Goodyear Water Tower, Williamsville, NY

This place isn't technically abandoned since it's obviously maintained and I believe still in use, but it is an interesting/unusual structure that I've visited, and the area around it is abandoned, so it's getting posted.

According to this pamphlet on Amherst, NY's historic properties (which is the only website I can find that mentions it, besides Town of Amherst board meeting minutes), it was built between 1915 and 1925 as part of the Josephine Goodyear Convalescent Home campus. The pamphlet notes that it was also used as a fire watch tower, and that it's the only known octagon-shaped water tower in Erie County (I like how they acknowledge that there could be other octagonal water towers in the county that they're just not aware of).

I found the pamphlet online while looking up other historic buildings in the area and was intrigued. After locating the tower on Google Maps I planned to visit it sometime if I could (especially after seeing it from Sheridan Drive while passing by once, which made it seem like it would be easy to get to), but didn't actually make it there until a week or so before I left the area. I found that you can't actually get to it off Sheridan but have to go into the little development on Hampton Hill Drive. It was weird parking on the street by a cluster of identical houses and striding off into what felt like their backyards. It was also weird seeing this white tower rising up above them.

view from Google Maps

There was a "Town of Amherst - No Trespassing" signs nearby, but it was by a road leading into the area rather than right by the tower, and there was no fence or anything to stop people from walking over to the tower, so I wasn't too concerned.

See how close it is to the houses?

There was a sign by the tower about video surveillance, but that didn't scare me too much.

As for the rest of the area, maybe it's just what's left of the convalescent home, since this site says it was sold after World War II. I couldn't find anything about who it was sold to or what was done with the area after that, but I did find this newspaper from 1936 with a cute article about Christmas for the kids in the home.

The person in the distance is my mom, who came with me.

There was a small network of roads and parking lots. Here's the area from above on Google Maps.

And some more evidence of its abandoned state.

After we left we found that we could see it from the parking lot of an office building on Main Street.

It's a simple but unique little building, something pretty to look at in contrast to the development and all the nearby office buildings.