The corner of William and Emslie streets likely reached its apex as a city center around 1915, and remained a viable neighborhood center well into the 1960s. Here, in a circa 1935 photograph of the northeast corner of William and Emslie, is the Siegrist Furniture Corp., initially established as the Siegrist & Fraley department store in 1891. Downsized to only the furniture department in 1928, the Siegrist store had once employed 200 people over three stories and had, according to a 1909 Buffalo Courier account, been the largest department store east of Main Street. William H. Chur, who took over the business in 1932, recalled that the Siegrist store “was the Saturday night gathering place for the whole East Side.” The furniture store was sold in 1946, and the ground-floor shops remained occupied by a grocery store and pharmacy until at least 1965. The building was razed in 1970 for the Jesse E. Nash Health Center. Today, almost nothing remains that would indicate that William Street was once a vibrant place.