Delaware & Chippewa - 1920's

Delaware Avenue and Chippewa Street, viewed from Delaware looking downtown, late 1920's.

The 6-story rectangular brick building is the Jackson building, 220 - 228 Delaware. Opened in 1926 as a mixed used building,
it was designed by the Buffalo firm of Bley & Lyman and featured 9-foot wide hallways and wrought iron bannisters. The tall
building behind it is the 12-story Ford Hotel, the flagship of the Buffalo-based chain of hotels (Rochester, Erie, Toronto, Montreal).
The hotel, opened in 1924, featured 700 luxury rooms heated by electric heat.

The same view in 2005. Note that Buffalo City Hall is visible in the background of this image. It was not constructed until 1929-1931 and so was
missing from the first image above.

In the late 1990's, Benderson Development purchased both the Ford Hotel (renamed the Richford in the 1950's) and the
Jackson building. The hotel had fallen into decline and had been vacant from the mid-1990's. Considered too expensive to
modernize, it was imploded on Halloween 1999 to make way for the parking lot and main entrance of the new Hampton Inn
being created from the Jackson Building. The Hampton Inn retrofitters retained the exterior and large windows, the wide
hallways and wrought-iron bannisters. The company created 137 rooms with 31 large suites, and retained 14,000
square feet on the first floor for retail and restaurant space. The "new" hotel opened in May 2001.

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