Riverside, Buffalo

Riverside is a neighborhood of Buffalo, New York, located in the northwestern part of the city, along the Niagara River.

For many, it was a "rural retreat" to the larger, more industrious city of Buffalo, inhabited mostly by a few wealthy owners of large estates.

Many of the new residents moving to Riverside, were arriving from Black Rock, which had become highly industrialized by the end of the 19th century.

Offering views of the Niagara River, curving streets, and larger residential building lots than its neighbor to the south, Riverside had attracted over 2,000 people by 1900, who were mostly of German and Irish descents.

It was this sudden surge in population, that gave Riverside its early reputation as a northern working class 'suburb' of Black Rock, even though it still was within the city limits.

Around the time of the Great Depression and World War II, with the country in an economic slump, fewer people were moving out to the suburbs, so even more housing construction took place in Riverside as the remaining land was developed.

This, coupled with the large-scale exodus of residents and businesses to the suburbs that was similarly taking place in many other parts of the country, began the long and steady period of decline in Riverside.