A Name with a Local Twist
Buffalo residents sometimes use “Buffalo Heights” as a friendly, informal way to describe the city’s University Heights neighborhood. The official name is University Heights, a northeast Buffalo community centered around Main Street, Bailey Avenue, and the University at Buffalo’s South Campus. City and university planning materials identify University Heights as a distinct neighborhood, while local references often shorten the name to “the Heights.”
Whatever name you use, this is a neighborhood with a strong sense of place. Its tree-lined residential streets, busy commercial corridors, historic campus buildings, and generations of student and family life have given it a character unlike anywhere else in Buffalo.
From Open Land to Streetcar Suburb
Before houses filled the blocks, much of northeast Buffalo was open countryside, farmland, and institutional land. The area developed gradually as Buffalo expanded northward and transportation improved. Main Street became the neighborhood’s central spine, linking downtown Buffalo with the communities beyond the city line.
The arrival of electric streetcar service helped change everything. The Buffalo and Williamsville Electric Railway began running along Main Street in 1893, making it easier for residents to live farther from downtown while still commuting to work, shop, or attend school. That transportation link encouraged the construction of modest but handsome homes along streets branching from Main Street, including Winspear Avenue, Englewood Avenue, Lisbon Avenue, and University Avenue.
By the early twentieth century, University Heights had taken on the familiar form of a streetcar suburb: narrow residential blocks, front porches, detached and two-family houses, corner stores, churches, and a commercial avenue busy with pedestrians.
Why “University Heights”?
The neighborhood’s name is closely tied to the University at Buffalo. UB was chartered by New York State in 1846, originally as a private institution with a strong medical focus. Its South Campus eventually became the defining institution of the district.
The campus itself occupies land with an even older institutional history. The Erie County Almshouse moved to Main Street in the nineteenth century, and the property later included hospitals, an asylum, a working farm, and other facilities. In the early twentieth century, the University of Buffalo purchased the former county property, setting the stage for the campus that anchors the neighborhood today.
The word “Heights” reflects the area’s elevated position relative to the older urban core. Earlier development schemes used names such as Summit Park and Summit Avenue for portions of the surrounding area, a reminder that Buffalo’s northern edge was once associated with higher ground and open views.
The South Campus and Its Landmark Buildings
For many longtime residents, the heart of Buffalo Heights is the University at Buffalo South Campus at Main Street and Bailey Avenue. Its buildings give the neighborhood much of its architectural identity.
The most recognizable is Hayes Hall, a Romanesque Revival landmark designed by architect E. B. Green. Built in the late nineteenth century for the former Erie County institutions, Hayes Hall later became part of the university campus. Its stone walls, towers, and formal grounds provide a dramatic contrast to the surrounding residential streets.
The campus also includes historic buildings such as Crosby Hall, Hochstetter Hall, Foster Hall, and Abbott Library. Together, they create a distinctive academic landscape of stone, brick, lawns, and mature trees. The campus has long served as more than a university facility. It has also been a source of clinics, cultural programs, lectures, libraries, employment, and public activity for nearby residents. UB describes the South Campus as a major neighborhood focus for nearly a century.
Nearby, Parkside Candy at 3208 Main Street stands as one of the area’s best-known commercial landmarks. Founded in the early twentieth century, the candy shop and factory reflect the era when Main Street was lined with independent businesses serving families, commuters, and university residents. Its old-fashioned storefront and neighborhood presence remain part of the Heights’ visual memory.
Main Street, Bailey Avenue, and Everyday Life
The history of Buffalo Heights is not found only in grand buildings. It also lives in the rhythm of its streets.
Main Street has traditionally been the neighborhood’s busiest corridor, with restaurants, bars, small shops, bookstores, services, and places of worship. Bailey Avenue forms another important commercial edge, connecting the Heights to other East Side and North Buffalo communities. Kenmore Avenue marks much of the northern boundary and offers another link between Buffalo and the surrounding suburbs.
Residential life unfolds on streets such as Heath Terrace, Merrimac Street, Northrup Place, Eggert Road, and Lisbon Avenue. Some blocks are lined with compact frame houses, while others feature brick apartment buildings and sturdy early-twentieth-century homes. Porches, mature maples, small gardens, and closely spaced houses give the neighborhood a welcoming, walkable feel.
The University Heights Historic District and nearby University Park preserve some of the area’s strongest examples of early suburban design. University Park, in particular, demonstrates how developers sought to combine urban convenience with a quieter residential setting. Its homes, landscaped streets, and stone gateways reflect the aspirations of Buffalo’s growing middle class.
From University Town to Diverse Urban Neighborhood
University Heights changed significantly after World War II. The neighborhood became increasingly connected to the university, especially as student housing, rental properties, and small businesses expanded. By the mid-twentieth century, Main Street carried a lively mix of students, faculty, longtime homeowners, working families, and merchants.
A major transition came when UB expanded its North Campus in Amherst. Many undergraduate programs and student residences gradually moved away from Main Street, changing the daily traffic and commercial patterns of the South Campus area. Still, the university remained deeply woven into neighborhood life through health sciences programs, medical facilities, libraries, professional schools, and public events.
In recent decades, the Heights has continued to evolve. Some older homes have been restored, while others have been divided into student rentals or adapted for new uses. The Metro Rail’s University Station, located near Main Street and Niagara Falls Boulevard, strengthened the neighborhood’s connection to downtown and the wider region. Community groups, block clubs, business owners, and preservation advocates have worked to maintain the area’s walkability and historic character.
What Makes Buffalo Heights Special
The appeal of Buffalo Heights is its layering. A resident can walk from a quiet street of century-old homes to a university lecture, stop for a treat at Parkside Candy, ride the Metro Rail downtown, and pass buildings that tell stories reaching back to the Erie County Almshouse.
It is a neighborhood shaped by education, transportation, immigration, architecture, and everyday neighborliness. Its history is not frozen in the past; it continues in the students renting upstairs apartments, the families tending front gardens, the longtime businesses on Main Street, and the institutions that keep drawing people to this corner of Buffalo.
That combination of memory and motion is what makes the Heights special. Whether one calls it University Heights, “the Heights,” or Buffalo Heights, the neighborhood remains one of the city’s most recognizable examples of how Buffalo grew: outward from the old center, along a streetcar line, around a major institution, and through the steady efforts of generations of residents.