Dnipro Ukrainian Cultural Center

The story

The building at 562 Genesee Street went up in 1914, designed by the Buffalo firm Esenwein & Johnson as headquarters for the Fraternal Order of Orioles. Its second life began in 1955, when Ukrainians displaced to Buffalo by the Second World War bought it from the City of Buffalo and turned a lodge hall into the community's headquarters. They named it for the Dnieper, the largest river in Ukraine, which runs past Kyiv and south to the Black Sea. The building turned 100 in 2014 and the community marked 60 years of ownership the following year, which tells you how the place counts time.

It is not a museum piece. A Ukrainian Federal Credit Union branch has operated here since 1995; the Ridna Shkola Ukrainian Saturday school has run five classrooms since 2013; the women's choir Mriya and the youth association CYM use the rooms; and the second-floor Velika Zalya, the Great Hall, absorbs weddings, concerts, recitals, banquets, and the school's twice-yearly performances. Malanka, the Ukrainian New Year's ball, lands in winter and the Ukrainian Independence Day Festival in August. All of it sits under the Ukrainian American Freedom Foundation, an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3), and since 2022 the center has worked as a hub for humanitarian aid to Ukraine as well.

The public entry point is the basement. Downstairs is the Rathskeller Lounge and Bar, and on Friday evenings at 6 the kitchen opens to anyone who walks in. The menu rotates weekly and gets posted to the center's Facebook page, but the canon holds steady and the prices are from another decade: borscht at $6, six potato varenyky at $8, two holubtsi at $10, fourteen pelmeni at $10, a sampler combo at $12, fried fish or baked chicken with peasant-style potatoes and salad at $16, honey cake at $5.