Though Buffalo was just around the corner from Toronto, I only ever managed a single small visit while I lived there. This was on August 30, 1997, when I went with some friends and we visited the Allbright Knox art museum. I had intended to go and visit again before leaving Toronto on retirement, but covid had other ideas and so I left Toronto never having re-visited the town. A planned trip in 2022 fell through at the last minute, but in July 2023 the stars aligned and I spent some time there with my good friend Marcy. Though it's not a prosperous city, like US cities in general it had good bones, a thoughtful pattern of streets, some majestic early 20th century buildings, some lovely squares and parks that are enjoyed by Buffalonians. Like secondary US cities, it appears mostly frozen in time, with a very small number of buildings from the current century. With Marcy I explored and ate well.
Photo List (Total 302 Photos)
Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
-
Central Buffalo (122 photos) - Like so many cities in the United States, Buffalo's central city has good bones. Their majestic art-deco city hall overlooks a generous square, which is connected to a second square a few blocks away, making a ceremonial spine across the downtown. A series of angled streets produced the small irregular spaces that make for interesting vistas. But also like many cities, it has suffered and now appears almost frozen in time - not much new at all from the current century. Still, there are lots of gracious surprises in the city centre for someone willing to pick through the quieter-than-they-ought-to-be streets. This gallery starts a City Hall, as it must, then moves to Lafayette Square. From there, it goes south to churches and some lovely office towers, and the inside of the remarkable Ellicott Square. The gallery then doubles back north to the M&T Bank and the Electric Tower, and the Market Arcade. It ends with our delicious night out at Toutant.
-
Canalside and Waterfront (25 photos) - Though Buffalo's formerly industrial waterfront is cut off from the city by the Niagara Thruway, and also cut through by the Buffalo Skyway, they have developed a small tourist area at what used to be the beginning of the Erie Canal. Most of the portion of the canal in Buffalo is gone, covered mostly by an expressway. Canalside was quite small and not all that interesting in my opinion, but the larger waterfront area, full of enormous silos, holds promise, and there are some attempts to repurpose certain area, though long stretches of not much in between these.
-
North End (116 photos) - The north end of Buffalo is full of pleasures. The gallery starts with random meanderings, including the area around our hotel and the modern Gates Vascular Institute. We ate out in the north and then explored Symphony Circle and Delaware Avenue. In the morning, we meandered through Forest Lawn Cemetery and the Olmstead-designed Delaware Park, before hitting the art gallery. The Allbright Knox has annoyingly been rebranded as "Buffalo AKG Art Museum", and though the new wing under construction was close to being complete, it was not yet open for us. We also went to the Burchfield Penney Art Center, just behind the AKG, and there I was pleased and almost overwhelmed to find a huge room filled with modern art glass, a favourite of mine. After the gallery we went way north on Main Street to a candy store that was a retro delight, and then on to a self-guided tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House.
-
Transportation and Other (33 photos) - Buffalo has a sorta-subway, a line that runs aboveground in the downtown area, then goes below ground further away from the core (most systems would be the opposite). This gallery has photos of the inside of one stop on Metro Rail, and the exteriors of a number of other stations. On the morning that we left Buffalo, we went to see the massive abandoned train station the Buffalo Central Terminal, and those photos are also in this gallery, as well as some random shots of the less-than-desirable neighbourhoods around the terminal.
-
Visiting Allbright Knox in 1997 (6 photos) - From my visit in 1997 with Clint, Emerie and Gary, a few shots of us horsing around at the Allbright Knox, one of the city skyline at a distance, and one at Ball's Falls on the Niagara Peninsula.
