A 1929 proposal by the Larkin Company to establish a “Larkin Square” at the corner of Seneca and Swan streets was shelved by a reticent Common Council and assailed by the Socialist council president Frank C. Perkins as a corporate give-away that “smelled to the heavens.”
The public square proposal would have seen Van Rensselaer Street cut through Seneca Street to Swan Street to relieve traffic congestion (yes, there was traffic congestion!), setting aside a triangular plot of cleared land for a public space honoring the company’s late founder, John D. Larkin.
The Larkin Company at the time was running the Larkin Department Store and the Larkin Food Market at full tilt, filling the entire ground floor of its massive factory complex at 701 Seneca Street with a shopping wonderland for discount foods and household goods. The company desired to create the square to rationalize traffic flow that had been bottled up as a result of the store’s opening and to establish an attractive gateway at the front lawn of the Larkin District.
While the Socialist council president, first elected in a sweeping victory for the left wing party in the council elections of 1919, was incensed by what he viewed as a gift to capitalists, most of the Council simply did not want to pay the hefty price for private property that stood in the way of the anticipated improvements. The Council, rankled by the cost of the proposed square and refusing to pay what a judge deemed fair market value for the property, was inclined to nix the square proposal despite widespread support in the neighborhood to implement it.
According to a Buffalo Courier Express article of June 3, 1930, the plan “was vigorously attacked at yesterday’s meeting by Councilman Jacob L. Davis, who said it would not benefit the general public, but only one property owner. He left no doubt in the minds of his colleagues that he meant the Larkin Company.”
While other members of the council believed the improvement was necessary to relieve traffic congestion, the proposal appeared all but dead when a reduced price for the property was offered by the Council and rejected by the owners. The Larkin Square proposal was ultimately shelved by the Council Finance Committee in 1930, and the plans were quickly forgotten.
Ironically, the historic retail buildings that would have been cleared to make way for the square are now demolished anyway. A new fire hall built for Engine No. 9 in the 1950s was constructed on part of the footprint of the square over where Van Rensselaer Street would have come through. But a couple thousand square feet of the square site remain, leaving open the possibility that, at some point, the intersection of Swan, Seneca, and Emslie streets could yet have a Larkin Square.
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