clarence Maloney, John H. Coston and Julian Evans had law offices there. 1920: The Douglas Grocery Company opened its first store, an African American cooperative enterprise. 1921: Robert Joplin opened the McAvoy Theatre to offer high class pictures and up-to-date vaudeville to the black community. 1923: Frank E. Merriweather Sr. founded The Criterion Press. 1930s: Elisha A. Gilbert started his dental practice and ophthalmologist W. Yerby Jones opened an office on Buffalo's Lower East Side. Dentist Elisha A. Gilbert at work.

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A Melting Pot
Little Harlem Hotel
Michigan Avenue Baptist Church
Michigan Street Baptist Church
Michigan Street Baptist Church
Mary B. Talbert
Colored Musicians Club
In Memory of the Valiant Service, a War Memorial
The Site of the First Court Houses of Niagara and Erie County
Site of the First Meeting of the Optimist Club

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