The Midway (1889-1895), 471-499 Delaware Avenue, is comprised of row houses that extend for one long city block. Row houses, while quite common in east coast cities, were rare in the wide open spaces of the western New York State city of Buffalo. With ample land available inexpensively, the wealthy tended to prefer mansions on large tracts of land.

Nonetheless, as the turn of the century approached and urban land became scarcer and costlier in the booming city, a plan emerged to build a row of grand townhouses that would be appealing to those wealthy people who cared less about maintaining huge gardens. The old vacant Cornell Lead Works were demolished in the late 1880s and individual row houses began to be constructed.

The block was called the Midway because it was, supposedly, half way between Niagara Square and Forest Lawn Cemetery. A number of well-known architects participated.