Reconstructing Black Space is a digital public history exhibit that uses 3D modeling and archival analysis to examine the spaces created and used by the African American community of the East Falls Neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York in order to understand both the local history of the neighborhood and what more broadly constitutes Black Space and architecture.
Reconstructing Black Space is a digital public history exhibit that uses 3D modeling and archival analysis to examine the spaces created and used by the African American community of the East Falls Neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York in order to understand both the local history of the neighborhood and what more broadly constitutes Black Space and architecture.
Simultaneously, the project also serves as a new archive on the history of this community, pieced together from fragments of information found throughout the region.
This homepage serves as a general overview of the exhibit and is separated into five sections. Click on an icon below to jump to that section or continue scrolling to read through the exhibit.
This homepage serves as a general overview of the exhibit and is separated into five sections. Click on an icon below to jump to that section or continue scrolling to read through the exhibit.
Introduction: What is Black Space?
While space is a word commonly used in everyday language this project looks to understand what is meant when it used in conjunction with architecture and culture. In this case, space is a concept not just a descriptor. Here space is defined as the result of actions taken by people to shape their surroundings. By this definition, space is not neutral nor does it refer to a default state of being. The mere presence of humans is what creates space. Space can be permanent, such as with a building, or temporary, like a campfire. In viewing it this way we can use space as an artifact that can then be studied to understand the culture of those who created it. The culture facilitated by the creation of space is used to help instill a sense of belonging, or place. While space-making is the act of altering your environment, placemaking is what informs these changes. Space is subservient to the needs of place.
The term Black Space therefore refers to the spaces used and/or created by Black communities for the explicit goal of forming a sense of unity and belonging. It is what constitutes this sense of place that differentiates Black Space and it is informed by the lived experience of Black individuals within the United States. This project contends that there are two key factors that have helped to create a sense of belonging in Black space:
Together these two terms represent core issues that have shaped the African American cultural experience from 1619 until today. In a society that constantly seeks to oppress and suppress Blackness, Black space is used both as a safe shelter and source of power to stand up against oppression. It is where Black community is formed and where Black culture is fostered.
To fully understand space, we must first turn not to architecture, but to the social sciences. Academic disciplines like sociology and anthropology study cultural objects and the ways people live. These practices serve as a basis for many historians of African American studies. In her book Abiding Courage: African American Migrant Women and the East bay Community, Dr. Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo outlines a three step settlement process for African American Migrants during the Great Migration. Her she describes the various forms of housing these migrants sought on their transition into their new environment. She breaks these down into three categories:
While specifically applied to housing, this same pattern is reflected in nearly all African American social institutions in northern cities. This pattern is suggested to be a result of the economic and political barriers impeding African Americans. However in examining the architecture and the spaces themselves we can trace the cultural importance of these ideas back through hundreds of years of African American history. This process represents a continuation of Black struggle to achieve the ever elusive freedom from fear and freedom of expression that define Black space. This pattern can more broadly be understood as:
Buildings represent a common manifestation of space. Every aspect, from its construction techniques to its design and finishes, reflect the culture of its creators. For much of their history African Americans have not had the same resources or privileges to construct new space as White communities and, as a result, have had to either form space ad-hoc or by repurposing white spaces of other communities. According to Dr. John Michael Vlach in his seminal 1976 essay, "The Shotgun House: An African architectural legacy", this lack of distinct architectural stylings has led many to believe that African Americans have not had a tangible impact on the broader story of American architecture. Vlach shows us that by changing what qualifies as historically significant, we can understand the broader importance of Black material culture to the general public.
As it stands today the story of architecture is told from the perspective of the wealthy, White, European men that had access to the specialized training to become architects either through the academy or by apprenticeship. It was during this education that they learned the "language" of architecture, viewing the discipline's history a-contextually. The history of architecture became focused on the evolution of artistic design of the buildings themselves, rather than the people that used them. This transitioned the idea of architectural space in the mind of the architect into one of beauty rather than one of culture. As a result, anything that doesn't follow these artistic principles of architecture is deemed irrelevant to the field's history. Because Black space doesn't conform to these ideas, it too was written off.
This project looks to reform this way of thinking. It blends together the sociological view point of space and cultural history of architecture as means to better understand what Black life was like in the East Falls neighborhood. In doing this it helps to both recover the lost stories of the community and present what a reparative architectural history could look like.
There was an abundance of Black Space in the East Falls neighborhood, as it was home to the first unified Black community in the city of Niagara Falls. The map below shows some of the most prominent institutions and businesses within the community. To learn more about how these represented Black Space click the buttons located below.
Part One: Where is East Falls?
Hover over the names below to show the location on the map
East Falls was a roughly 130 acre neighborhood located East of the tourist district that surrounds the waterfall and state park. Historically this area was physically separated from the rest of the city by both the New York Central Railyard and Hydraulic canal, and as a result, it took on a more industrial character. It wasn't uncommon to see warehouses or small factories interspersed between regular houses and shops. The name East Falls comes from the street which ran through the core of the neighborhood. In its heyday this was a dense business district serving multiple neighborhoods surrounding it.
The neighborhood was first founded at the turn of the 19th century after laborers on the Hydraulic Tunneling project began building homes there. Outside of the small Black community that called this area home, many immigrant communities also resided in the East Falls neighborhood. Largest of which were the Polish, Italian, and Armenian communities whose businesses and institutions lined East Falls Street in the early days of the neighborhood. The Black community lived largely around Erie and Buffalo Avenue, closest to the factories that were located alongside the Niagara River.
As time went on, the Black community continued to expand its enclave throughout the neighborhood as immigrant communities moved into the suburbs or other neighborhoods.
Part Two: The Virtual Tour
Below is a tour of the East Falls neighborhood as it existed in 1955. Each stop represents an important institution that embodies Black space. Throughout the tour you will hear the stories from various community members about their favorite memories of the neighborhood.
To view the next part of the tour click the arrow buttons located below the video
Part Three: Historical Erasure
The shape of American cities changed drastically during and after WWII. The period between 1940 and 1945 marked the beginning of the second wave of the Great Migration, where millions of African Americans relocated from the South to settle in Northern cities with the hopes of finding better working opportunities and freedom from the oppression of Jim Crow. This was particularly true in Niagara Falls, where the African American population increased 368% between 1940 and 1950. In most cases, Niagara Falls included, city officials and banks used legal measures to "contain" these new Black communities to specific areas of the city so that they would not "infect" the sections home to white communities. This led to extreme overcrowding and deterioration of the existing housing stock as low wages or absentee landlords prevented regular property maintenance. Meanwhile, developers were creating mass housing located just outside the city for the millions of soldiers who were now returning home. Backed by federal loans, many of the White veterans and their new families fled from what they viewed as the "dirty and dangerous" city to the new developments called suburbs. This population drain from the city, known as white flight, caused panic amongst city officials who were now left with a severely diminished tax base and copious amounts of vacant property. In an effort to draw these White families back to the city, officials sought to "clean up" up the most "blighted" areas and replace them with the luxuries that they had become accustom to in the suburbs. The areas deemed most blighted were home to the communities of color that had been forcibly contained. However, it was under these circumstances that the community was able to find and adapt existing buildings to form Black space. Though often financially strained, these neighborhoods were home to copious amounts of successful Black churches, community centers, and businesses all linked together by a network of people that genuinely cared and watched out for each other forming, according to Rev. Dr. Beaman, "a village like atmosphere". Nearly all of these spaces were housed in non-descript buildings the community had repurposed from the White immigrant communities that had run off to the suburbs or other sections of the city. Using funds provide by the federal government, the city would claim property through eminent domain, relocate these communities. and bulldoze any and all buildings that stood in the way of "progress". As a result this led to the historical erasure of these communities and the spaces that they had built up over generations. The East Falls Neighborhoods was one just one example of this happening, not only throughout the country, but even the city.
Conclusion: Share Your Story
