INTRODUCTION: A HIDDEN CHAPTER IN BUFFALO WATERFRONT HISTORY
Did you know Buffalo once nearly built a sprawling university campus on its downtown waterfront? It’s a fascinating hidden history of Buffalo that few locals and visitors know. In the 1960s, Buffalo was at a crossroads: expand the University at Buffalo (UB) in the suburbs or weave it into the city’s urban fabric. Robert Traynham Coles, a pioneering Black architect and passionate Buffalonian, championed a downtown campus that he believed could transform the city’s future.
This blog post explores the historical context behind that bold proposal, Coles’ contributions and activism (from fighting highways to designing community landmarks), and how Buffalo’s trajectory – including its waterfront development – might have unfolded differently if his vision had prevailed.
THE DOWNTOWN UB CAMPUS THAT NEVER WAS
In the mid-1960s, as UB joined the SUNY system and planned to expand, a heated debate ignited over its new location. Coles and a group of civic leaders formed the Committee for an Urban University in 1966, fervently advocating for a downtown UB campus along Buffalo’s waterfront. They met (fittingly, on July 4, 1966) to declare independence from the suburban plan and rally support for an urban campus.
Coles, then only in his 30s, was chosen as chairman – a notable choice as he was a young African American professional in a field dominated by older white men. But Coles had charisma, vision, and a deep love for Buffalo. He painted an enticing picture of the proposed campus: university buildings stretched out for two miles along the Niagara River, with students and faculty enlivening the downtown scene. “If the university had come down here, it would have been absolutely great… Just imagine it. It would have been amazing,” Coles later said, visualizing the energy it could have brought.
Planners at the time noted the site’s “dramatic vistas of the Buffalo Harbor, Lake Erie and the Canadian shore” and how a waterfront campus could serve as a stunning gateway to the city.
However, this grand idea faced stiff resistance. UB’s administration and New York State officials were already leaning towards a quieter option: a large parcel of land in Amherst, a suburb north of the city, which UB had acquired as a backup in 1960. Detractors of the downtown plan argued it would be too disruptive – it might require removing LaSalle Park and displacing thousands of residents on Buffalo’s West Side. They also pointed out practical challenges: the proposed site was split by highways (I-190) and a rail line, which, in their view, would have made for a “strange campus.” One UB official at the time dismissed the urban proposal, saying Buffalo shouldn’t treat the university as an urban renewal tool but rather build what’s best for the institution.
In the end, despite Coles’ energetic campaign (which even won the support of Buffalo’s mayor and some business leaders), the decision fell in favor of Amherst. By 1967, UB’s path was set: the new sprawling campus would rise on former farmland outside the city. The downtown waterfront site Coles championed remained a patchwork of parkland, housing, and industrial remnants – missing the jolt of investment a campus would have provided.
CONSEQUENCES: HOW BUFFALO’S DEVELOPMENT WAS SHAPED
The choice to build UB’s main campus in the suburbs had profound consequences for Buffalo. As Coles bitterly observed, it funneled growth away from the city. “It channeled development and construction out to Amherst. It took all the vitality out of the city,” he later remarked about the move.
Indeed, in the decades after, Amherst’s population and economy grew, partly fueled by the university’s presence, while Buffalo’s urban core suffered from the loss of potential jobs, residents, and activity that a downtown campus might have brought. One longtime UB student and employee even said attending the Amherst campus felt “like going to college in an office park”, noting how isolated it was from the city life.
Buffalo’s waterfront development especially might have followed a very different trajectory. For much of the late 20th century, Buffalo’s waterfront (around where Canalside and LaSalle Park are today) was underutilized – cut off from downtown by the I-190 highway and largely forgotten except for grain elevators and parking lots. Had UB built a campus on the waterfront, the city would likely have invested in new infrastructure, housing, and businesses in this area starting in the 1970s. We might have seen student apartments in Allentown and the West Side, busy cafes and bookstores along the water, and a downtown that felt more alive year-round.
Instead, Buffalo effectively “turned its back” on the waterfront for a generation, as Coles noted in an op-ed. Other cities like Chicago and Cleveland were beginning to reconnect with their lakefronts, but Buffalo’s remained a somnolent expanse behind highways. It wasn’t until the 2000s that serious reinvestment in Buffalo’s downtown waterfront began – notably with the creation of Canalside and the rehabilitation of the Inner Harbor.
Ironically, UB did slowly expand downtown in later years, opening a medical campus and biotech center in the 2000s and 2010s, which finally brought students and researchers into the city. But imagine if that process had started 40 years earlier with a full undergraduate campus – the impact might have been transformative.
ROBERT COLES: THE ACTIVIST ARCHITECT WHO FOUGHT FOR BUFFALO
Who was the man behind the downtown campus vision? Robert T. Coles (1929–2020) was more than an architect designing buildings – he was an activist urbanist who spent his career advocating for Buffalo’s people and neighborhoods. Coles often told the story of how, in high school, a counselor advised him not to pursue architecture because “there weren’t black architects”.
Thankfully, Coles ignored that advice. He went on to earn his architecture degrees (University of Minnesota for undergrad, then MIT for his master’s) and returned to Buffalo to open his own firm in 1963 – the first African American-owned architecture firm in the city. In 1968, he was even commissioned to help design UB’s new Amherst campus gymnasium (Alumni Arena), a somewhat ironic footnote to his story since he so strongly preferred the campus be in the city.
Coles firmly believed in the social responsibility of architects. “He believed in the architect as an activist and advocate,” one colleague said, noting how Coles promoted minorities and women in an era when the field was slow to open doors for them. Coles mentored young Black architects and insisted on hiring a diverse staff. He founded the Community Planning Assistance Center (CPAC) in 1972, offering pro bono design and planning help to community groups in Buffalo’s poorest areas. Through CPAC, Coles worked on projects like affordable housing, neighborhood plans, and even early proposals to restore parts of Buffalo’s East Side that had been harmed by urban renewal and highway construction.
One of Coles’ most famous battles was against the construction (and later, the legacy) of the Kensington Expressway. This highway, built in the early 1960s, obliterated Humboldt Parkway – a beautiful tree-lined boulevard that had been a centerpiece of Buffalo’s park system – and in its place dug a trench for high-speed traffic right through the heart of the Black community. Coles saw this as a double injustice: it destroyed a historically integrated, thriving neighborhood, and it cut off the East Side from opportunity. The impact on Buffalo’s African American community was devastating, freezing property values and contributing to disinvestment that lasted decades. Coles not only spoke out against these kinds of projects, he embodied his protest in the very design of his home.
In 1961, anticipating the expressway’s arrival, he built his personal residence on Humboldt Parkway with its front facing away from the street. The house’s private living spaces open to a rear courtyard, turning a literal back on the freeway’s noise and pollution. This design was Coles’ quiet form of resistance – a way to preserve a sanctuary of community and family life despite the highway out front. Local historian Dr. Henry Louis Taylor Jr. called it “a heroic act…symboliz[ing] the importance of breaking from frameworks that are not working”.
Coles house is now home to a new initiative: The COLES PROJECT. The group’s mission is to preserve and steward the Coles House and Studio through advocacy, architecture and planning to bring social justice to Buffalo’s East Side. It is a continuation of Coles’ vision and perseverance against the odds.
Coles earned widespread respect for his dedication. In 1994, he became the first African American chancellor of the American Institute of Architects’ College of Fellows (the AIA’s highest honor society). And in 2019, the national AIA awarded him the Edward C. Kemper Award for his lifelong contributions to the profession – capping off a career not just of designing buildings, but also of building bridges for those who came after him. Many of Buffalo’s prominent architects today cite Coles as a mentor who inspired them to pursue architecture.
His architectural works are themselves part of Buffalo’s history: he designed the Frank E. Merriweather Jr. Library (1995) on Jefferson Avenue, a vital cultural hub in the heart of the East Side; the John F. Kennedy Community Center (the very first project he completed, in 1960) on Hickory Street; and the UB Alumni Arena (1985) in Amherst, among many others. In 2011, the modernist home he built on Humboldt Parkway – the one that stared down the Kensington Expressway – was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, recognizing its architectural significance and the story it tells of adaptation in the face of urban change.
AN ALTERNATE TRAJECTORY – AND LESSONS FOR BUFFALO’S FUTURE
It’s fascinating (and a bit heartbreaking) to ponder how Buffalo might have evolved if Coles’ urban campus vision had been realized. Perhaps the city’s population decline in the late 20th century would have been less severe, with thousands of students living and spending money in the city. Maybe the East Side would have benefitted from closer ties to a thriving university, rather than seeing jobs and investment flow outward.
Buffalo’s waterfront development certainly would have kicked off earlier – instead of waiting until the 2010s to become the lively Canalside area we know today, the downtown waterfront might have been an exciting focal point by the 1970s. There’s a reason people still talk about the “what if” of the UB campus: it was a turning point that could have dramatically altered Buffalo NY history. In fact, local discussions about moving some of UB’s presence back to the city never fully died and have influenced recent developments.
The story of Robert Coles and the unbuilt downtown campus also offers a powerful lesson in civic activism. Coles showed that even established plans could be challenged by citizens who care deeply about their city. While he didn’t win the campus battle, his effort forced leaders to justify their decisions and kept the conversation about urban reinvestment alive. And in the long run, Buffalo did circle back to many of Coles’ ideas. Today, there’s momentum to correct past urban planning mistakes: New York State is investing in covering portions of the Kensington Expressway to restore the green parkway feel and reconnect neighborhoods, something unimaginable back in the 1960s. UB has integrated into downtown with its Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and other programs, finally forging that university-city link (albeit on a smaller scale). There’s a growing appreciation for walkable, vibrant city life – exactly what Coles and his peers advocated decades ago.
CONCLUSION: REMEMBERING COLES’ VISION IN TODAY’S BUFFALO
Standing today at Buffalo’s revitalized Inner Harbor, with a burgeoning downtown around us, it’s easy to feel optimistic. Buffalo’s past, however, whispers to us through stories like that of the unbuilt downtown campus. Robert Coles never got to see his dream campus by the lake, but he didn’t waver in his commitment to Buffalo. He poured his energy into community projects and mentored new generations, laying the groundwork for a more inclusive and dynamic city. In many ways, the Buffalo of 2025 is finally catching up to Coles’ vision: embracing the waterfront, investing in downtown education and medicine, and seeking to heal divisions caused by expressways and neglect. As we celebrate the visible progress – new parks, restored buildings, and yes, even students roaming downtown – let’s also honor the legacy of those who fought for these ideas when they weren’t popular. The hidden history of Buffalo’s missed opportunities can still guide a future where the city’s growth is urban, inclusive, and deeply connected to its people and heritage.
Buffalo’s story is still being written. By remembering trailblazers like Robert Traynham Coles and the lessons of the road not taken, we ensure that our city’s next chapters are informed by both our successes and our regrets. Buffalo’s hidden history won’t remain hidden if we tell it, learn from it, and use it to chart a better course – one that realizes the full potential of this remarkable city on the lake.
Want to uncover more of Buffalo’s hidden history? Join us for one of our guided rides at Buffalo Bike Tours. We explore the stories behind the city’s streets, waterfront, and communities—on two wheels and with fresh perspective. Book your history tour today.