Buffalo, New York- Grit and Faded Grandeur

[AlbertC]

Everytime I pass by Buffalo en route to New York City I always marvel at such beautiful art deco buildings that Buffalo has and how much potential it had in the early 1900's. I almost felt jealous at Buffalo's stock of art deco buildings compared to pre-war Toronto and how it could of outshone Toronto's skyline, but unfortunately many of these towers were left to waste and Buffalo never realized its full potential.

Buffalo City Hall

Downtown building

Left to die

 

[flar]

Buffalo's city hall is one imposing structure. That's Central Terminal at the end isn't it? What were all the people doing there?

 

[smuncky]

Buffalo's city hall is one imposing structure. That's Central Terminal at the end isn't it? What were all the people doing there?

i read that they have public open days for people to come in a check it out. its quite a beautiful building as well. too bad it was left abandoned for so long.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Buffalo,NY-grit and gradeur..

JC: Good pix of Buffalo-BUF City Hall is the 2nd largest in the USA after Philadelphia's. I wanted to mention BUF Central Terminal-you probably went to one of the open houses held by the group organized to preserve and save it-a link here: WWW.BUFFALOCENTRALTERMINAL.ORG/ I remember it from traveling thru it in the 1977-79 time period-Amtrak ended service there in late 1979. It always suffered due to its distance from downtown - every scheme that came along until these recent group of preservationists came along did not work out-hopefully this group can succeed where others could not. BUF is another city that fascinates me...LI MIKE

 

[Zephyr]

Hot Wings, and that powerful radio station you could pick-up from many miles away in your auto as you approached that city, are at the top of my list of what I remember about Buffalo. I never rode the railway trains there at any time.

As JanneClaude noted, 1900 was when Buffalo was at its zenith (give or take a decade on either side). Buffalonians could boast that they had the greatest number of millionaires per capita than any other city in the United States at that time. Millionaire's Row was where most of them lived: on Delaware north of Allen. But that Row is now a shadow of what it once was in that period. Their population got pass 350,000, but as of today it is heading in the opposite direction, and is well below 300,000 as I create this post.

Buffalo City Hall has that massive massing, second in the country in square footage, but is only a 26-storey high building. Surprisingly, even though it was completed in 1931 or 1932, it was the tallest building in Buffalo until 1970, when the 40-storey HSBC Building was completed. But the latter is not on the National Historical Landmarks list of the US, like Buffalo City Hall. As testament to the continued lack of economic growth, HSBC and Buffalo City Hall have remained respectively number 1 and 2 in height for that city, from 1970 to the present - 35 years! Just one index, but it bodes ill.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

^ Buffalo hit 580,000 people in 1950 - it's below 275,000 now...

 

[Zephyr]

^ Buffalo hit 580,000 people in 1950 - it's below 275,000 now...

Perhaps I should have worded it better, but that 350,000 figure was in reference to the period when Buffalo was at its zenith, at the turn of the century. However, thanks for the information on 1950, it further bolsters the argument of population/economic decline by its inclusion.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

I know it referred to c.1900, but on its own it doesn't quite highlight Buffalo's substantial rise and fall, which is why I pointed out a few more figures.

Since you were talking about Buffalo City Hall, I should note that the city had 573,000 people in 1930...it was basically all downhill from there.