“The suburbs, of course, have done the main damage to neighborhood communities like Riverside. Families think nothing of driving a few miles to the shopping malls in Tonawanda, while years ago they walked to the neighborhood store.” –Buffalo Courier Express, April 8, 1971

Tonawanda Street was “downtown Riverside” in 1965. That year, in the six blocks of Tonawanda Street from Ontario Street to Crowley Avenue, 73 businesses were in operation. In this photograph by the Luedeke Studio, Tonawanda Street is seen looking north from Heward Street. From right to left on the east side of Tonawanda Street, signs are visible for Josette’s beauty parlor, Endicott Johnson shoes, Sturner’s women’s clothing, Doll House restaurant, Elsie & Johnny’s diner, Manufacturers & Traders Trust Company, Fay’s Drugs, Kobacker’s department store, and Riverside Drugs. From right to left on the west side, signs are visible for the Riverside liquor shop and Walters & Youngman Drugs, while barely out of view is the former Shines Riverside Theatre, a moviehouse converted in 1962 to the Ski-Dek Center, an indoor ski slope.