One is a brick public housing complex built in 1938 for blacks because of segregated housing policies.

The other is a three-story brick and stone building from about 1890 that became Buffalo’s first black-owned hardware store.

Both sites are on the East Side, and each — Willert Park/A. D. Price Courts and the mixed-use site at 169 E. Ferry St. fronted by Harris Hardware — is being named today to the Preservation League of New York State’s annual Seven to Save list of endangered places.

“What a great way to underscore the importance of Black History Month by highlighting these two landmark properties,” said Tania Werbizky, the Preservation League’s regional director for grant programs.

The East Ferry building has been owned for more than 40 years by Glenn Banks, who also runs the hardware store. The building has a leaky roof that has resulted in major water damage to upper floors and interior walls.

A. D. Price Courts was slated to be torn down this year by the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, but Modesto Candelario, the authority’s assistant executive director, said that decision is being reconsidered because of community concern.

Originally known as Willert Park Courts, the complex was constructed by the U. S. Housing Authority in 1938 for blacks after they were restricted from housing complexes on the predominantly Italian West Side or in Irish-populated South Buffalo.

Two years after Willert Park opened with 172 units, there was a waiting list of nearly 1,000 eligible black families.

“Because it has all this cultural, social and political history wrapped in it, it’s sort of the DNA of the black middle class for the last half of the 20th century,” said Terry Robinson, board member of Preservation Buffalo Niagara.

Relief plaques mounted on the buildings tell a story of black family life. The artwork was done by Robert Cronbach and Herbert Ambellan, artists employed by the WPA’s Federal Arts Project. The Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority said last year the artwork would be preserved.

The complex was renamed for A. D. Price, a black senior district manager who oversaw the site for its first 30 years.

Alfred D. Price, the son of A. D. Price and a professor of urban and regional planning at the University at Buffalo, said the site tells an important story to future generations.

“That was the site where this city first confronted how it was going to handle race relations. We had to make a decision as a community, and the decision we made was on that ground,” Price said.

Jay DiLorenzo, the Preservation League’s president, said naming the properties to the Seven to Save list will help put them on the community’s radar screen.

“These two places might be considered kind of humble places, or places where people wouldn’t take a second look, but by making these listings it gives us the opportunity to tell their story,” DiLorenzo said.

He said historic places often need a second chance.

“It’s contrary to the bulldoze-and-start-from- scratch mentality that probably some people have, but I kind of feel like that approach to revitalization has proven itself to not be very successful,” DiLorenzo said.