Change in plans.

 

Instead of doing Akron/Youngstown before my half-week in Cleveland I am going to Buffalo!  (probably will return to NE Ohio in January or February or March for an extended weekend to dedicate to Akron/Youngstown).

 

I will be staying at a Holiday Inn off Delaware Street just north of dowtown Buffalo near an area called "Allentown". 

 

So, anything cool to see in Buffalo (as in hipster/bohemian neighborhoods, ethnic stuff, good coffeeshops and bookstores, urban ag things, loft conversions, old industrial areas, etc etc etc ????...I think ive posted on here enough for y'all to know what I'm into....so if there is anyone here who is somewhat familiar with Buffalo.....could use some advice. 

 

 

 

 

 

  If you haven't been to nearby Lockport, I would recommend a trip there.

 

 

Elmwood is a pretty long street (based on the map).  Where on Elmwood is Elmwood Village?

Buffalo is a treat.  I HIGHLY recommend taking a drive up from downtown on Delaware Avenue and see the beautiful Olmsted neighborhood a couple miles north along Chapin and Bidwell.  Then head back down Elmwood Avenue where you'll see the entirety of Elmwood Village.  The Village itself stretches from the Art Museum to about Edward Street all along Elmwood.  There is an area just north of Allentown that's very Oregon District-ish architecturally and I'm guessing is the oldest part of Buffalo.  Taking Broadway east of downtown, you'll make a right onto Playter Street to see the old Buffalo Central Railroad thingie.  It's a treat.

 

*cough* Buffalo photo tour coming in a week *cough*

Elmwood Avenue between Downtown and the Art Museum.

ALSO, the abandoned Buffalo Central Terminal, west of downtown in a depressed neighborhood, is fascinating if you're into that sort of thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Central_Terminal

And the grain silos down by the lakefront are architecturally very cool too. http://www.pbase.com/kjosker/elevators

Thanks for the intel on stuff.  I am finding interesting things about Buffalo online, too.

 

Check out this article.  Seems that Buffalo has some sort of fregan squatter scene going on!  Tres Cool!

Does anyone know of any good bookstores and coffee shops in Buffalo?

More positive buzz on Buffalo

 

What could possibly make someone want to leave New York and move to Buffalo?

 

 

Buffalo is a frontier. And when you think of the actual frontier, you’ll recall that no one ever packed up and moved West to a gold-rush town because they heard it had really good local theater. They moved looking for opportunities. They moved for the chance to build a new life for themselves.....

 

.....what a city like Buffalo offers is a very different promise of what could be. It offers the chance to live on the cheap and start a nonprofit organization, or rent an abandoned church for $1,000 a month, or finish your album without having to hold down two temp jobs at the same time, or simply have more space and a better view and enough money left over each month to buy yourself a painting once in awhile. A city like Buffalo reminds you that, beyond New York, there are still frontiers.

 

Toledo has a brace of big reinforced concrete grain elevators on the Maumee River.  Buffalo has a bunch of reinforced concrete grain elevators on the Buffalo River.  There the similarity ends.

 

@@@

 

There is an area just north of Allentown that's very Oregon District-ish architecturally and I'm guessing is the oldest part of Buffalo.

 

Yeah, I can see what you are saying, but I see this on either side of Allen Street.  I saw a house on Tupper, I think, with a little plaque saying it was built in 1830 (this was a few blocks south of Allen)...which puts this area in the Oregon District time range, but still fairly far out from Downtown.  Which is whats' cool about Buffalo..that so much survives from the 19th century. 

 

I'm also picking up on a "Chicago" vibe with these close-in neighborhoods.  Sort of like, say, "Old Town Triangle" north of North Avenue and along Lincoln, or Wicker Park.  Maybe Pilsen.    Maybe not the extensive/continous "busy street" build out like you see in Chicago, but the tree-lined side streets, yeah sure.   

 

A neat thing is that grid shift between "Allentown" and the "West Side", making for interesting streetscapes (combined with the narrow streets).

 

 

I HIGHLY recommend taking a drive up from downtown on Delaware Avenue and see the beautiful Olmsted neighborhood a couple miles north along Chapin and Bidwell.

 

Cherokee Park area meets Grafton Hill.  Or the "Fortys"/McKinley Park area in Sacramento.  Or a touch of Ainsley Park/Piedmont Park in Atlanta.

 

The Village itself stretches from the Art Museum to about Edward Street all along Elmwood.

 

At first I thought this was ColDayMan puffing up the place.  But Noooo!!!...this is pretty amazing and unexpected given the bad press Buffalo gets.  A Bardstown Road /Frankfort Avenue -scale  strip of development...extensive.....interesting how this works as it has these intervals of residential stuff between the commercial districts.  And every commercial district is pretty much happening on Elmwood. 

 

I'm thinking Buffalo is severly underrated.  Yet, I am suprised at the seeming weakness of the live music scene here (from my superficial visit so far). 

I'm going to be working in Buffalo very soon for several months.  So I'm anticipating your photo spread of the city very soon..  My expectations of Buffalo are a smaller version of Cleveland.  But I don't think anyone has yet suggested that on this thread..

 

  As far as music, it looks to me the primary venue while I am up there will be Mohawk Place for traveling indie, punk, and hard rock bands.  They do get the big rock tours at their arenas and their Darien Lake outdoor pavilion just like Cleveland stops have.  A most excellent music website is www.pollstar.com and punch in the city and you will have a fairly good idea of what decent acts are playing. 

Buffalo IS underrated, that's for sure.

My expectations of Buffalo are a smaller version of Cleveland.

 

I don't know enough about Cleveland to make a comparison.  I can say Niagara Square is not like Public Square in Cleveland as its a bit on the "edge' of downtown, and there is another square that is more in heart of downtown.  Downtown Buffalo is hard to read.  Main Street is pretty much the main part of downtown, but the city seems to fuzz out pretty fast on either side.  Sort of spread out.  ALso, the downtown is actually on a bench or shelf and the land drops away towards the east and south and towards the lake as well.  Gentle slopes but it is noticeable.

 

Lake Erie is pretty much unwalkable from downtown.  I tried to walk there this evening to watch the sun set over the lake and encountered a zone of parking lots, freeway ramps, and modernist office developments.  Yet, further out in the neighborhoods, you can actually look down a street at see the lake horizon, see water, since the land rises to the north, and drops away towards the lake. 

 

Further east, as you drive south on the north-south streets, like Jefferson, this rise means you can see the "Edge of Applachia" off in the distance as a blue ridge.  I guess it never dawned on me how close Buffalo was to Appalachia (this was really noticeable, though, on the drive up, very scenic drive as you got long vistas over Lake Erie on one side and the Appalachian escarpment on the other).

 

There is a lot of empty storefronts on Main Street (which has a streetcar running down it, light rail, which becomes the subway), but they did, apparently, save their downtown arcade.  Seems like the northern part of this Main Street is their theatre district, which has a gay dance bar called Marcella, which is actually pretty weak compared to Masque in Dayton! (or maybe they are "over" dance bars).

 

There is this street on the northern edge of downtown called Chippewa Street which was  very busy and loud on Saturday...they call this the "Chip Strip".  Reminded me of a slightly more intense version of that Fountain Square/Walnut Street thing in Cincy, in terms of crowded bars with younger (than me) people.

 

Coffee houses are not big here.  There is only one around here (here being Allen Street area), the Spot, on that Chip Strip.  THis is a big change from, say, Cincinnati and Louisville, both of which seem to have more developed coffee cultures.  This seems to be more a drinking town. 

 

Also, seems to be a lot more "ethnic" than Cincy/Dayton...Italians are big here, and Irish.  Poles (actually "new" Poles..heard people speaking Polish and some other languages I dont recognize).  Puerto Ricans...the West Side, along the lake, is Puerto Rican. 

 

People talk "northern", too.  I heard a lot of this talk at the Anchor, birthplace of the "wings" (which is also an Italian restaurant).  I don't know.  Not used to this type of make-up after all my years in Dayton (or I realize how 'southern' Dayton really is).

 

I discovered their "Little Italy" today, on the northermost part of town.  A long busy street (Hertel?) that reminded me of the NW SIde of Chicago a bit.  Decked out for some Columbus Day thing, I think...

 

The place is just....different.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The guys I talked to at the gay bars told me Rochester is only about 1.5 hours from Buffalo.  It's tempting to do a quick road trip tomorrow, but maybe not. 

 

One guy said Rochester is more "white collar" vis "blue collar" Buffalo.  Hmm....

Go to Rochester.  You'll enjoy it.

Buffalo=good food....lots of it...not fancy but good.

Buffalo=good food....lots of it...not fancy but good.

 

Their "cups" of soup are bowls.  Largish ones. 

 

I think I gained 5 lbs my first day here.  Polish Villa in suburban Cheektowaga: Czarina "cup" of soup, kapusta, goblaki, and two sauerkraut pieorgi, + mashed potatos and gravy and a blueberry crepe for desert.  The pierogi where the normal "adult" sized ones I recall from Chicago, not the small ones you get in Dayton.

 

Then, same day for dinner, Beef on Weck with sides and the local "Flying Buffalo" beer (pretty good microbrew) on tap, at Ulriches, which is a neat old place. 

 

There are other options...had brunch at Bettys' and a pretty good vegitarian thing at Amys Place up by the university. 

 

Today, maybe, lunch at the Slovenian Country House before checking into the hotel in Cleveland.  But I am going to make a return trip to the Broadway Market before leaving town to try to find some kolcachkis.    Broadway Market is at one end of a public market continuum.  2nd Street Market or North Market are at another. 

 

 

My expectations of Buffalo are a smaller version of Cleveland.

 

On paper they might seem similar, but they are quite different. 

Its October and I'm in Buffalo.  So I'll post here...

  I've been in Buffalo for a few days now.. I'll probably post pics soon..  I'm taking a different angle than Jeffrey since I'm not running about too much with my car.  I'm trying to "live" downtown Buff without a car.  I'm staying in a hotel and walking across the street to my worksite.  So best commute of my life.  But I'm finding that Buffalo is like Akron circa 1986.  Desolate after 5:30pm.  They don't have a bum problem downtown because there is no one downtown.  I walked past the bus station the other night.  There was one person outside on their cell phone.  Probably a bus driver.  I have yet to be asked for change after walking now maybe 5 miles of downtown at day or night.

 

  My focus is mainly downtown at the present and might likely remain that way.. We'll see..  The general layout of Buffalo grid and the intermixing highway system is a total mess.  The downtown core has stifled growth with so many institutional government buildings(city, county, state, and fed) that there is barely anything else left except churches and parking garages they call ramps here.  What makes things truly baffling are all the 1 way streets.  There seem to be too many roads in the downtown core going different directions chopping up blocks and confusing drivers with 1 way rules.  It seems more like a perverse game to drive downtown to figure out the correct 1 way path to get to your destination.  You don't get much help from the lake figuring out your bearings since it can be pretty hard to see where the lake is with the highway blocking that view.  I was really surprised how even out several miles from downtown 1 way streets are still the norm.  To me it screams "locals only".  It's confusing enough being in an unfamiliar place let alone having to pay attention whether you can turn right or left at any given intersection. 

The streetcar doesn't go anywhere unless you're a student at U of Buffalo and like hockey then you may be in luck since you can take that to hockey games at HSBC arena.  Otherwise like Jeffrey said the street the streetcar is on is fairly dead. 

  The bright spot so far in my trip is Pearl Street Brewing.  Its stumbling distance to my hotel and its the oasis in downtown.  There are actually a lot of people that gather here since it really is the only place in(this part of) town...  Its a huge 4 story rustic brick place with belt driven fans on the first floor.  The 2nd floor reminds me a lot of  Southern Belle in Dayton.  Very good food and some excellent pale ales.

 

Several blocks north of downtown biz(gov?) district I found their chip strip.. It looks like 1 block of W. 6th in Cleve followed by 1 block of W9th. 

There's an art gallery and performance space near that place on Pearl.  I recall seeing flyers for some show there. 

 

Main Street in Buffalo is pretty long, and has that old Marine Midland Bank high rise to block the view, sort of like the Pan Am building in NYC.  Their light rail has that fareless square concept for the downtown running so you could traverse Main quicker.

 

But its pretty empty, too, as you note.  They could use a major clearance effort to remove all the old empty retail stuff. 

 

 

Since I was mostly on foot I didnt notice the one way streets downtown too much.  They are pretty evident out in the neighborhoods, particularly the Fruit Belt, and I think these ones are one-way because the streets are so narrow.

 

They don't have a bum problem downtown because there is no one downtown.  I walked past the bus station the other night.  There was one person outside on their cell phone.  Probably a bus driver.  I have yet to be asked for change after walking now maybe 5 miles of downtown at day or night.

 

THis is a big change from Cleveland.  Very little panhandling in Buffalo.  Cleveland has a LOT of panhandling, even compared to, say, Dayton and Cincinnati.