File:George B. Hayes House, 217 North Street, Buffalo, New York, 1915.jpg

English: The George B. Hayes House, 217 North Street, Buffalo, New York, as seen in 1915. Born in Rochester, New York, George Burrell Hayes (1842-1925) started out as a telegrapher and son of a successful fur merchant, but later co-founded what would eventually be called the United States Cast Iron Pipe Company, whose foundry was located next to the New York Central Belt Line Railroad on the East Side, and whose standing contract with the Buffalo city water works made him a wealthy man. He also served on the board of directors of Manufacturers and Traders Trust Company and the Columbia National Bank. His imposing stone Romanesque Revival-style mansion at the corner of North Street and Elmwood Avenue was designed and built in 1893; Hayes lived in it until his death, and his widow and children continued living there until 1938, at the height of the the Great Depression, when they had it razed to save on property taxes. It's now a parking lot.