Buffalo Attractions

Elbert Hubbard Roycroft Museum - East Aurora. This is a definite, must see, as it is truly a hidden gem. The museum will provide the visitor with a surprise of some sort in just about every corner of the house. With a very dedicated and extremely knowledgeable team of volunteers who are only too willingly to help visitors at the museum, makes this a great place to visit.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery - This art gallery has one of the finest collections of modern art. Here you will find art by masters such as Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir and Warhol. This is a definite for the art enthusiast.

Buffalo Museum of Science - This museum is for all ages as it has hands-on exhibits and interactive activities. There are displays of dinosaurs, endangered species and insects that are larger than life. It also carries one of only three sand paintings in the world a Tibetan Sand Mandala.

St Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral - 128 Pearl St., Buffalo. In 1851 this Historic Landmark was blessed and in 1870 the towering spires were added. Unfortunately, in 1888 the church was almost destroyed in its entirety by fire and it was decided that with major reconstruction St Paul’s could be saved and after 2 ears of intense worked it reopened in 1890. The church is built of Medina sandstone and is marked with strong Gothic embellishments.

Niagara Mohawk Building - 535 Washington St., Buffalo. This skyscraper with a height of 294 feet was built in 1912. Its renowned glazed terracotta tower is amongst the city’s most beautiful sights and is definitely displays a majestic figure when lit at night.

Darwin D. Martin House - 118 Summit Ave, if you appreciate Frank Lloyd Wright architecture, this Prairie style house is a must-see. Constructed between 1903 and 1906, the 10,000 sq ft home is a horizontal hymn to architecture, and the interior is just as beautifully designed.

Graycliff - Located at 6472 Old Lake Shore Rd, set on a cliff overlooking Lake Erie, Graycliff is another Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece, and is so designed as to blend with the surrounding landscape. Once you have seen all the beauty of the house itself, take a stroll through the lovely gardens and neighbouring woods.

Government and Politics of Buffalo

The Democratic Party has dominated Buffalo politics for the last half-century. As private sector employment has diminished in the city, the interests of government employees in job security and material benefits have led to higher levels of public spending and taxation on a shrinking population and business community.

This higher taxation has in return driven more employers out of the region resulting in a downward spiral of economic development and population loss. Civil servant union interests in preventing governmental reforms or consolidation that might threaten remaining municipal jobs has driven large voter turnouts and financial support for Democratic candidates that have consistently preserved the large City of Buffalo government.

In 2005, Buffalo voters faced a historic decision. Kevin Helfer, the city’s first major GOP candidate in over 40 years, defeated Byron Brown by a 2-1 margin in the Conservative Primary to win the first ever write-in campaign. Ultimately, voters rejected Helfer’s reform agenda and chose Byron Brown as the city’s first African-American mayor.

Union support bolstered Brown’s campaign, ultimately providing a substantial fundraising and volunteer effort. In exchange, Brown has backed a police job action and advocated eliminating the wage freeze imposed by the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority.

Education in Buffalo

Buffalo is home to two State University of New York institutions, each the largest of their type in the system. Buffalo State College, a comprehensive college, and the University at Buffalo, the flagship university center of the State University of New York. The city also is home to Bryant and Stratton College, Daemen College, D’Youville College, Medaille College, Canisius College, and Trocaire College. A campus of Erie Community College and a site of Empire State College are also located in the downtown area.

The Buffalo Public Schools are going through a transitional phase, with many buildings requiring renovation and enrollments overall declining. The system boasts the best academically performing high school in Western New York, the City Honors School at Fosdick-Masten Park,and Lafayette High School, completed in 1903 and the oldest Buffalo public school still in its original building.

Demographics of Buffalo

As of the censusGR2 of 2000,the city had a total population of 292,648. Erie and Niagara Counties have a combined population of 1,170,111 (2000). At that time there were 292,648 people, 122,720 households, and 67,005 families residing in the city. The population density is 2,782.4/km² (7,205.8/mi²). There are 145,574 housing units at an average density of 1,384.1/km² (3,584.4/mi²). The racial makeup of the city is 54.43% White, 37.23% African American, 0.77% Native American, 1.40% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 3.68% from other races, and 2.45% from two or more races. 7.54% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 122,720 households out of which 28.6% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 27.6% are married couples living together, 22.3% have a female householder with no husband present, and 45.4% are non-families. 37.7% of all households are made up of individuals and 12.1% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.29 and the average family size is 3.07.

In the city the population included 26.3% under the age of 18, 11.3% from 18 to 24, 29.3% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 13.4% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 34 years. For every 100 females there are 88.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 83.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city is $24,536, and the median income for a family is $30,614. Males have a median income of $30,938 versus $23,982 for females. The per capita income for the city is $14,991. 26.6% of the population and 23.0% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 38.4% of those under the age of 18 and 14.0% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line. Buffalo has very sizable populations of Italian, Polish, Irish, German and African descent.

Climate of Buffalo

Buffalo has an exaggerated reputation for severe weather. In fact, Buffalo’s summers are the sunniest and driest of any major city in the Northeast, but still receive enough rain for lush, green vegetation and good gardening conditions. Buffalo summers also are temperate with comparatively short humid spells. Many residents have backyard pools and air conditioners, a fact that surprises some visitors.

The occasionally heavy snowfall in the region is caused by below-freezing winds blowing over the warmer water of Lake Erie. This is the famous lake effect. The resulting snowbelts are often only ten or fifteen miles wide, with sunny skies in one spot and raging flurries a mile or two away. Lake Erie is much shallower than the other Great Lakes, and portions usually freeze over in the winter. When Erie ices over, the lake effect ends and snowfall is light to moderate.

Winters are longer than in other areas, and due to the lake effect, Buffalo averages more snowfall than most northern cities. Winters, however, are not extremely cold and include frequent thaws and rain. Hilly regions south of the city receive about twice as much snow as Buffalo proper, and provide some of the best winter recreation centers in the northeastern US.

The best known snow storm in Buffalo history was the Blizzard of ‘77. Severe storms also occurred on November 20, 2000 and at Christmas, 2001. The city is a competitor for Upstate New York’s annual Golden Snowball Award, but for several years has lost out to Rochester or Syracuse, which have recently received more snow than Buffalo.

Obscured by the attention given to winter snowstorms is the fact that Buffalo benefits from the other lake effect, namely free, natural “air conditioning” from Lake Erie. Its summers are often delightful, with gentle southwest breezes off the Lake tempering the warmest days. Buffalo’s official weather station has never recorded a temperature exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, one of only three major US city weather stations with this distinction (the other two are Miami, Florida and Honolulu, Hawaii).

Sailing, waterskiing, swimming, and gardening are popular summer pastimes, as well as sport fishing, which has at its disposal one of the greatest varieties of fresh-water fish in the nation, in the Niagara River, Lake Erie, and tributary streams. These include walleye, perch, large- and small-mouth bass, trout and steelhead, northern pike, muskellunge, and imported salmon.

History of Buffalo

Origin of name

It is a well known fact that the City of Buffalo received its name from the creek of the same name, however, there are several unproven theories as to the origin of the name of the creek. Early French explorers reported the abundance of Buffalo on the south shore of Lake Erie but their presence on the banks of Buffalo Creek is still a matter of debate, so the origin of the name of the creek is still uncertain. Neither the Native American name (”Place of the Basswoods”) or the French name (”River of Horses”) survived so the current name likely dates to the British occupation which began with the capture of Fort Niagara in 1759.

The first known appearance of the name was in 1764 in the Journal of British military engineer John Montressor who explored Buffalo Creek before choosing the site of Fort Erie on the opposite side of the Niagara River. Another claim is that the creek is named after a Native American, who once lived in that area. The argument that the name is an anglicized form of the name Beau Fleuve (beautiful river), which was supposedly an exclamation uttered by Louis Hennipin when he first saw the stream, is the least likely explanation.

Early history of Buffalo

Most of western New York was granted by Charles II of England to the Duke of York (later known as James II of England), but the first European settlement in what is now Erie County was by the French, at the mouth of Buffalo Creek in 1758. Its buildings were destroyed a year later by the evacuating French after the British captured Fort Niagara. The British took control of the entire region in 1763, at the conclusion of the French and Indian War.

The first permanent settlers in present day Buffalo were Cornelius Winney and “Black Joe” Hodges, who set up a log cabin store there in 1789 for trading with the Native American community. Dutch investors purchased the area as part of the Holland Land Purchase. Starting in 1801, parcels were sold through the Holland Land Company’s office in Batavia, New York. The settlement was initially called Lake Erie, then Buffalo Creek, soon shortened to Buffalo. Holland Land Company agent Joseph Ellicott christened it New Amsterdam, but the name did not catch on. In 1808, Niagara County, New York was established with Buffalo as its county seat. Erie County, New York was formed out of Niagara County in 1821, retaining Buffalo as the county seat.

The 19th century

Joseph Ellicott, a principal agent of the Holland Land Company, designed in 1804 a radial street and grid system that branches out from downtown like bicycle spokes, and is one of only three radial street patterns in the US. In 1810 the Town of Buffalo was formed from the western part of the Town of Clarence. On December 30, 1813, during the War of 1812, British troops and their Native American allies captured first the village of Black Rock, and then the rest of Buffalo and burned most of both to the ground. Buffalo gradually rebuilt itself and by 1816 had a new courthouse. In 1818 the eastern part of the town was lost to form the Town of Amherst.

Upon the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825, Buffalo became the western end of the 524-mile waterway starting at New York City. At the time Buffalo had a population of about 2,400 people; with the increased commerce of the canal, the population boomed and Buffalo incorporated as a city in 1832. In 1853, Buffalo annexed Black Rock, which had been Buffalo’s fierce rival for the canal terminus. During the 19th century, thousands of pioneers to western United States debarked from canal boats to continue their journey out of Buffalo by lake or rail travel. During their stopover, many experienced the pleasures and dangers of Buffalo’s notorious Canal Street district.

Buffalo was a terminus of the Underground Railroad, an informal series of safe houses for Africans escaping slavery in the mid-19th century. Buffalonians helped many fugitives cross the Niagara River to Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada and freedom.

The presidential connection

Several U.S. presidents have connections with Buffalo. Millard Fillmore took up permanent residence in Buffalo in 1822 before he became America’s 13th president. He was also the first chancellor of the University of Buffalo, now known as SUNY University at Buffalo. Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, lived in Buffalo from 1854 until 1882, and served as Buffalo’s mayor from 1882-1883. William McKinley was shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, and died in Buffalo on the 14th. Theodore Roosevelt was then sworn in on September 14th, 1901 at the Ansley Wilcox Mansion, now the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, becoming one of the few presidents to be sworn in outside of Washington, D.C.. (more…)

Buffalo is an American city in western New York. With a population of 282,864 as of the United States Census Bureau’s 2004 estimate[1], it is the state’s second-largest city, after New York City, and is the county seat of Erie County.GR6 The Buffalo-Niagara metropolitan area has a population of 1.1 million. Buffalo is home to a diverse population and thriving arts, cultural, and nightlife scenes, and is considered the regional hub of the greater bi-national region.

Buffalo lies on the Niagara River, which connects Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. European-Americans first settled there in the late-18th century. Growth was slow until the city became the western terminus of the Erie Canal some 40 years later. By the turn of the next century, Buffalo was one of the country’s leading cities, and by far its largest inland port. The huge grain elevators and industrial plants that the canal spawned began to disappear in the mid-20th century as the Saint Lawrence Seaway enabled water traffic to bypass the city.

Distancing itself from its industrial past, Buffalo is redefining itself as a cultural, educational, and medical center. The city was named by Reader’s Digest as the third cleanest city in America in 2005. [2] In 2001 USA Today named Buffalo the winner of its “City with a Heart” contest, proclaiming it the nation’s “friendliest city.” Also in 1996 and 2002 Buffalo won the All-America City Award.It