The Festival is sponsored by the Allentown Village Society, A.V.S., a volunteer, not-for-profit organization of 25 regular working members. The Officers are:
| President: |
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Mary M. Myszkiewicz |
| Vice President: |
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Dolores W. Leon |
| Treasurer: |
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Daniel E. Hannah |
| Recording Secretary: |
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Sally A. Lombardo |
| Corresponding Secretary: |
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Arline C. Scaffidi |
Legacy
Buffalo participates in Local Legacies project to mark
Library of Congress Bicentennial
Click here to read a news release from Mayor Anthony M. Masiello
Click here to read a news release from Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Allentown Village Society History
THE ALLENTOWN ART FESTIVAL
BUFFALO, NEW YORK
is art that makes life…”
Henry James
In Buffalo, New York, on one special weekend each June, it is indeed art that makes life for the tens of thousands of people who visit the Allentown Art Festival. Since its modest beginnings as a small art show in 1958, the Allentown has become not only Buffalo’s urban rite, but a symbol for the enduring character of this re-emerging rustbelt region. It has earned an important place in Buffalo’s cultural and social life and a national reputation for excellence.
The Allentown Art Festival is especially remarkable, having persevered and prospered for over 40 years largely due to the members of the Allentown Village Society, Inc., whose active number of unpaid volunteers has seldom grown beyond 30. Their labors have borne fruit beyond the annual Allentown Art Festival weekend and beyond the boundaries of the Allentown neighborhood of Buffalo.
Once, a small art show was a catalyst for the vibrant rebirth of the unique part of the city of Buffalo called “Allentown”.
THE ALLENTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD
To understand the legacy of the Allentown Art Festival to the City of Buffalo, one should know the unique place that the Allentown community holds in the City.
Allentown occupies about one-half square mile near downtown Buffalo. Its origins date to 1827, when Lewis Allen purchased 29 acres of farmland along the then-northern border of the village of Buffalo. The cow path on his land eventually became Allen Street. The heart of Allentown lies at the intersection of Allen Street and Delaware Avenue, one of Buffalo’s main thoroughfares.
Over the years, the Allentown neighborhood has been home to a number of famous Buffalonians, including Millard Fillmore, Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), actress Katherine Cornell as a girl, and author F. Scott Fitzgerald in his childhood.
In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated President of the United States following the assassination of President McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. The site of the inauguration was the Ansley Wilcox Mansion on Delaware Avenue, just up the block from Allen Street. Today, the Wilcox Mansion is the Theodore Roosevelt National Historic Site, and Allentown, with its wealth of unique American architecture, is one of the nation’s largest historic preservation districts.
In 1958, when the idea of an outdoor art show was no more than that, the Allentown neighborhood was in decline. There was no National Historic Site, no National Historic Preservation District, and not many people recognized the architectural treasures obscured by years of neglect. The Allentown Art Festival helped change that.
Ten years later, one of the founders of the festival was able to respond to a critic in a letter to the editor:
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As people in general and artists in particular, in areas besides Western New York spoke more and more about the Allentown Festival, the reputation of Buffalo as just a sprawling, dirty, polluted, unenlightened city began to fade and phrases like the new art culture and the art explosion were mentioned with Buffalo. Certainly the Allentown area which was on the verge of deterioration, which is common in so many areas on the downtown fringes, started to perk up.
Now the Allentown area is considered a prime neighborhood and the art center of Western New York.
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Harold Goldstein, Buffalo Evening News, June 28, 1968.
Four years later, the Courier Express Sunday Magazine of June 4, 1972 featured the Allentown Art Festival. An editor’s note to the lead article by Nancy Tobin Willig, entitled “Next Weekend All Roads Lead to Allentown”, observed:
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Allentown is a little out of place for Buffalo even though it lies near the heart of the City. Unlike the Queen City’s more familiar faces - the ethnically distinguishable north, south, east and west sides - Allentown lacks a recognizable genealogy.
It is a cluster of shops, boutiques, antique stores, bars, restaurants and pre-Depression wood frame and brick buildings which are remarkably resilient to age. It is also people whose lifestyles are a departure from the traditional patterns of a city built largely along the lines of immigrant neighborhoods.
It has a reputation as the center of the counterculture in Buffalo, for hippies and their descendants. The Allen St. - Elmwood Ave. area, according to police, also is one of the crossroads of illicit drug traffic.
Allentown’s allure, though, is difficult to stereotype. Many ‘straight,’ traditional businesses are located in Allentown. And, in recent years, interest in refurbishing the older homes in the area has spread, attracting new residents, young families, successful businessmen and others to settle there.
One of Allentown’s widely accepted attractions is its annual Art Festival. Courier Express art critic Nancy Tobin Willig previews that event in the following article. And in a companion story, a Buffalo executive who refurbished one of Allentown’s old houses for his family home tells why he settled in the neighborhood
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Buffalo Courier Express, Sunday Magazine, June 4, 1972.
In the companion story “The Rebirth of a Neighborhood”, E. Alfred Osborne extolled the virtues of his chosen place of residence and concluded:
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When you visit the Art Festival, discover the architectural treats of Allentown that lay hard by Delaware Ave. Perhaps you will find a townhouse waiting to be restored. Or Allentown’s hidden beauty.
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Buffalo Courier Express, Sunday Magazine, June 4, 1972.
Over the years, the Allentown Art Festival has been the occasion for the introduction of tens of thousands of people to the Allentown neighborhood. Many have later chosen to live or open a business there.
By the 25th anniversary year of the Festival, the headline for a lead newspaper story read:
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Proud, diverse Allentown welcomes festival.
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Buffalo Courier Express, June 12, 1982
The Allentown Art Festival has given identity and brought recognition to a once decaying neighborhood and has had an important role in its revitalization, while giving the City of Buffalo its largest cultural event.
THE BEGINNING
In the spring of 1958, Jason Natowitz called together a small group of other Allentown business owners to propose an event to stimulate business in the neighborhood. The meeting gave birth to the Allentown Village Society. By August, plans were in place for a September outdoor art show on the streets of the area.
Although the artists and craftsmen participating in the event numbered no more than 50 locals, and although the Allentown Village Society went $450 into the red to produce it, 20,000 people attended over the two days of the show. Louis Cherenzia, another of the founders, now a nonagenarian, recalled the first edition, “It was rated as the most colorful cultural event in Buffalo since the Pan-American Exposition.”
“The Buffalo Art Festival,” as it was then named, was a cultural if not a financial success. Mr. Natowitz and his friends recognized its potential, and a second edition was planned for June, 1959. In Buffalo, the second weekend in June has been Art Festival weekend ever since.
“The Buffalo Art Festival” quickly came to be identified with its location and informally called “The Allentown Art Festival;” by 1966, the informal name had become formal. The 1966 Mayoral Proclamation recognizing the event called it, for the first time, the “Allentown Outdoor Art Festival.” In a June 5, 1967 letter, Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller wrote, “I am delighted to hear that the Allentown Outdoor Art Festival is increasing in scope year by year, and has now developed into one of the largest outdoor art events in the Great Lake Area.”
THE FLOWER CHILD
In the early years, the vision of the Allentown Village Society for Buffalo’s Art Festival had yet to become focused:
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This is a non-juried show, the main object is to encourage artists and craftsmen, not to pass judgment on their abilities. This, after all, is a matter of personal opinion.
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Harold Goldstein in a 1960 promotional release.
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We hope eventually that a month long festival of the fine arts, music, drama and the dance will grow out of the arts Festival, something that will show Buffalo as really culture minded.
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Jason Natowitz, Buffalo Evening News, June 15, 1961.
By the mid 1960’s, the Festival offered much more than art:
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Pictures galore and fun in store at Buffalo’s Allentown Art Festival this coming Saturday and Sunday. Curbside ballet, fashion shows, folk singers and sidewalk cafés, and new equipment of the Buffalo Fire Department will be on display on Virginia Place throughout the show. Come on down!
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1966 publicity release for the 9th Annual Allentown Outdoor Art Festival.
By 1969, the prestigious Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra had joined the party and played at the 12th Annual Festival.
By the mid 1960’s, the Festival’s reputation as a venue for people-watching had also become established:
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Where can any Buffalonian see a gala array of oil paintings, watercolors, pastels and ceramics? Where can he see people dressed in slacks and gowns and smiles and frowns? The answer is easy: at the Ninth Annual Allentown Art Show.
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Buffalo Courier Express, June 12, 1966.
The art and crafts exhibited were as reflective of the times as were the long-haired men and tie-dyed, body-painted women who created them or populated the streets of Allentown. The creative work of the 60’s included “legalized pots,” “protest collages” and a “black is beautiful” exhibit.
By 1961, the number of exhibitors had grown to 225, by 1964 to 400, by 1968 to 500 and by 1970 to over 600. The exhibitors began to come from well beyond Buffalo and upstate New York, from many states and Canada. By the end of the decade, the official crowd estimates for the event reached 250,000.
As the '60’s came to a close, the Allentown Art Festival had blossomed into a free-spirited flower child.
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The Allentown Art Festival is an unusual phenomenon, perhaps the only one of its kind. It is a combination of Coney Island, Williamsburg, Fourth of July, family picnic, funhouse, fireman’s carnival, art museum, hobby house, 5 & 10 cent store jewelry department, sophisticated ladies and casual dressers with a tolerable amount of art tucked in between.
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D.K. Weinbrenner, professor of art at Buffalo State College, Buffalo Courier Express, June 7, 1970.
Not everyone approved of the flower child, however:
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The Allentown Hobby Fair - I refuse from now on to call it an art festival - is over, but the migraine lingers on…a juried exhibition is the only remedy…”.
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Jean Reeves, art critic, Buffalo Evening News, June 22, 1968.
WATERSHED I
In 1970, the 13th Allentown Art Festival played on the same weekend as the 9th Annual Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, just an hour and 20 minutes away. Toronto’s mayor William Dennison joined Buffalo’s mayor Frank A. Sedita as his guest on Sunday at the festival.
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Toronto’s Outdoor Art Exhibit is to the Allentown Art Festival as a tea party is to a rock festival.
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Jean Reeves, art critic, Buffalo Evening News, June 20, 1970.
The visit of Mayor Dennison to Buffalo, the juxtaposition of the two cities’ quite different art shows, and the tensions between establishment and youth cultures in America at the beginning of the '70’s combined, profoundly changing the Allentown Art Festival:
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Incidentally, Mayor Dennison was thrilled with the Allentown Festival and, thank God, he didn’t get into the finale mess. He loved the Gabriel’s Gate bistro of host Leonard Silveri which was crammed with important citizens at a reception for him and Mayor Sedita.
He said that he wished Toronto would have a great fun and art fair like ours. And an hour later we had that disgraceful donnybrook. I was there and saw it. And to quote Allentown Festival Chairman Charles L. Grafasi who moved into the melee at top speed:
“I asked people in the area to get away, to move out. Instead they moved right into the action. Gas doesn’t know who’s who…it goes in all directions. I thought the police did a wonderful job of containing it. I saw one policeman with five people clawing on his back.”
One of the Courier Express photographers on the scene declared that gas was released long before the police got a supply of it via the ambulances. And he said that he saw a policeman knocked to the ground by a bottle. The policeman was an older man and when he hit the ground a young fellow swarmed over him, hitting him.
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Anne McIlhenney Matthews, columnist, Buffalo Courier Express, June 17, 1970.
What came to be called the “Allentown Art Festival riot” resulted from a disturbance in a bar that spilled onto Allen Street after the Festival had ended. It was unrelated to the Festival, but the aftermath was predictable. The headlines from newspaper articles, columns and editorials told the story:
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- Police urge officials of Allentown Society to “forget the Festival”.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 8, 1971.
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- Allentown Festival group asks support.
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Buffalo Courier Express, April 9, 1971.
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- Can’t Festival be saved?
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Buffalo Evening News editorial, April 10, 1971.
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- New Art Festival rules proposed.
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Buffalo Courier Express, April 11, 1971.
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- Allentown art group spurns site switch.
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Buffalo Courier Express, April 11, 1971.
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- Allentown group makes last effort to save Festival.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 12, 1971.
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- Week’s reprieve sought for Allentown Festival.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 13, 1971.
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- Allentown issue put off one week; sponsors “elated”.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 14, 1971.
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- Despite all its faults, we need the Festival.
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Karen Brady, Buffalo Evening News, April 14, 1971.
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- Approval urged for Allentown Art Festival.
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Buffalo Courier Express editorial, April 15,1971.
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- Make sure Art Festival less of a carnival, Sedita advises.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 16, 1971.
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- Art Show plans still up in air.
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Buffalo Courier Express, April 18, 1971.
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- Petition opposes Art Festival.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 20, 1971.
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- Art Show to be eyed by Council.
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Buffalo Courier Express, April 20, 1971.
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- Limited Art Festival approved by Mayor.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 21, 1971.
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- Restructured Allentown event okayed - action taken by Council.
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Buffalo Courier Express, April 21, 1971.
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- Allentown show is saved.
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Buffalo Evening News editorial, April 23, 1971.
The 1970 “riot” and its aftermath were a watershed in the history of the Allentown Art Festival. The threatened loss of the Festival made everyone realize that the flower child of the '60’s had become an important element in the fabric of life in Buffalo. A process started to make it possible for the Allentown Art Festival to prosper over the 30 years since. That has not always been easy, but the unpleasant events and lessons of 1970-71 provided a foundation for this Local Legacy.
Part of the quiet negotiations between the Allentown Village Society and the City of Buffalo was a close examination of all aspects of the Festival. The result was a scaled-back event, with about half the number of exhibitors, no craft exhibitors, no live entertainment, and a better-defined event area.
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It seems as if quality finally has been substituted for quantity in the Allentown Art Festival. This year, the size of the Show has been almost halved, cut down to 300 exhibiting artists from a past high of about 600. The Show has at least doubled in quality if such an intangible can be measured.
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Nancy Tobin Willig, Buffalo Courier Express, June 20, 1971.
Although the size and content of the Festival was significantly reduced, public support remained unabated, with an estimated 220,000 people attending the 14th annual edition. Editorial leads in both major newspapers told the story:
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- Allentown reprieve vindicated.
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Buffalo Evening News, June 21, 1971.
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- Scaled-down, decorous art show merits cheer.
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Buffalo Courier Express, June 22, 1971.
In 1972, crafts returned to the Festival, and the number of exhibitors increased to 400.A Sunday afternoon concert by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra was the only live entertainment. That Sunday crowd was the largest one-day attendance thus far.
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Sunday, upwards of 150,000 people - black, white, Indian, Puerto Rican, Chinese, some from motorcycle clubs and West Side gangs, old, young and in between - jammed together shoulder to shoulder on Delaware Ave. between W. Tupper and North.
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Timothy J. Baker, Buffalo Courier Express, June 13, 1972.
Harold Goldstein, President of the Allentown Village Society, commented, “We had the greatest variety of people, the greatest number of people everywhere, and everywhere you looked people were smiling. It might set a precedent, it would be a wonderful thing.”
Buffalo Courier Express, June 13, 1972.
City officials and the public recognized that the flower child had matured, and they highly approved. It became evident that the artists and craftsmen were also favorably impressed. The quality of the application pool began to improve, and the quality of the work accepted into the Festival showed that.
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A subtle artistic change marks the Allentown Art Show this year. It is very subtle, but very much in evidence.
The Festival has improved.
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Nancy Tobin Willig, Buffalo Courier Express, June 10, 1973.
THERE’S ALWAYS ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
Improvement in the quality of the work accepted into the Festival has been an ongoing process.
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We have winced a little at times in seeing some of the “art” exhibited, yet there is no practical way to screen every bit of work shown.
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D.K. Weinbrenner, art critic, Buffalo Evening News, June, 1969
By 1977, the Allentown Village Society had devised a practical way to screen the quality of work in advance. Since that year, the Society has retained an impartial panel of art and crafts professionals, who select the Festival exhibitors by reviewing slides of each applicant’s work in a blind scoring and selection process. Preparation for jurying day takes many hours of volunteers’ time over many weeks, but the results have been well worth the effort.
In 1993, the process was refined further by the implementation of a panel of independent street jurors, who monitor the work displayed on the street, insuring that it meets Festival standards. Those not meeting the standards are required to remove their non-conforming work and, in some cases, to leave the Festival entirely. The result has been high creative and artistic quality.
Although the artistic quality of the Festival appears assured, its integrity as an art festival has required continued vigilance by the Allentown Village Society and support from the City of Buffalo and County of Erie, lest it revert to the carnival that it was becoming during the 1960’s.
WATERSHED II
As the '70’s came to an end, the Buffalo Common Council passed a resolution authorizing merchants within the Festival boundaries to sell merchandise on the sidewalk during the event. The Allentown Village Society feared that commercial sidewalk sales would undermine all that had been accomplished to improve the Festival over the decade.
A letter to the editor by a member of the public expressed the frustration also being felt by the volunteers of the Society:
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The Allentown Art Festival is the best thing that happens to Buffalo every year and each year the quality of the arts and crafts displayed has been upgraded. Last year’s was the best ever and my husband and I spent the full two days at the Festival because of the sheer beauty and enjoyment of it. I also bought a painting and ring.
I think it is outrageous that the Allentown area businessmen want to display their products on the sidewalk as part of the arts and crafts show! This is an arts and crafts show, not a bazaar, flea market or anything else. They can keep their stores open and not detract from the Festival, but for them to become part of it will destroy it. The Allentown Village Society does a superb job of creating a top-drawer quality art show attracting artists and craftspeople from all over the country. When we had something so great which is famous all over the country, why does the Common Council want to destroy it?
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Buffalo Courier Express, April 30, 1979.
Newspaper story headlines in the days leading up to that letter once again told the story:
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- Allentown Art Show in peril as sponsors quit in dispute.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 21, 1979.
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- Allentown Art Festival canceled.
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Buffalo Courier Express, April 21, 1979.
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- Bid made to rescue Art Festival.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 22, 1979.
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- Allentown group warns artists may pull out.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 23, 1979.
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- Save Allentown Festival.
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Buffalo Courier Express editorial, April 24, 1979.
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- Allentown truce needed.
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Buffalo Evening News editorial, April 25, 1979.
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- Accord allows art show in Allentown to go on.
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Buffalo Evening News, April 26, 1979.
A settlement was reached, providing that merchants would not conduct sidewalk sales, but that the Allentown Village Society would promote better visibility and access to their shops by not placing exhibitors in front of the shops of those who requested it. That policy has continued since; few have requested that accommodation.
During this episode, a sense of recognition emerged in the community that the Allentown Village Society had worked hard to present a quality art show and had developed the expertise to do that. The president of one suburban art organization expressed that view:
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The cancellation of the Allentown Art Festival would have been cause for great regret and disappointment. I can think of no other Buffalo event that offers so much and costs the taxpayers so little. After years of trial and error, the Allentown Village Society has the proven expertise and know-how to run an outstanding art festival.
I do understand that every large event of this kind must have commercial support. However, as soon as an imbalance occurs and monetary interests dictate to the artists, then the integrity of the show is lost. The climate, the flavor will change, never to be regained.
We at the Centennial Art Center of Hamburg have no effect on Buffalo politics, but we are a part of the Western New York cultural scene. As Buffalo culture goes, sooner or later the rest of the area must follow. For this reason, I feel a strong necessity to express our concern.
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Buffalo Evening News, letters to the editor, May 1, 1979.
A BLESSING IN DISGUISE
The events of 1979, like those of 1970, ultimately were a blessing in disguise. The immediate benefit was a more cooperative and proactive approach to planning between the City and the Society. Then, in 1984, the Common Council passed an ordinance making it possible for all street event sponsors to have a reasonable measure of control over their event area. The legislative findings included a specific recognition of the contributions that events like the Allentown Art Festival make to the quality of life in the city.
The Common Council also recognized the necessity for enforceable rules to enable sponsors to conduct a well-planned and safe event. In the case of the Allentown Art Festival, invasions by unauthorized exhibitors and vendors, parasitic promotions on properties within the event area, and noise pollution from popular radio stations competing for ratings have become things of the past.
The Allentown Village Society has been able to control the problems that have plagued outdoor art shows elsewhere, resulting in the demise of some. Outdoor art show sponsors from other cities have, from time to time, consulted with the Allentown Village Society to learn how things are done in Buffalo.
There are some in the community who disagree with the way the Society does things. In 1992 and 1998, the president of the Common Council appointed committees of Council members, Allentown Village Society representatives and community representatives, to consider those views and to review the Festival operation. Both processes have been valuable in providing a forum for dialogue rather than debate, in providing an opportunity to evaluate what has been working well and what should be improved upon, and in bringing the community into the mix with government and event sponsors.
So far, the Allentown has passed muster. In fact, the majority of members of the business community have become supporters of the way the Festival is organized. Allentown merchants have commented that some of their best customers have discovered them while attending the Festival and later returned again and again at other times.
TODAY
Today, the Allentown Art Festival features about 450 juried exhibitors annually. Nearly every state and Canada - and even Europe - has been represented. Official crowd estimates have grown to over 400,000. Prize awards for the exhibitors submitting work for formal judging have grown to $16,000 annually.
The proceeds of the Festival have been put back into the community of which it has become such an important part. Included are the following:
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- In 1997, the Allentown Village Society gave $210,000 to the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, establishing a permanent endowment for scholarships. When fully funded at $400,000 through dedicated payments of a percentage of the proceeds of each year’s Festival, the endowment will provide scholarships for Erie County high school, college and graduate level students in visual fine arts or art education. Until the endowment is fully funded, the Allentown Village Society will continue its long-standing program of awarding college scholarships to selected local high school seniors planning to study art. These annual scholarship awards total $15,000.
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- The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, which graced the Festival in its early years, has been the beneficiary of significant grants from the Allentown Village Society, enabling the orchestra to reach young audiences.
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- The Locust Street Neighborhood Art Classes, which provide free art instruction to inner city children and adults, has been financially assisted by the Society on an ongoing basis. This kind of private assistance has become even more important due to reduced government funding for the arts.
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- For over 20 years the Society has sponsored a contest for the design of the annual Allentown Art Festival poster, providing an opportunity for student artists to develop their talents and for professional artists to earn some income. The three prize awards total $1,750 annually.
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- The Buffalo Public Schools have received thousands of dollars in grants to fund an artist in the schools and a mini-grants program for special projects developed by art teachers for their students.
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- A $3,000 annual grant makes it possible for high school students to attend the New York State Summer School for the Arts.
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- Community beautification projects have been funded, including planting several blocks of trees on Allen Street and the erection of two Victorian street clocks in Allentown.
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TOMORROW
On June 10th and 11th, 2000, the 43rd Allentown Art Festival will blossom in the streets of Buffalo. In 2001, Buffalo will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Pan-American Exposition of 1901, and the 44th Festival will be part of that celebration. The members of the Allentown Village Society are beginning to realize that the 50th Festival is just around the corner.
We never thought of ourselves as creating a local legacy until Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan nominated the Allentown Art Festival for inclusion in this remarkable celebration at the Library of Congress. In 1982, Jack Foran wrote in the Buffalo Evening News:
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Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, the Allentown Outdoor Art Festival is a survivor. Not just in years, but because of controversies and criticism - some of it art criticism - its weathered....
But eventually people began to realize - even art critics - that art wasn’t the only concern of the Allentown festival. It was the premier people-watching event of the year in Buffalo. It was a festival of life in the city. A celebration of summer.
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Buffalo Evening News, June 6, 1982.
That is quite a nice legacy after all.
Buffalo, New York
December 31, 1999
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