Saving Buffalo?s Untold Beauty

[kennedy]

Buffalo could build the world's first man-made outdoor ski mountain out of landfill.

 

[Boston02124]

even Phoenix?

^never been there! I,m sure I find something cool and gross! Here'some more pix's i took from my trip to Buffalo This house was downtown accross from my motel

 

[JohnAKeith]

Well, I can't say these are the most exciting photos, ever, but for your pleasure and enjoyment, here are several I took today while exploring parts of Buffalo, NY.

Not shown are some great shots of the mansions along Delaware Ave and the inside of the Cathode Ray bar.

This is the link to the entire set, they aren't more interesting, just bigger

http://s369.photobucket.com/albums/oo139/JohnAKeith/buffalo/


Random downtown building, abandoned

Manuscript Museum, I forget the real name

This building fits in perfectly ... if by perfectly you mean, not at all. I mean, it's always cloudy and cold here!!!

The Richardson-designed psychiatry hospital towers

There's an awesome Anish Kapoor piece of art in front of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Apparently, the administration of the museum couldn't care less, because they've let water and ice accumulate in the bottom of it

I was so offended that I threw an orange cone into it and took off out of there

This side of the museum is beautiful

Unfortunately, a la the MFA, they've closed the entrance

I'm not joking, this is the actual entrance to an art museum; it's about that small

Is it my imagination, or was Abe Lincoln kind of hot when he was younger?

wtf??? This reunion could probably be held in a closet!! (Okay, now I realize they are having a party for the class of 2013, not 1913.)

Apparently, Judaism hasn't caught on in the Great Lakes region; this is a synagogue

Or, in my case, 1-in-1 odds

How much you wanna bet this is inhabited by renters ... those gutters aren't going to last 'til February

The obligatory "Home of the Original" buffalo wings photo

Instead, I went to the "Home of the Whopper"

 

[kz1000ps]

Beautiful. Well, not really. But I have a soft spot in my heart for Buffalo (yes, I'm one of those people with irrational love for the place!), and it's been far too long since I last visited.

Oh and about the clouds, the sun comes out one out of every four days from November to February, and that's including both sunny and partly cloudy days. The other 75% of the time it's all grey all the time.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Several other photos from the Buffalo Excursion:

The Genesee building, hidden inside the Hyatt Regency Hotel, on Main Street:

One of two lady liberties on the Liberty building (there used to be three ladies, in fact, but the one over the front door was removed, I don't know why):

Inside the Ellicott Square building ... it was right after I took this photo that a woman stopped me and said, "You know you can't take photos in here, without permission ...":

Ellicott Square building:

Ellicott Square building:

On the Erie Community College Building:

Hidden inside the college building is quite a sight:

The Dun building:

Inside the Archdiocese of Buffalo's mother church:

The Guaranty / Prudential building:

Old County Hall ... cannot take photos inside (it's now a courthouse) ... the security guards were very friendly, they gave us a couple tips on what to see inside. You can see the court room where the assassin of Pres. McKinley was convicted (in two days). The guard was wrong though when he told us the assassin was hanged; he was electrocuted, in fact. Also, the guidebooks have it wrong - the tunnel underneath the building leading from courthouse to jail was not built to protect the assassin from the mob outside, it was in fact built 20 years prior. It is still in use, today (but you can't go down to see it):

Okay, I don't know if they did this to be ironic, but here is the "Dough Bois" pizza shop:

And, next door, the"Dubois Restaurant":

A new federal courthouse is going up - check out the fab prefab:

Here's the material, close-up:

Okay, scariest photo, EVER. We returned to the Richardson psychiatric hospital building, earlier today, for a second look. What I failed to see yesterday was the effigy hanging off one of the trees behind the building. Scary-assed shit!

More photos, here: http://s369.photobucket.com/albums/oo139/JohnAKeith/buffalo/

 

[kennedy]

Man, I wish they could deconstruct all of those (minus the courthouse and hangman) and move them to Boston. We could have our Seaport right there!

 

[kz1000ps]

This is what the courthouse was supposed to look like. Needless to say, I'm a bit flummoxed by Keith's pictures..

Oh, Keith, could I repost your photos on SkyscraperPage? I haven't seen any updates on this project there in some time now, so I think your couple of pics would qualify as news. Lousy news, but news nonetheless.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Yes, feel free to.

I saw that rendering outside the courthouse. I know nothing about architecture, but is it possible that the prefab is for security reasons, then they'll drape it in a glass exterior?

 

[Redmoon]

Hey guys, Just stumbled on this site via a Buffalo site. I am a bit new to forums like this and thought I would chime in since I am a former Bosta-lonian. I love keeping track of the places I have been. Back maybe 7 years ago I lived on Beacon Hill (the cheap side -if you can call it that) and then for about 3 years in Buffalo. Now I am in Chicago but often commuting to Detroit for a project.

first to correct some misconceptions -

1. A friend of mine is one of the designers on the Buffalo courthouse. He says the entire building will be wrapped in a layer of glass and lit from within. The concrete is a blast shield that is mandated by the new federal rules.

2. Buffalo is no more gray and grim in winter than Boston, Chicago, or Detroit. If anything the extra snow in Buffalo relieves the winter boredom. All of these cities look like @ss in March and April. Did I mention that I started out as a Souther Californian?

3. Oh and Buffalo is NOTHING like Detroit. I find Detroit to be immensely interesting but its urbanism is nearly destroyed. Very sad. Buffalo is still quite intact and large areas are very healthy.


Buffalo is a metro of about 1.2 million with another 450,000 Canadians directly adjacent who are not counted. Some of these Canadians live closer to the city than some of the Americans. One summer I had a beach cottage for a month in Canada and commuted to work(25 minutes if the bridges was decent). The entire stretch from Buffalo to Toronto (1.5 hours or so by car) is built up - all of it suburban crap except for parts of Hamilton and as you get into Toronto.

Buffalo is a very surprising city. When I found out I would be living there for a few years I was a bit depressed. I pictured it as a boring dump. I was very wrong. Of all the places I have lived this city is the one I could envision settling down in. It does not have the overt beauty of Boston with its rich color and extreme history but it is certainly one of the country's real treasures, a very under appreciated treasure. The crummy economics of New York State has wrecked much of Buffalo but there are huge areas filled with amazing architecture. For Bostonians , Buffalo has one of Richardson's earliest buildings (look up Dorcheimer House). It has his biggest, The state mental hospital. And it had his last (now demolished Gratwick house)

This is a great family city and it is crazy affordable. I was really in Boston by the cost of things especially my apartment. I like to live in the best city neighborhoods and in Boston it really broke me. In Buffalo I lived like a normal person should and I was able to take advantage of all the great things there. Needless to say I was a bit depressed when it came time to move on. Chicago is fabulous and will be hard to leave but there is something I can't put my finger on that draws me back to Buffalo.


This guy has been posting a lot of great pictures on the Buffalo forums.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=733630

Here are some samples.

There are some other Buffalo guys showing some great abandoned stuff too but that is what Buffalo's outside images is. People don't know about its really nice side. I recommend checking it out. As for visiting Buffalo, as with Chicago and Boston I would not recommend a visit in winter, Unless you ski or you want to see Niagara Falls in frozen, which is an unforgettable sight. Sorry for going on and on. Hope to get back to the "Hub" soon - I always hated that nickname.


Red

 

[kennedy]

Buffalo is for sure a beautiful city, but I think it will always live in the shadow of NYC, Toronto, Cleveland, and Detroit. Kind of stinks, because it definitely beats Detroit. Cleveland is sort of in the same boat, smaller but growing (and growing smart, by recent news). Detroit is just...well, if they auto industry ever starts up again Detroit will be fine.

 

[kz1000ps]

Welcome to the forum, redmoon. I agree with everything you say about Buffalo, except for this part:

2. Buffalo is no more gray and grim in winter than Boston..

Sorry to fellow forumers for bringing the weather issue up again, but I STRONGLY disagree with that statement, and this data backs me up all the way. Also any search for something like "cloudiest cities in us" or "buffalo cloudy grey winters" will turn up more info to support me.

I spent two winters in Buffalo and this is my fourth in Boston, and the difference to me is night and day. For instance, since Thursday I've seen the sun for a good part of the day each and every day. This would never happen in Buffalo, and the numbers say as much: one clear day and six partly cloudy days is the 50-year average for the entire month of January. All 24 other days are documented as being cloudy. By contrast, Boston has 16 days that are entirely cloudy.

I quote those numbers because they match up with my memories of Buffalo winters perfectly (and those memories, at roughly seven years old, aren't that faint and foggy yet). I remember stretches where the sun wouldn't come out for a week at a time, and combined with the constant wind off Lake Erie, it wasn't exactly a winter wonderland.

Of course, my winters were spent on UB's dreary and depressing North Campus, where the architecture and urban design is as lifeless as it gets, so perhaps that's coloring my impressions a bit. But those numbers... they don't lie.

 

[czsz]

I can see how a former Southern Californian might not be able to tell the difference between a Buffalo and a Boston winter, but as a 12 year Buffalonian, and an off-and-on 12 year Bostonian, I can tell you: the first thing I noticed about Massachusetts was "weird, it's sunny here so often, and the first thing I notice about Buffalo upon return is "weird, the sun almost never seems to shine here". I've heard that people's mental dispositions have changed entirely after escaping decades in the lightless gray gloom of Western New York.

I'm not sure why redmoon makes such an effort to include Canadians in Buffalo's metro population, either. When I was a kid and first became fascinated by cities, I asked my parents whether parts of Canada (some are directly across from the city center) could be considered suburbs of Buffalo. They said they didn't think so. Google maps proves them right...aside from the rinky-dink town of Fort Erie, clustered around the Peace Bridge, the part of Canada adjacent to Buffalo is mostly lakeshore cottage clusters...and farmland. Not many people want to commute across an international border every day, particularly now that a passport is required and Homeland Security makes the experience long and hellish. The worst backups reported on Buffalo radio are always the bridges into and out of Canada.

 

[Redmoon]

Well what ever. I am not trying to make a competition. Just that I would not be holding Boston up as a shining beacon of sunlight in winter is all I was saying. The difference from my experience is quite minimal weather wise. Boston is more likely to have cold sleety rain and Buffalo is more likely to have snow and I bet the sun shines more in summer in Buffalo anyway.

It is funny though how people perceive places . Here in the midwest people have a poor concept of eastern US geography. They think Buffalo is someplace near the north pole and also adjacent to New York City. Now Chicago is ridiculously cold. Way colder than Buffalo but to them Buffalo is an ultra cold place way way north but they also think NY state is like Delaware and that everything is packed into one place. So the point is Boston is grim in winter too.

I never did make it out to that Amherst campus and from what I hear I did not miss anything. They did put up some great new UB buildings downtown recently though. I understand they will be rapidly expanding into downtown on a new 3rd campus.

 

[czsz]

UB's North Campus is unabashedly hideous but at least there are some tasteful brutalist buildings. The whole thing is like Government Center removed from the city and strewn amongst parking lots and fields. Still, I think almost every UMass campus is uglier.

 

[Redmoon]

I looked up some sunshine info for Buffalo. So as not to spend my life typing
last year only - % of possible sunshine: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/buf/climate/buf_sun00s.php

Jan 37
Feb 38
Mar 53
Apr 76
May 66
Jun 60
July 70
Aug 73
Sep 61
oct 61
nov 31

See I told you Buffalo sticks with you. Now I am looking up the weather LOL.

 

[kz1000ps]

..Just that I would not be holding Boston up as a shining beacon of sunlight in winter is all I was saying.

Of course, I'm not arguing with that. All I'm saying is that by comparison Boston IS a shining beacon of sunlight in the winter.

And to hear czsz say UMass' campuses are worse than UB North (which is about par for the entire SUNY system) is scary. I've never set foot on one, so I can only imagine the horrors of those places..

 

[kennedy]

It is funny though how people perceive places . Here in the midwest people have a poor concept of eastern US geography. They think Buffalo is someplace near the north pole and also adjacent to New York City. Now Chicago is ridiculously cold. Way colder than Buffalo but to them Buffalo is an ultra cold place way way north but they also think NY state is like Delaware and that everything is packed into one place. So the point is Boston is grim in winter too.

I'd have to agree that people in the Midwest have very little sense of what happens in the rest of the world, outside of vacation towns. Where I live, there are all sorts of pricks who think they're cultured and worldly after visiting Cabo or Cancun. They were all quite upset when they found a real live person from Massachusetts didn't talk like Leo in The Departed. They have zero appreciation for our teams (boohoo, Belicheat). Apparently, Boston is out east so we're near Florida. Chicago is the pinnacle of humanity-NYC is off the coast, not attached to the real world/continental US, and only exists on the tube in the form of "Gossip Girl." I sort of doubt they know anything about Buffalo's location, other than it's in New York somewhere. The SAT? Trash. Harvard and MIT? Trash, along with Yale, 'cause that's in Boston, right? Hell, all the Ivy's are trash, Mizzou is the only way to go, unless you're smart, then Wash U is there (Disclaimer: I've nothing against Wash U). Status is defined by the subdivision you live in. The weekend entertainment consists of the latest blockbuster at the AMC at the mall, and perhaps a stop at Steak 'n' Shake (Disclaimer: Nothing against them, either.) in the world's longest strip mall. No joke, they advertise it in flyers when we came.

Sorry about that, rant over.

 

[Ron Newman]

That's quite a slam on Chicago, and I don't think it is justified. That city has plenty of great architecture and culture of all kinds, and it's in the Midwest.

 

[czsz]

kennedy, are you sure you're not just hanging out with a certain crowd of Midwesterners? I mean, there are plenty of people in the "Hub of the Universe" who think everything past 495 is desert, and who make their local Cumby's the little hubs of their social universes.

 

[kz1000ps]

there are plenty of people....who make their local Cumby's the little hubs of their social universes.

*raises hand* That describes half of my Upstate NY hometown. The other half are classy and go to Denny's 15 miles away.

In Buffalo, the thing to do was get drunk/whatever, drive to the nearby Boulevard Mall and wreak havoc on our debit cards. Oh lordy...