What’s In a Name? The Connecting Streets

The new train terminal was a work of art, with multiple components that worked together. At the bottom of the long access driveway, which is actually Paderewski Drive, is a traffic circle – a feature that wouldn’t become popular in America for several decades. 

The Central Terminal’s designers didn’t create this circle. In fact, it was the work of Buffalo’s first landscape architect, Roeder J. Kinkel. His designs are seen throughout the city, including at Niagara Square, Lafayette Square, and the Buffalo Zoo. In fact, anywhere you look in Buffalo, you’ll see architectural marvels created by legends.  Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Louise Blanchard Bethune. John E. Brent. Frank Lloyd Wright. H.H. Richardson. And so many more. 

The Central Terminal’s development was influenced by the system of parks and parkways designed by Olmsted and Vaux in the early 1870s. They upgraded Fillmore Avenue south of Best Street to a parkway. The tree-shaded thoroughfare was to link The Parade (the current Martin Luther King Jr. Park) with proposed new parkland in South Buffalo. 

The streets feeding the circle Kinkel created – Memorial Drive and Paderewski Drive – were not originally called by those names. Memorial Drive was called Lindbergh Drive, which was named for aviator Charles Lindbergh. It was built to handle traffic to the new station. 

Paderewski Drive, once part of Lovejoy Street, honors Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a renowned pianist and activist for Polish independence who frequently visited Buffalo during the First World War.

Photo courtesy of the Collection of the Buffalo History Museum. General photograph collection, Buildings - Transportation & Storage – Depots.