Many of the older streets in the suburbs would have evolved from dirt paths forming the most direct route between landmarks or population centers, or borders between large tracts of farmland, rather than from the hand of skilled urban planners such as the majority of the streets of downtown Buffalo and most other cities. As such, a lot of the very old streets in the suburbs (that weren’t part of a planned village or development) run at crazy angles to each other, have odd intersections, etc.
Ellicott’s original radial street plan is still mostly intact downtown, with the exception of the awful convention center, and where city hall is. City hall was actually the first building to cover over part of the original street plan, the west end of Court St.