Founded as a Niagara frontier outpost in the early 1800s, Buffalo (pop. 292,648) exploded into a bustling shipping, manufacturing, and railroad center after the 1825 opening of the Erie Canal. For over a century, especially around World War I, Buffalo was the commercial and industrial linchpin between the Great Lakes, Canada, and the eastern United States. A shrinking population, and the continuing departure of many factories and corporate headquarters to warmer, cheap-labor climes, has dented Buffaloans’ self-confidence over the past several decades, but the optimistic made-in-Buffalo spirit captured so eloquently in Verlyn Klinkenborg’s portrait of Polish-American bartender Eddie Wenzek, The Last Fine Time, lives on.
A 15-minute drive from downtown up tree-lined Elmwood Avenue takes you to Buffalo’s premier attraction, the extensive collection of Picassos, de Koonings, Pollocks, and other important modern masterpieces inside the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (closed Mon.; $8; 716/882-8700). This world-class museum stands amidst the grassy expanses and ponds of Delaware Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect of New York City’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Across the road you’ll see the marble neoclassical structure that has housed the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society museum (daily; $6; 716/873-9644) since its construction in 1901 for the historic Pan-American Exposition. The non-air-conditioned gallery can be a bit stifling on hot summer afternoons, but the wonderful “Made in Buffalo” and “Dividing the Land” local manufacturing and immigration exhibits should satisfy most of your local-history thirsts.
A short walk from the Delaware Park brings you to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Darwin D. Martin House (tours $10; 716/856-3858), 125 Jewett Parkway, currently undergoing restoration but well worth a look for anyone interested in American architecture.
Between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, North Tonawanda is a tough-looking factory town concealing one of the Buffalo area’s best-kept secrets, the Herschell Carousel Factory Museum (daily in summer; $4; 716/693-1885) at 180 Thompson Street a half mile to the east of Hwy-265. Creators of much-loved landmarks at amusement parks from the Jersey Shore to Santa Monica, the barn-like factory houses a restored 1916 pulley-driven carousel and a stable of immaculately painted wooden steeds, zebras, roosters, ostriches, frogs, bears, and bulls hand-carved by the factory’s immigrant artisans for the countless carousels and kiddie rides turned out by the factory in its 1920s to 1940s heyday.
