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Region:
United States > New York
Cache type: Other type
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Date hidden: 2012-04-09
Date created: 2012-04-09
Date published: 2012-04-09
Last modification: 2012-04-27 
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Description
EN
From http://www.buffaloah.com
Soldiers Place, also called Soldiers Circle, forms the central connecting point of Buffalo's parkway system, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Soldiers Place is the point at which Lincoln, Chapin, and Bidwell Parkways converge. The parkways in Olmsted's day were smoothly paved and intended solely for use of private carriages. Featuring 200-foot rights of way and flanked by several rows of trees, they were designed to provide open space for the neighborhoods through which they passed.
Soldiers place was originally a very large circle that was meant to hold the likes of the Soldiers & Sailors monument now gracing Lafayette Square. When the monument was erected downtown, Soldiers Place received four large naval parrot rifles mounted on Grand Army of the Republic carriages and accompanied by stacks of cannon balls. Colonial Circle also had similar guns and projectiles. From the very start, junkmen found the cannon balls irresistible.
The cannons and ammunition stacks were removed from Soldiers Place in 1937 by Parks Commissioner Frank A Coon who condemned them as traffic hazards. Motorists would cut across the street-level circle, sometimes crashing into the massive gun tubes. Coon argued that the cannons had no historic significance -- the navy had supposedly condemned the guns without ever putting them into service. Coon had removed the artillery pieces from Colonial Circle the year before for the same reasons. Everything was sold for scrap.
As a gesture to mark his leaving the Buffalo City Council (giving the gavel to Peter J Crotty in 1947) Kneeland B Wilkes used $10,000 of his own money to beautify Soldiers Place. It had earlier gone to seed due to a lack of Parks Department funds. This work was done during 1948 and featured a low stone wall and flagstone walk. The circle was then renovated one more time, getting its current pear trees. In 1998, members of the immediate neighborhood started an effort to revive Soldiers Place yet again.
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