14) THE MAIN LINE
There is something about Buffalo that isn't very apparent from street level but should have a name. I call it the Main Line. Three long roads and streets, including Main Street in Buffalo, together form a straight line. But there are two interruptions in the line.
In the following image, from Google Earth, the red dot in lower left is the intersection of Main and Ferry Streets. It is here, coming from downtown, that Main Street bends somewhat eastward and the Main Line begins.
The Main Line continues, as Main Street, to the green dot which is the intersection with Kenmore Avenue. At this point Main Street curves eastward to eventually become Main Street in Williamsville.
After a short interruption, for the University Plaza and residential streets, the Main Line continues northeastward from the blue dot as Grover Cleveland Highway from the intersection with Bailey Avenue. Grover Cleveland Highway becomes Millersport Highway and continues to the purple dot, which is the intersection with Maple Road.
After a longer interruption, for the University of Buffalo North Campus, the Main Line continues northeastward from the yellow dot, as Millersport Highway from the intersection with Campbell Blvd. This continues to the white dot, which is the intersection of Millersport Highway with Transit Road, south of Lockport.
The Main Line isn't entirely interrupted by the North Campus. St. Rita's Lane, which runs between the two artificial lakes on the North Campus, is exactly on the Main Line. It is shown by the three red dots in the following image from Google Earth.
Before the Grand Island Bridges, there was a route between downtown Buffalo and downtown Niagara Falls. It consisted of what is now Niagara Street in Buffalo, River Road and Niagara Street in Tonawanda, River Road in North Tonawanda and Wheatfield, and finally concluding as Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls.
The Main Line must have been a similar route between Buffalo and Lockport. It intersected at an angle with Main Street in Buffalo and, when Buffalo grew, it became Main Street.
15) THE BROADWAY MARKET
Since the late Nineteenth Century the Broadway Market has been the focal point of the East Side Polish community. President John F Kennedy marched in the Pulaski Day Parade. The future Pope John Paul II, from Poland, visited Buffalo. Image from Google Street View.
16) URBAN RENEWAL
Urban Renewal was a trend in the cities of many western countries, mostly during the 1960s and 70s. It basically consisted of bulldozing old neighborhoods and sections of a city, and replacing them with new developments. Old buildings are always being replaced by new but Urban Renewal meant entire neighborhoods.
Reasons for Urban Renewal are that buildings are aging and decaying, demographics have changed and, especially, that more space is required for cars. Urban Renewal is almost always controversial. Few people want to see the neighborhood that they grew up in bulldozed. It pits the progressives against the preservationists.
Many Urban Renewal projects are only partly completed, due to opposition. Even after the project is completed, there are usually some who say that it wasn't worth it and shouldn't have been done. Developments are often not appreciated until the next generation, that has no memory of the old neighborhood.
Buffalo has two areas where extensive Urban Renewal obviously took place. One is to the east of downtown, and the other to the west of downtown.
Just east of downtown, from Michigan to Jefferson Avenues, is an old part of the city. But there are only new buildings, houses and, housing developments, that look like they are no older than the 1960s. Five images from Google Street View.
Also immediately west of the Niagara Square area, between Niagara Street and the Interstate 190. This is one of the original parts of the city but, again, there is an area of buildings that look to be from the 1960s or 70s. Six images from Google Street View.
To the north there appears to be a more limited area of Urban Renewal along Michigan Avenue, including McCarley Gardens.
Next to Canalside, the Marine Drive Apartments are located where the notorious Canal District once was but these are older, from the 1950s. Image from Google Earth.
The old Perry Projects are from the 1940s and so wouldn't be considered as within the Urban Renewal timeframe.
17) HUMBOLDT PARKWAY AND THE KENSINGTON EXPRESSWAY
Buffalo has several streets with parks along the middle of the street and one-way streets, in opposite directions, on either side. One such example is Bidwell Parkway, on the West Side of Buffalo, which you can see diagonally across the screen in the following image from Google Earth.
The urn shape of elm trees make them ideal for shade and elm trees were once to Buffalo what palm trees are to Miami. But so many of the trees were killed by disease in the 1950s.
On the East Side of Buffalo there was the magnificent Humboldt Parkway. It was built in the same way as Bidwell Parkway and linked Delaware Park to Humboldt Park, which was later renamed for Martin Luther King. But when the postwar Urban Renewal era came along it was decided to tear out the park and put a highway to downtown there. The highway is known as the Kensington Expressway, or Route 33. The highway divides the East Side of the city, and is possibly the most contentious example of Urban Renewal anywhere.
The one-way streets, in opposite directions, of Humboldt Parkway are still there. But instead of a park there is the highway, at lower elevation, between them. Image from Google Earth.
The Kensington Expressway, which ripped out the park in Humboldt Parkway, has been very controversial since it was built. But has anyone ever thought that maybe the issue was the name of Humboldt Parkway, and of history repeating itself?
There were many German immigrants in Buffalo in the late Nineteenth Century, which is reflected in the German names of many East Side streets. Humboldt Parkway was named for Alexander Von Humboldt.
Alexander Von Humboldt was the founder of much of earth science. He traveled and wrote extensively and, following his death in 1859, his ideas had a great influence on understanding the earth and the natural world in the late Nineteenth Century. The one insight that he might be best-known for is the suggestion that the eastern and western hemispheres, on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, were once together. Image from the Wikipedia article "Mid-Atlantic Ridge".
Could the Kensington Expressway, which so controversially split Humboldt Parkway, be an amazing example of history repeating itself? The parkway was named for Alexander Von Humboldt and his best-known discovery was that the eastern and western hemispheres, along the Atlantic Ocean, were once together. The two sides were split apart by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
The parkway named for Alexander Von Humboldt was split apart by the expressway in exactly the same way as the continents that are now on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean were split apart by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This is an ideal example of history repeating itself. Maybe historical forces were at work and this had to happen.
18) THE 1901 PAN AMERICAN EXHIBITION
The Pan-American Exhibition was a great exhibition that was held in Buffalo in 1901. The exhibition is unfortunately remembered as the site of the assassination of U.S. President William McKinley. It was also significant for it's pioneering display of electric lighting.
The development of alternating electric current made transmission of electricity over a distance by stepping up the voltage, at the expense of the current, much more efficient. Electricity from Niagara Falls was used for the lighting display at the exhibition. This would not have been possible with direct current because the losses in the transmission lines would have been too great.
The exhibition was originally planned to be held on Cayuga Island, in Niagara Falls, but Buffalo ended up getting it's way. What if it has been held on Cayuga Island? The doctor that was called on to try to save the president, Roswell Park, was in Niagara Falls at the time and could have gotten there much faster. Maybe William McKinley might not have been shot at all. Then maybe Theodore Roosevelt, his vice-president would never have become president and history might have been quite different. Image from Google Earth.
The buildings of the Pan-American Exhibition were not intended to last and thus were not made of "real" stone. The temporary buildings were made of fiber covered with plaster. Today the area where the exhibition was held is mostly residential streets. The high school closest to where William McKinley was shot is named for him.
We have to wonder how it might have turned out if the buildings of the Pan-American Exhibition had been made of "real" stone and had been retained after the end of the exhibition. We saw in our visit to "Paris" how much of the central part of that city consists of buildings that were originally built for the several exhibitions that were held there. The Eiffel Tower was built as the entrance arch for the exhibition of 1889, the centennial of the French Revolution. The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be dismantled after the exhibition, but radio broadcasting had begun and it seems that it was the ideal place for a radio antenna.
The only building that was intended to last from the Pan-American Exhibition is now the Buffalo History Museum. Image from Google Earth.
There was a well-known "Electric Tower" at the exhibition, which was dismantled afterward. The Electric Tower Building, in downtown Buffalo, was built in memory of it, but is not an exact copy of it. Image from Google Earth.
The alternating current that powered the Pan Am Exhibition came from the Adams Plant, in Niagara Falls. There is something about the electrical history of Niagara Falls that I cannot see has ever been pointed out, or has been forgotten. When the inlet, wheel pit and tunnel of the Adams Plant, and also the nearby but separate Hydraulic Canal were dug, what happened to all of the soil and rock that was excavated? There were no motorized dump trucks at the time, so it probably wasn't transported very far.
Going away from the falls, eastward, on the Robert Moses Parkway there is a hill between the parkway and the river. I have noticed this hill since I was a child and there is no natural reason for a hill to be here. The hill is adjacent to the inlet of the Adams Plant. This hill must be the excavated soil and rock from the Adams Plant and likely also from the Hydraulic Canal. I can't see that it has a name, there is a trail along it. Let's call it "Electric Hill".
Electric Hill is covered by trees and doesn't show up well on Google Earth or Street View. In the following image, from Google Earth, the yellow line is the route of the former Hydraulic Canal across downtown Niagara Falls. The white water in the upper left is the American Falls. The red dot in the river indicates the inlet of the Adams Plant and the yellow dot indicates Electric Hill.
Electricity changed the way that so many things were done, and a lot of it took place in Buffalo. An all-around Buffalo businessman named George Urban had a mill run entirely by electricity and he got a major street in Cheektowaga named for him. Image from Google Street View.
There is also an industrial street in Buffalo named for George Urban and the site is now where Milk Bone Dog Biscuits are made.
The Pan American Exhibition made a great impression on the country. It is unfortunately remembered as the site of William McKinley's assassination. A quarter century later, the name of the exhibition would reemerge in a grand way. An icon of the Golden Age of Air Travel was Pan American World Airways, usually referred to simply as Pan Am. Image from the Wikipedia article by that name.
I cannot find where the name of the airline originated but I can't find any other major use of the name during that time frame, other than the Exhibition. I consider the name of the airline as having come from the exhibition.
This airline did so much to make air travel what it is today. When I was a child it was often seen at the nearby airport. The first official flight of the new Boeing 747 took place as soon as the 1970s began. It's first official flight was from New York to London. In 1977 the worst aircraft accident ever took place. Two 747s collided while taking off in dense fog at Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. What is not widely known is that one of them was the same Pan Am jet that had made the maiden flight.
19) THE ELECTRIC CHAIR
In the early days of electric power there was a dispute as to whether alternating current or direct current was better for daily use. The advantage of alternating current is that a transformer makes it easy to switch current and voltage. It's difficulty might be the need to get everyone to agree on the number of cycles per second.
The controversy was known as "The War of the Currents". Thomas Edison supported direct current while George Westinghouse and Nicola Tesla supported alternating current. The Pan American Exhibition in Buffalo, in 1901, displaying electric power generated in Niagara Falls, did much to establish alternating current. This image, from Google Street View, is of the statue of Tesla in Niagara Falls.
The electric car company was named for Tesla, although he didn't start it.
But there is more to it than that. A Buffalo dentist, Alfred Southwick, got the idea that electricity might be a humane way to execute condemned criminals and euthanize animals. He modified a dentist's chair into an electric chair. The electric chair would require alternating current that had been stepped up to high voltage.
The advocates of direct current were pleased that alternating current was going to be used to kill people because that would make it look sinister and evil. They actively promoted the electric chair. At the Pan American Exhibition, which had been a major boost for alternating current, U.S. President William McKinley was assassinated. His assailant was one of the first people to be executed in the electric chair.
The dentist was also a professor at the University of Buffalo.
The next time you visit the dentist, remember that a Buffalo dentist once modified his chair into the first electric chair. Image from Google Street View.
20) THE TRI-MAIN BUILDING
The Tri-Main Building is a historic industrial complex in north Buffalo that, at different times, has been used by Ford, the automaker, Trico, the original manufacturer of windshield wipers and, Bell Aircraft, which developed so many of America's military aircraft. Image from Google Earth.
21) KING SEWING MACHINE COMPANY
This abandoned factory in Buffalo's Riverside area doesn't look like much today. But it has a central part in the history of Buffalo manufacturing. Two images from Google Earth and Street View.
It started as the King Sewing Machine Company, and was instrumental in popularizing home sewing machines. Later so many of the radios in homes and cars, before television when radio was very popular, were actually made here, for many different brand names.
22) WOOD AND BROOKS
Pianos used to be popular and so many of the keys and keyboards in pianos everywhere were made in this building in Buffalo's Riverside area. Some readers may find it unfortunate that, at least initially, the company used real ivory from elephant tusks and there used to be the sign of an elephant where the red dot is located. Image from Google Earth.
23) LOFTS AND ABANDONED INDUSTRIES
Buffalo has done a commendable job of converting former industrial buildings, either into residential lofts or business centers. There are numerous examples. But the critical factor is that the building is in a suitable location, and the old Central Terminal hasn't been developed in the same way. There are thus two prominent abandoned buildings that are part of the cityscape and were once home to vital industries.
This image, from Google Earth, is of the old Wonder Bread building. Notice that it is alongside train tracks so that flour could be brought in from the granaries described above.
This image, from Google Street View, is of the old Wildroot Building, just off Bailey Avenue. Hair tonic was made here.
24) THE PSYCHIATRIC CENTER
The Buffalo Psychiatric Center is a historic complex that was built in the late Nineteenth Century to house and treat psychiatric patients. It is just south of where the Pan-American Exhibition was held. More recently it has been named the Richardson Complex, for the attempt that was made to preserve it, and much of it was converted into a hotel. The northern part of it's original grounds was used to build Buffalo State College. Image from Google Earth.
If you wonder whether the Psychiatric Center is haunted the answer is "yes", not by a ghost but by a decision that was made there. In 1980 a man felt that his mental health was deteriorating and he sought help at the Psychiatric Center. He was denied admittance. Shortly afterwards a series of random murders of black males began. The man who sought help had been Joseph Christopher, now remembered as "The .22 Caliber Killer" for the handgun that he used. He also committed assaults in Manhattan, where he was known as "The Midtown Slasher".
25) THE BUFFALO FIVE AND WATERGATE
The Watergate Scandal was much of the national news in the U.S., from 1972 to 74, and brought about the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The scandal began with a burglary in the Watergate Complex, during the presidential campaign of 1972. My understanding is that the burglars were looking for evidence that the Democrats were getting support from Communist Cubans.
I have long believed that this burglary that shook the country actually had it's roots in Buffalo.
There was a lot of opposition to America's war in Vietnam. The records of young men who were eligible for the draft were kept at central post offices. At the time this was the fine example of architecture in downtown Buffalo that is now the City Campus of Erie County Community College. Image from Google Street View.
In August 1971 five people entered the building, intent on destroying the draft records for the Buffalo area. They entered the building while it was open during the day. They hid in a room until the building had closed for the day. Then they emerged to find and destroy the draft records. My understanding is that they had the tools that they would need taped to their bodies.
The plan didn't work. The police soon responded and they were caught. They became known as the Buffalo Five. In May 1972 the verdict was in the national news. The five were convicted but received probation instead of prison sentences. The verdict was controversial, pleasing those opposed to the war but angering others.
A few weeks after the verdict was in the national news, a strikingly similar burglary took place. It was the Watergate Burglary in Washington. There was the same number of burglars, five. They used exactly the same tactic, entering the building while it was open during the day and then hiding until it closed. Just as the Buffalo Five taped their tools to their bodies, the Watergate Five put tape over the latch of a door that opened from the inside but not from the outside.
What happened is that a security guard noticed the tape and called police, who caught the burglars.
It seems obvious to me that, not only did those who planned the Watergate Burglary get the idea from events in Buffalo but, since the Buffalo Five had gotten such light punishment, carried out the burglary to be just like the one in Buffalo so that, if they were caught, the precedent set in Buffalo would get them light punishment also.
26) RICK JAMES AND CHARLES MANSON
In August 1969 the U.S. was horrified at two successive sets of murders that had taken place in Los Angeles. The murders were brutal and bizarre and robbery was not a factor. In the first set of murders, there was a party at the home of actress Sharon Tate and everyone in the house was killed.
It was a time of high racial tension. The followers of a one-time aspiring musician named Charles Manson had decided that a race war would be the Apocalypse foretold in the Bible. After the Apocalypse, Manson would reign over the world as Christ. To get the Apocalypse underway, they committed these murders of wealthy white people and set it up to look like black militants had done it.
These crimes had a very long-term effect, as we saw in "The Far-Reaching Legacy Of Charles Manson", June 2025.
A Buffalo musician named Rick James was in Los Angeles and had been invited to the party. But, apparently due to too much partying the night before, he was unable to make it. Whoever heard of too much partying saving someone's life? He could have done a song about this.
27) THE 1942 GENESEE HOTEL SUICIDE
My understanding is that Genesee Street used to run further southwest and there was a hotel called the Genesee Hotel. In May of 1942 a woman named Mary Miller climbed out onto a ledge, apparently preparing to jump. A horrified crowd gathered below. After a while, she waved to the crowd and jumped to her death. Her fall was famously captured on camera, and it became one of the best-known photographs ever. A band later made it into an album cover. Image from the Wikipedia article "Que' Est-Ce Pour Nous".
Not much is known about Mary Miller but her suicide was obviously carefully planned to get attention. She was originally described as a "despondent divorcee", although that appears to be incorrect. According to one source online she was 35 years old and her sister was shocked that this happened.
Sources online state that she checked into the hotel but didn't go to the room. She went to the women's bathroom on the top floor, locked the door and climbed out onto the ledge. She was reportedly on the ledge for about 20 minutes, before waving to the crowd and jumping. According to one source she was swinging her legs and interacting with the crowd below.
A reporter happened to pull up, and readied his camera, just before she jumped. The result is this famous and tragic photo.
My conclusion is that Mary Miller planned it this way. She was waiting to see someone below with a camera ready, before she jumped. Her wave was primarily an indication to the photographer that she was about to jump. It looks like she was dressed well. Maybe she wanted to be a stage or movie actress, and this was her way of accomplishing it.
Anyway, Mary Miller finally became a famous star in Buffalo.
In the following image, from Google Earth looking northeast, Genesee Street is the diagonal street across the center. You can see that it used to extend further southwest but part of a hotel has been built there, indicated by the yellow dot. The street in the closest foreground is Pearl Street. The place where Mary Miller jumped is indicated by the red dot.
My conclusion is that this is what the view looks like today from where the photo was taken, looking westward on Pearl Street. The left flagpole is where the entrance to the hotel was. The tree at far left is where Mary Miller landed. The two people in the far distance at left are on what was once Genesee Street. Image from Google Street View.
28) THE ALBRIGHT-KNOX ART GALLERY
The Albright-Knox Art Gallery, or AKG, is just across Elmwood Avenue from Buffalo State College and the former Psychiatric Center, and just south of where the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition was held.
A wealthy Buffalo philanthropist named John J. Albright put up the money to build the gallery. Albright was an all-around businessman who was behind much of the development of the Buffalo area. Among many other things he got one of the world's great steel manufacturers, the Lackawanna Steel Company, to locate along Lake Erie south of Buffalo. The surrounding area named itself after the factory and is today the City of Lackawanna.
The gallery was supposed to be part of the Pan-American Exhibition of 1901 but the building wasn't completed in time. Decades later another Buffalo philanthropist, named Seymour Knox, paid for an addition to be added to the building. This is why it is called the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.
29) SEYMOUR KNOX
When I was a young boy the first I remember hearing of America was a nearby store called Woolworth's. I was told that the store began in a place called America. When I visited as a teenager the store was still there and I bought something back in this bag.
Frank Woolworth emerged, during America's Guilded Age, from a small town near Watertown, NY. In a story of success that represented what America was supposed to be all about he built a chain of stores that defined modern merchandising. Walmart and Target are the descendants of Woolworth's. With the income that the stores brought in Frank Woolworth built the tallest building in the world. The name of Woolworth would later be known for the fortune being squandered by his two profligate grandchildren, Barbara Hutton and Jimmy Donohue.
Frank Woolworth had a relative who was also a good businessman. His name was Seymour Knox and he was based in Buffalo. He had started retail stores also and it was his stores that were the focal point of the Main Street business district.
There was an art gallery that was intended to be part of the 1901 Pan Am Exhibition in Buffalo, where President William McKinley was assassinated. The namesake son of Seymour Knox made a donation to it which is why it is now called the Albright Knox Gallery, AKG. The also namesake grandson of Seymour Knox was one of the founders of the Sabres, Buffalo's professional hockey team.
The Knox family had a palatial home built on Delaware Avenue, which was Buffalo's "millionaires row". Buffalo once had more millionaires per person than any city in America. At a nearby residence vice-president Theodore Roosevelt had been inaugurated as U.S. President after William McKinley had died.
30) TIM HORTON
There had been a hockey player in Toronto who sold cars in the off season. One day he had a customer who had a donut store and ended up going into business with him. The hockey player later played for the Buffalo Sabres and is credited for getting the Sabres into the playoffs for the first time. The Sabres management had given him a car.
After playing for the Sabres against his former team in Toronto he drove back to Buffalo in the car. Unfortunately he had been drinking and never made it. He never knew how the donut chain would grow and that someday his name would be on donut shops all around Buffalo. His name was Tim Horton.
The following three images are from Google Street View. The first shows the statue of Tim Horton playing hockey, near Canalside. The second shows one of the numerous donut shops named for him. The third shows the Lake Street Exit, off the QEW in St. Catharines. Somewhere near here, Tim Horton lost control of his car and it ended up on the roof in the westbound lanes. The concrete barrier apparently wasn't there in 1974.
31) THE GUARANTY BUILDING
Buffalo's contribution to the development of modern architecture is the Guaranty Building. The 1896 building was one of the earliest tall buildings to be built around a steel frame. Image from Google Street View.
32) KLEINHANS MUSIC HALL
Buffalo has a Philharmonic Orchestra, based at Kleinhans Music Hall, on the West Side. Both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had made speeches there before they were both assassinated.
33) THE CONNECTICUT STREET ARMORY
In the late Nineteenth Century there was a movement in architecture to imitate the castles of the Middle Ages. The Connecticut Street Armory was built in 1899. In 1982 a fire heavily damaged the interior of the building. The following three images are from Google Street View.
34) OUR LADY OF VICTORY BASILICA
Towering over Lackawanna, just south of Buffalo, is the magnificent dome of Our Lady of Victory Basilica. This was completed in 1926 and there used to be a vast orphanage and school with it. Image from Google Earth.
35) AIR CONDITIONING
Angola is a town to the south of Buffalo. There was an engineer from Angola named Willis Carrier. A Buffalo printing company was having trouble because the humidity was affecting the printing process. Carrier came up with a solution to condition the air. It turned into far more than that, it was the birth of air conditioning. Try to imagine the world without air conditioning, all of the people and business that have moved to cities with warmer climates that wouldn't have happened without air conditioning.
36) WINDSHIELD WIPERS
As the story goes John Oishei was driving along Delaware Avenue in Buffalo in 1916. It was raining and he ran into a bicyclist that he didn't see. Oishei realized that cars needed a way to automatically clear rain from the windshield. The result was the invention of windshield wipers and the founding of Trico, the company in Buffalo that would manufacture them. Oishei's foundation gave money to build a hospital for children, and today Oishei Children's Hospital is just up the street from the original Trico building. Image from Google Street View.
37) HAMBURGERS
There is no consensus on where hamburgers were invented, or were first served. One of the claimants is the Town of Hamburg, to the south of Buffalo. Hamburg is where the Erie County Fair is held and that is believed to be where hamburgers were first served.
Hamburg has a strong case simply because of the name. Why are they called "hamburgers"? They are not made of ham but of beef. In Europe they are more correctly called "beefburgers". Image from Google Street View.
Not only does the "ham" not make any sense, the "burger" doesn't make sense either. A "burg" is a city, particularly a city built around a fortification, and not a sandwich or a food item.
So the only logical reason for hamburgers to be so-called is that they originated in Hamburg.
Just by chance Hamburg's water tower is shaped exactly like a hamburger, with the walkway representing the beef patty, and there has been discussion about painting it as a hamburger. Image from Google Street View.
38) THE LARKIN BUILDINGS
The Larkin Soap Company pioneered both mail order goods and also door-to-door sales. The company sold a wide range of soap and household products. It eventually went out of business but it's two expansive buildings, like so many other former companies in Buffalo, now serve other uses. Image from Google Earth.
The Larkin Administration Building was a well-known example of the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. While Wright was overseas, construction was overseen by an assistant named Walter Burley Griffin, who would later design the city of Canberra as the capital of Australia. The artificial lake at the center of Canberra is named for him. The following image, from Google Earth, shows the artificial lake, around which Canberra is centered, that is named for Walter Burley Griffin.
After the Larkin Company went out of business the Administration Building fell behind on taxes. It was sold to a company, which demolished it.
This glass and stone structure evokes the Larkin Administration Building, the site of which is now a parking lot. The area has been redeveloped as Larkinville. Three images from Google Street View.
This brick wall is all that remains of the Larkin Administration Building, which was completed in 1906. The building in the background was part of the Larkin Company. Image from Google Street View.
39) WELLS FARGO
William Fargo was one of the founders of Wells Fargo, one of the largest banks in the world, and also of American Express. He served as the mayor of Buffalo, and a street on the West Side is named for him. William Fargo is buried in Buffalo's Forest Lawn Cemetery. Image from Google Street View.
40) SCHOELLKOPF CHEMICAL FACTORY
The name of Jacob Schoellkopf, and his sons, is more associated with Niagara Falls than with Buffalo. But his business background, starting as a tanner, was in Buffalo. There was the Hydraulic Canal, built across downtown Niagara Falls to power mills by falling water. The company that ran the canal had fallen into bankruptcy and Jacob Schoellkopf bought the canal at auction.
He made the canal very profitable and it was eventually used to generate electricity. The generating plant in the Niagara Gorge, that collapsed in 1956, was named for him. Jacob Schoellkopf later opened a large factory in Buffalo that made dyes used to color clothing. The factory was most recently known as Buffalo Color. One of his sons served as mayor of Niagara Falls.
In the following image, from Google Earth, the yellow line shows the route of the Hydraulic Canal across downtown Niagara Falls. The white water at left is the falls.
There were actually two different companies generating electricity on the U.S. side of Niagara Falls, using two different systems. It was the Adams Power Plant, not the Schoellkopf, that provided the electricity for Buffalo's Pan Am Exhibition of 1901.
The Adams Plant didn't use a hydraulic canal. Water, taken in from the nearby upper river, fell down a wheel pit and the kinetic energy of the falling water turned turbines to generate electricity. There was a long underground tunnel and the spent water exited to the lower river just north of the base of the American Falls, as seen at left in the following image from Google Street View. The present water treatment plant located next to the old power plant and uses the tunnel.
This building was the powerhouse of the Schoellkopf factory in Buffalo. Image from Google Earth.
41) ALUMINUM AND AIRCRAFT
Aluminum and aircraft were made for each other, and the Buffalo-Niagara area was very important to both. Steel is stronger than aluminum but too heavy to build planes out of. Aluminum has a very good strength-to-weight ratio and also doesn't rust.
Have you ever noticed that, in the Bible or with regard to medieval or ancient times, common metals in use are iron, copper, tin and, zinc, but aluminum is never mentioned?
That's because aluminum, unlike other common metals, cannot be separated from it's ore by smelting. Aluminum is actually abundant but requires electricity to be readily separated from it's ore. Electricity is where Niagara Falls comes in, as described in the section above. Charles Martin Hall perfected the process of separating aluminum from it's ore using electricity.
The place to get affordable electricity was Niagara Falls and Hall lived on Buffalo Avenue, right by the falls. The resulting company eventually became ALCOA, the Aluminum Company of America. An important site in the manufacture of aluminum is where the Niagara Falls Aquarium is now located.
Early aircraft were made out of cloth and wood but then abundant aluminum became available. Glenn Curtiss was an early pioneer of aircraft. He had a number of industrial sites around Buffalo. The best-remembered is the Curtiss-Wright site adjacent to the Buffalo Airport.
The name comes from a merger with the company going back to the original Wright Brothers, who are credited with the first successful aircraft flight. The company produced a vast number of the aircraft that were used in the Second World War. The building was later used by Westinghouse, but has long since been demolished.
On Elmwood Avenue in north Buffalo, not far north of Hertel Avenue, is a Home Depot. That used to be the site of one of the largest aircraft factories in the world, Consolidated Aircraft. The company eventually relocated but a manager stayed in Buffalo to start his own aircraft company. His name was Lawrence Bell.
The company was Bell Aircraft, later changed to Bell Aerospace. It's central factory was near here, adjacent to Niagara Falls Airport. Image from Google Street View.
This company did so much in the development of aircraft that it's beyond the scope of this posting to get into it here. The impact that the company had on most people was likely it's helicopters.
The suburb immediately east of Buffalo is called Cheektowaga. At first glance there is nothing special about the intersection of Union and Losson Roads. There is a McDonald's and a Tim Hortons on one side and a drug store and a plaza on the other side.
But this location, where the plaza is now located, is where civilian helicopters were born. Bell Aircraft used this then-remote place to test and develop helicopters. This sign is the only indication that anything special happened here. The first image is my photo, the second is from Google Street View.
Probably the two most familiar products of Bell are the "glass bubble" helicopter. Image from the Wikipedia article "Bell 47".
And the "Huey", so-nicknamed because it's model number was UH-1. This helicopter was everywhere during America's war in Vietnam. Variations of it are used across the world today as a general-purpose "workhorse" helicopter, both civilian and military. Image from the Wikipedia article "Bell UH-1 Iroquois.
42) THE PIERCE ARROW
Buffalo once had it's own luxury car, the Pierce Arrow. The manufacturer didn't survive the Great Depression of the 1930s but the massive building where the cars were made is still in use, on Elmwood Avenue in north Buffalo. Image from Google Earth.
The avenue on the south side of the factory complex is called Great Arrow, which was the name of one of the company's cars. Image from Google Street View.
43) THE KENNEDY CONNECTION TO BUFFALO-NIAGARA
The smokestack that is just north of the intersection of Niagara Falls Blvd and 59th St., in Niagara Falls, was part of Great Lakes Carbon, which used to occupy the site. Image from Google Street View.
The connection between this smokestack and the Kennedy Family doesn't get a lot of publicity. The company was founded by George Skakel. He would have a daughter named Ethel who would marry into the Kennedy Family, marrying Robert Kennedy. He would be assassinated while campaigning for the U.S. presidency in 1968. They had a son named Robert Kennedy Jr., who is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
44) THE FORMER WAR MEMORIAL STADIUM
What I find really interesting is how the former main sports stadium of Buffalo, War Memorial Stadium on the East Side, was demolished, but not completely demolished. The entranceways of the stadium were left standing. The site is now an athletic complex, and the entranceways are the entrances to the complex. Image from Google Earth.
45) THE CLINTON BAILEY FOOD TERMINAL
The complex of buildings at the intersection of Clinton Street and Bailey Avenue was Buffalo's main food terminal. Grocery stores today tend to be chains with their own transportation networks. This terminal was built in 1931 when most grocery stores were local and family-owned. The terminal is next to rail lines and every day tons of fresh produce would be brought in and sold by wholesalers in these buildings to local grocery stores and markets. The food was then sold to the store's customers. Image from Google Earth.
46) THE VATICAN
I think of the stretch of Main Street, from Jefferson to Dewey Avenues, as Buffalo's "Vatican", for it's historically Catholic institutions. In the following image, from Google Earth from bottom to top, the red line is Canisius University. The green dot is the former St. Vincent de Paul Church. The yellow line is Sisters of Charity Hospital. The blue line is St. Mary's School for the Deaf.
47) BUFFALO'S UNDERGROUND CREEK
We can see that Scajaquada Creek is channeled beneath the Galleria Mall, in Cheektowaga. The following image, from Google Earth, shows the creek disappearing underground as the red dot at right.
Image from Google Street View.
It then reemerges as the red dot at left in the first image. The following image from Google Street View.
But what tends to get forgotten is that Scajaquada Creek is also channeled underground across most of the city. This project was done over a century ago. The following two images, from Google Earth, shows the creek, flowing westward, has been channeled into a straight line. Then it disappears underground, as indicated by the red dot, just east of Pine Ridge Road.
In the following image of Buffalo the two red dots show where the creek is diverted underground. The dot at right shows where the creek is diverted underground, as described above. The dot at left shows where it reemerges, in Forest Lawn Cemetery. From there it flows into the Niagara River.
48) THE WATER INTAKE
Relative to most cities, Buffalo has a very visible water intake. It is the cylindrical structure, with a peaked roof, about 2 km offshore out in Lake Erie. Images from Google Street View.
A water intake should be located away from the shore so that the water will be less likely to be contaminated. The first time I saw it I presumed it to be a ship, but the next time I came by it was still in the same place.
The water intake operates by gravity. Water enters and falls down a shaft to a tunnel beneath the lake bottom. The tunnel brings the water to the Colonel Ward Pumping Station on the shore. Image from Google Earth.
This water intake system is over a century old. What remains of the original, Nineteenth Century, water intake can still be seen in the Niagara River, just north of the Peace Bridge. Three images from Google Street View.
There is still the Massachusetts Avenue Pumping Station, onshore adjacent to this original water intake.
Buffalo has two old-style masonry water towers. Water is pumped up into the towers and then gravity provides the water pressure.
The Grover Cleveland Tower is at the intersection of Bailey and Winspear Avenues. Image from Google Street View.
The Kensington Tower, at the intersection of Kensington Avenue and Grider Streets, is octagonal in form, eight-sided like a stop sign. You can see, in this image from Google Street View, that every other of the eight sides has a square near the top. That's because it was once also a clock tower.
49) THE BLACK ROCK LOCK
The Black Rock Canal, named for the section of Buffalo that was once a separate village, is separated from the Niagara River by a breakwater that runs to the Buffalo Harbor. In the following image, from Google Earth, the canal is at right. You can see how fast the current is in the river by the white plumes extending from the piers that support the Peace Bridge.
The Peace Bridge is supported by arches and piers. In the following image, from Google Street View, the arch supporting the span closest to the American shore is above the bridge, but the rest of the arches are below it. That was so ships using the Black Rock Canal could pass under the bridge. In the far distance, just below the red dot, is the cylindrical water intake structure, described in the section above. The breakwater separating the canal from the river is visible at right.
But the current in the river has to be prevented from flowing in the canal. The way that is accomplished is by the Black Rock Lock. The City of Lockport is where the Erie Canal climbs the Niagara Escarpment and is named for the locks that make that possible by raising or lowering the ship by adding or removing water from each lock. The locks in the Welland Canal also facilitate the raising or lowering of a ship because Lake Erie is at a higher level than Lake Ontario. The water in the river gets to the lower level by falling over Niagara Falls.
These two images from Google Street View show how the locks at Lockport, hence the name of the city, enable boats on the Erie Canal to climb the Niagara Escarpment. Locks are sets of double doors that hold the water back when the doors are closed. Locks are always constructed so that the weight or force of the water holds the doors shut. A ship is raised or lowered by pumping water in or out of the lock. In the second image you can see that the water is higher in the foreground and lower in the background, beyond the lock.
The Black Rock Lock, in contrast, is not about the level of the water but about preventing the current in the river from flowing through it. The following two images, from Google Earth and Street View, show that the Black Rock Lock is two doors. The doors open facing upstream in the river, so that if the current was flowing in the river it would hold the doors shut.
A boat, whichever way it is going, enters the lock through the first door, and then that door is closed before the second door is opened. This means that at least one of the doors is always closed and so the current does not flow through the canal.
The following image, from Google Earth, shows how the lock makes it possible for boats to go, from the marina at top, southward through the canal, which is between Unity Island and the mainland, without going against the current.
This image, also from Google Earth, shows the location of the Black Rock Lock, as indicated by the red dot, on a large scale. Canada is at left, America is at right, and the Peace Bridge and the beginning of Lake Erie are at the bottom.
50) FINAL POINTS OF INTEREST
In the 1960s and 1970s Buffalo had it's own version of the Beatles, a band called "The Road". When I was a child there was a song on the radio, "The Grass Looks Greener On The Other Side". When I was older The Road did live music locally, with the song " Music Man".
Another point of interest about Buffalo is that the former president of Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, was a graduate of the University of Buffalo. He was a teacher at Erie County Community College. While in Buffalo he lived on Grand Island and worked at the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority and also the Department of Transportation.
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