Charles and Margaret Mosier House
96 Bidwell Parkway, Buffalo, NY

Additional text found beneath the 2015 photos

Mosier House, 96 Bidwell Parkway Photo on display in the Buffalo History Museum during a 2005 exhibit entitled "Art Nouveau and Other Expressions: Rediscovering the Architecture of Esenwein and Johnson"

2015 Photos Center entrance Colonial Revival  ... Comparing this 2015 photo to the historic photo above, note that the second floor balustrade on top of the semicircular round porch was removed at some point in time.   Gable  dormer with broken pediment ... Raking dentil molding ... Keystone Prominent quoins  ... Stone lintels and sills Modillions supporting overhanging eaves ... Roman (smooth shaft) Ionic columns Dentil molding  ...  Ionic columns Vase-shaped balusters Geometric design leaded glass Geometric design leaded glass sidelights

Bidwell Parkway Bidwell Parkway is an excellent example of Olmsted’s Buffalo parks and parkways system, cutting diagonally through the Elmwood Historic District (West) from Richmond Avenue and Colonial Circle through Elmwood Avenue near Potomac Avenue further on to Soldier’s Circle in the north-east. The street and parkway itself were previously listed on the State and National Registers as a contributing element to the Delaware Park-Front Park system in the Olmsted Parks and Parkways Thematic Resources. A divided roadway with grassy median, Bidwell Parkway is an excellent example of the type of road-as-park that Olmsted envisioned; linking pre- existing settlement at Black Rock and Cold Spring with ribbons of trees and landscape to Delaware Park. The entire street measures approximately 200-feet in width, creating a broad roadway. The median is planted with numerous elm trees on a grid layout, helping give this area a shady, forest-like orderly appearance. Streetlights on Bidwell Parkway are cast iron decorative luminares on poles with Art Nouveau flourishes and glass globes. Houses on Bidwell Parkway date from approximately the 1890s to 1900s, and many feature more high-style examples of Queen Anne, Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival styles. The street also contains several apartment buildings, compatibly scaled to the neighboring 2 1⁄2 or 3-story houses. Notable buildings on Bidwell Parkway include the George L. Thorne House at 50 Bidwell Parkway, designed for one of Buffalo’s most prominent real estate moguls by Bethune, Bethune and Fuchs around 1885. The house at 123 Bidwell Parkway dates to 1895 and was designed by Joseph Lyman Silsbee, a nationally-significant architect and early mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. It was built for Charles Dudley Arnold, official photographer of the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893 and the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition in 1901. - Elmwood Historic Preservation District (West)

96 Bidwell Parkway 2 1⁄2-story side gable symmetrical masonry Colonial Revival house Stone foundation, brick walls, asphalt shingle roof Partial width semi-circular flat roof open front porch with stone base, Ionic columns, spindle balustrade Historic entry floor flanked by sidelights Tripartite windows with stone headers and sills with 6/1 double hung windows flanked by smaller windows 1/1 sash windows at 2nd story 3 front gable  dormers with cornice returns, segmental arched 6/1 double hung sash windows Paired corbeled chimneys at ridge Prominent quoins Contains contributing hipped roof frame secondary building (garage) accessed from Dorchester - Elmwood Historic Preservation District (West)

Additional sources of information on this house found on Buffalo Architecture & History website: 1. Olmsted Park and Parkway System - Table of Contents Bidwell Parkway is part of the Olmsted and Vaux-designed park system, the first designed park system in the US. 2. Grant-Ferry-Forest Intensive Level Historic Resources Survey Intensive level surveys are usually professionally researched and published.  A wealth of information, among other uses, they can  lead to the formation of historic districts. 3. State and Federal Elmwood Historic District (West) Bidwell Parkway west of Elmwood Avenue is included in the historic district.  There are current efforts (May 2015) to create a Elmwood Historic District (East) that would include Bidwell Parkway east of Elmwood Avenue. The main impetus for creating historic districts is for developers and  site owners to benefit from tax credits which is a way for society to express the appreciation of history. 4. Gen. Daniel Davidson Bidwell The street is named after a Civil War Northern General from Buffalo; the original name of Colonial Circle was Bidwell Place. 5. Other Bidwell Parkway houses designed by Esenwein & Johnson: ##130, 132, 136, 138, 142, 177, 186, 200 6. Other Civil War commemorations: Soldier's Circle.  Originally designed to be larger in size and to be the site for a Civil War memorial.  Instead the monument was built and located on Lafayette Square downtown. Lincoln Parkway, Bidwell Parkway, Bidwell Place  Chapin Parkway, and Chapin Place used Soldier's Circle as their hub. Lincoln Parkway.  Named after Abraham Lincoln.  Appropriately, there is a statue of Lincoln on Lincoln Parkway in Delaware Park, and a second one nearby ("Lincoln, the Emancipator") on the steps of The History Museum. Bidwell Parkway. Named after the Civil War general from Buffalo killed near the end of the Civil War. Bidwell Place.  Site of large statue of General Bidwell.  Name later changed to Colonial Circle. Chapin Parkway. Named after another Civil War general from Buffalo killed near the end of the Civil War. Chapin Place.  Name later changed to Gates Circle.

Additional sources of information on this house found on other websites: 1. "Art Nouveau and Other Expressions: Rediscovering the Architecture of Esenwein and Johnson" A 2005 exhibit at the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society (subsequently named The Buffalo History Museum).  The museum posted images and information from the exhibit on its own website (online May 2015).  A photo and two floor plans are included. Some of the same images and information can be found on the Buffalo Architecture & History website.

| ...Home Page ...| ..Buffalo Architecture Index...| ..Buffalo History Index... .|....E-Mail ...| ..

web site consulting by ingenious, inc.