English: Looking eastward along Main Street from just before the corner of Muskingum Street in Depew, New York, on a late afternoon in May 2021. The Village of Depew was founded in 1894 by George Urban and a number of wealthy investors, and named after New York Central Railroad President, Senator, and orator Chauncey Depew as a railroad stopover and service center, and by the first decade of the 20th century, its commercial heart was gathered around the corner of Penora Street and what was then called Sawyer Avenue, only a block away in either direction from two of the city's main employers: the Gould Coupler Works (later Symington-Gould) and the American Car & Foundry Company. Sawyer Avenue's name was changed to Main Street about 1918. With the coming of suburbanization in the middle and later 20th century, the focus of commerce and retail in Depew gradually shifted to the Transit Road and Broadway corridors, and today the former usage pattern of the old Main Street buildings - storefront on the bottom, apartments in the rear and on the second floor - have for the most part shifted to wholly residential.