Buffalo, NY

[kz1000ps]

Was in Buffalo for the first time in years over New Years' Week (I attended UB early in the millenium), and gee golly gosh I gotta say it: I missed Buffalo. Yeah, it's got serious issues, but it's still charming as hell. Great bones, impressive industrial muscle...being away for so long I had forgotten what it was that made me like the place.

off in the distance....

is this bad boy

I don't think city halls get any more dope than this

the many shades of modernism...

The street plan laid out by Joseph Ellicott (and further refined by Frederick Law Olmsted) affords many vistas like this

Allentown

Canisius College

Main Street up near the northern city limit

UB's South Campus, in the extreme northeast corner of the city

I'll be adding many more photos to this as I get around to it...

 

[kennedy]

I like that last photo a lot. And street cars! Wow!

Reminds me of Cleveland a little bit. Industrial city past it's prime, with all the right elements to make a great small city.

 

[Shepard]

It reminds me of the large Siberian cities.

(via http://ladyseeker.com/english/tourscity/tciIrkutsk.php)

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

"Buffalo, at least we aren't Detroit"

 

[czsz]

Skeletons have good bones but are still dead.

The new US courthouse looks like it's adding insult to injury. Is it made of plastic? So cheap.

 

[armpitsOFmight]

Besides Ithica, Upstate New York is a lost cause.

 

[Lrfox]

Great shots. I've always wanted to visit buffalo. Maybe when the Pats are in town next year?

 

[kz1000ps]

Skeletons have good bones but are still dead.

The new US courthouse looks like it's adding insult to injury. Is it made of plastic? So cheap.

Zing!....... and all of the courthouse (including the precast areas) will be covered in glass.

Besides Ithica, Upstate New York is a lost cause.

Two words for you: Saratoga Springs.

Plus, the whole Capital District will do OK, long as the state gov't is in town and NYC is less than three hours away.

 

[czsz]

Besides Ithica, Upstate New York is a lost cause.

There are college towns in Upstate New York other than Ithaca that will continue to be stable. And Rochester has a firmer economic foundation than Buffalo with its consumer electronics companies. Even Utica/Rome has military bases to arrest its total decline. Buffalo and the little industrial/mill towns suffer the worst, after Niagara Falls, which is just completely FUBAR, giant Native American casino panacea or not.

 

[Ron Newman]

Is only Niagara Falls NY in decline, or also the Ontario side? Seems odd to me that a major tourist attraction can't sustain a small adjoining city; this is the closest we come east of the Mississippi to the majesty of our great western national parks.

 

[czsz]

The Ontario side is thriving. Chalk it up to its early embrace of tacky amusement park diversions and casino gambling, its far superior view of the falls (the Canadian city sits in front of them, the American city is next to and behind them), and much more severe visa restrictions that impede tourists from visiting via the US as opposed to Canada or even wandering to the other side.

The contrast is unbelievable. You would think you were actually on the Mexican border - and that the US side was Mexico.

 

[JohnAKeith]

I had a great time in Buffalo in January 2009; so much so, I plan on going back this month (Jetblue has $39 seats).

I'm surprised the new courthouse isn't further along. Seems as though the skeleton was already up when I was there, 12 months ago.

 

[Ron Newman]

The way people live today in Buffalo:

Collection Agencies skirt law in Buffalo
Economic bright spot has dark side

BUFFALO - When Tobias ?Bags of Money?? Boyland went looking for a new career after serving 13 years in prison for armed robbery and drug dealing, he quickly found something that suited his sensibilities: He opened a collection agency.

It was, in some ways, a natural move for a young man in Buffalo. Desperate for jobs, this chronically depressed Rust Belt city has become home to one of the biggest concentrations of debt collection businesses in the United States.

?Collections is the Bethlehem Steel of Buffalo,?? said Boyland, 44, recalling the industrial giant that once employed 20,000 people in the region. ?You can make a decent living in a town where there isn?t a lot of opportunity.??

Between 5,000 and 6,000 people earning $30,000 to $40,000 a year now work at roughly 110 collection agencies around Buffalo, an industry created with the help of seed money from the state of New York. The industry has been a rare economic bright spot in Buffalo, the nation?s third-poorest city of its size, a place where 30 percent of the people live in poverty.

Yet, law enforcement and consumer groups point to a dark side: Buffalo, they say, has also become a center for some of the worst elements in the business. Debt collectors, some of them convicted felons, have illegally posed as lawyers or unlawfully browbeat people - threatening to have them arrested or stripped of custody of their children - to scare them into making payments.

Read the rest of the story

 

[czsz]

How can anyone see a silver lining in the city's only growth industry being scaring people into paying money owed elsewhere?

It's like being paid to be the last person shutting the light off on the way out.

 

[Patrick]

Historic Preservation by Neglect

The population has fallen from 580,000 in 1950 to about 270,000 today. Part of the reason is the weather ? each winter, Upstate New York cities "compete" for the Golden Snowball award for the most snowfall ? but most of the blame goes to an economy based on making things, such as steel and cars, that are now made elsewhere.

Because there's no reason to tear down a building if there's nothing to replace it, Buffalo has benefited from "preservation by neglect." As Harvey Garrett, a neighborhood preservation activist here, sees it, "Buffalo was rich at just the right time" ? 1870-1914, when great architecture was still relatively inexpensive ? "and poor at just the right time" ? after 1950, when many older buildings in cities with better economies were demolished.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-12-14-buffalo_N.htm

 

[Ron Newman]

Weather is a factor, sure, but then why is Minneapolis-St. Paul booming?

 

[Patrick]

Weather is a factor, sure, but then why is Minneapolis-St. Paul booming?

because weather is a "non-determinative" factor

Ob balance, other things must make that area have enough benefits to outweigh the cold. Buffalo must not.

 

[commuter guy]

Minneapolis has remained economically vibrant. Unfortunately, the historic fabric of its downtown has been obliterated through constant redevelopment in the 60s, 70s, 80s etc. It has the state capital next door in St. Paul and the huge Univ. of Minnesota campus, but most importantly it is the urban epicenter of the northern great plains. Minneapolis is full of young adults who moved to the "big city" from small towns all over the upper midwest. Buffalo is at a disadvantage in this regard surrounding by similar or larger urban areas in all directions, and overshadowed by NYC within NY state. I'm guessing that Buffalo's economy was more concentrated with heavy industry as well.

 

[czsz]

It's more the heavy industry point. Minneapolis has competition for people drawn to the "big city," too, and it's not that much further to migrate to the Chicago area.

It might also be that Minneapolis/St Paul are surrounded by basically nothing for miles. It may have to compete with Chicago, but the upstate NY cities of roughly the same size (Buffalo, Rochester, Utica/Rome, Binghampton, Albany) have to compete with each NYC ...and each other.

 

[Chessplayer]

The Twin Cities have had a lot more advantages than Buffalo.

It has a much more diversified economy. General Mills from its milling legacy, state govt. in St. Paul, a large number of universities - U of Minnesota w/ 50,000 students, University of St. Thomas w/10,000 students, Macalester College and other quality liberal arts schools - and the federal govt. with the Federal Reserve Bank.

It was also the headquarters and primary hub of Northwest (now part of Delta), which made it a logical choice for business services, greatly easing the transition into a post-industrial service economy and allowing it to further diversify.

And while it got plenty of urban renewal, due to its then relatively small minority population it largely avoided the racial tensions of the 1960s that contributed so much to white flight.