Blasdell, NY

Blasdell is a village in Erie County just south of Buffalo, known locally as the Gateway to the Southtowns. Its story begins with the railroad: the Erie line reached the area in the 1870s, and station master Herman Blasdell put his own name on the depot and post office. The village incorporated in 1898, and the 2020 census counted 2,539 residents. South Park Avenue and the old rail corridor still give Blasdell its north-south shape, with Hamburg to the south and Lackawanna to the north.

The village built out its civic basics early. A water system arrived in 1900, a volunteer fire department formed after a 1903 fire, and streets, curbs, and sidewalks followed in the 1930s. Blasdell also has a strong food-and-sports footnote: wrestler Ilio DiPaolo opened his Italian restaurant on South Park Avenue in 1965, and his family still runs it. With a small municipal core and Buffalo close by, Blasdell remains a railroad village that grew into a Southtowns gateway.