Dr. Michael D. Calabrese, 73, provided health care with a spectrum of services
By Dale Anderson News Staff Reporter
June 26, 2022

When a two-alarm fire ripped through Elmwood Parish Commons in November 2007, causing more than $5 million damage, Dr. Michael D. Calabrese, who bought the office building a year earlier and had a passion for architectural design, saw the disaster as an opportunity.

“I’m going to stick with it and turn it around again,” he promised Buffalo News reporter Gene Warner.

Bringing the former English Evangelical Church of the Redeemer at Elmwood Avenue and West Ferry Street, back as an Elmwood Village landmark took longer than he expected.

It was nearly two years before he could bring his medical practice, Medical Care of Western New York at Buffalo, back into the building.

“A different owner could have looked at it and said, ‘That’s a total loss, let’s (demolish) it,” Justin Azzarella, then executive director of the Elmwood Village Association, told News business reporter Matt Glynn in 2009. “We’re thrilled that it’s coming back online.”

Dr. Calabrese explained to Glynn that he rebuilt the office space in an unconventional way to provide a feeling of tranquility.

“The object here is the serenity,” he said, “when they’re in pain and injured, to let the patient breathe.”

Dr. Calabrese, who took a holistic approach to treatment, died unexpectedly June 21. He was 73.

Born in Buffalo, he attended St. Rose of Lima School in North Buffalo and was a 1967 graduate of St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, where he played baseball. A pitcher, he was determined to master the knuckleball.

He went to Buffalo State College and the University at Buffalo on baseball scholarships and was scouted by the New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds before he suffered a knee injury in his senior year.

Working to help support his family after his father became seriously ill, he decided to pursue a career in medicine and enrolled in the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara Medical School in Mexico. After completing his studies in 1978, he served a year of residency in St. Louis, Mo., and returned to Buffalo for additional internship and residency at Sisters Hospital.

Initially, Dr. Calabrese specialized in obstetrics and gynecology and opened a practice on Main Street in 1983, with his late sister, Joanne L. Clementi, as receptionist and office manager. He moved his offices to Elmwood Parish Commons in 2000.

He changed the focus of his practice in the 1990s after attending a medical conference in California, where he learned about providing health care using a spectrum of services.

His multidisciplinary practice included a yoga studio, physical therapists, an acupuncturist and a chiropractor. In semi-retirement in recent years, he enjoyed golf and spending time with his grandchildren.