My theory is a real traveler is able to contemplate curious things even in the most unlikely of places. Well, Buffalo probably hasn't made the "top voyage destinations" list for a while, but I have been doing some explore on it and I view it's high time to contemplate Buffalo, the closest American city to Toronto, just south of Niagara Falls and right over the Fort Erie border.
So my fellow voyage and architecture aficionado Shauna and I headed out early yesterday morning to make the 2 hour trek to Buffalo. We picked the Fort Erie border crossing and fortunately it wasn't very busy at all. The border crossing was categorically a reasonably pleasant feel as the border guards were in a categorically good mood and very friendly, a nice foreboding to a good day.
Bank Orchard
Approaching the city we immediately took a wrong turn and headed south on Highway 5 away from downtown. But we got to see Buffalo's waterfront, which in this area includes a few rather unspectacular marinas and some old run-down industrial buildings. We turned ourselves nearby and headed back towards the uptown area. Because the traveler data office was terminated on Sunday we figured, we'd stop in at the Hampton Inn & Suites Hotel to pick up some traveler brochures and city maps. an additional one pleasant experience: The lady at the front counter was very helpful, in case,granted us with any brochures and a printout of how to get to 2 of the most prominent architectural heritage sites in Buffalo: Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House and his other prominent Buffalo work, Graycliff Mansion.
Having parked the car on Delaware Avenue at about 10:30 am, the one thing that struck us immediately was how empty the streets were. There was virtually no pedestrian traffic at all and very few vehicles passing by. We figured it must be too early for people to be out, and we headed off into a cafeteria called "Flappy's" to develop ourselves for the day with a filling brunch. We booked our tour at the Martin House for 2 pm, so after morning meal we had about 2 hours to do a walking tour of downtown.
As we came out of the cafeteria we noticed the city had gotten a bit livelier, but not by much. We parked our car close to Niagara quadrate and started our exploration on foot. First on the program was the Buffalo City Hall, a monumental Art Deco skyscraper completed in 1931, built of orange-hued sandstone with intricate details and colourful ornamentation. An immensely impressive building. We examined all the facade details and friezes which display images linked to agriculture.
We did a limited uptown circle and covered a few categorically curious buildings. The red colour and detailed adornment of Louis Sullivan's Guaranty building categorically captured our imagination. We passed by St. Paul's Cathedral and past the trolley tracks of Main street we discovered the Elicott quadrate Building. The east entry to the building was categorically open so we went inside. This building was erected in 1896 agreeing to a compose by Daniel Burnham, one of Chicago's most predominant architects. This building is constructed nearby a large interior court covered by a glass block ceiling held up by ornamented steel girders. We commented on how similar this compose was the one of Chicago's most predominant buildings, the "Rookery", and it wasn't until this morning that I realized that both buildings were created by the same architect.
It's an amazingly impressive building with gorgeous sweeping staircases and an intricate mosaic surface the entire courtyard. From the Ellicot quadrate building we headed towards the Lafayette Hotel, a handsome red brick and white terra cotta French Renaissance-style building which was built in hope of the incredible influx of visitors at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. Due to financial difficulties, however, it was not opened until 1904. From there we checked out the general electric Tower, a handsome white Terracotta-clad buildings dating back to 1912.
The electric Tower happens to be right beside an additional one curious building: the Buffalo Savings Bank, a building manifesting Buffalo's boom of the second half of the 19th century. In the late 1890s - the peak of Buffalo's golden age - the bank held a competition for a grand new headquarters. The contest was won by Green & Wicks, Buffalo's premier turn-of-the-century architectural firm. Their compose projected stability, security, and aspiration.The building's signature highlight is the gold-leafed dome.
After the Buffalo Savings Bank we explored the Genesee building which today is the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Just as we terminated exploring that building the heavens opened up and there was a torrential downpour so we sat down in front of the Hyatt and took in the street scene. We were facing Main Street, the street that is now a pedestrian zone and accommodates Buffalo's light rail rapid transit line. One thing we consistently noticed in Buffalo was the absence of street-level stores and restaurants. In the uptown core, as a matter of fact, most of the modernist office and government buildings did not have any street level retail at all. A lot of the contemporary executive buildings in Buffalo have a rather austere and non-welcoming feeling and some of the newer buildings dating back to the 50s and later have an practically penitentiary feeling to them. The resulting scarcity of street-level store fronts combined with the utter lack of pedestrians (certainly on the weekend) categorically gives uptown Buffalo a rather eerie deserted feel, and the absence of people uptown was our most stunning impression of Buffalo. Judging from the classically styled street lamps with blooming planters, however, the city appears to have been working on beautifying the uptown core.
We started heading back to the car and passed by the Statler Hotel, which isn't categorically a hotel any more, but apparently a building full of lawyer's offices. We had a look inside the impressive lobby which features French chandeliers from the early 20th century. I took a merge of pictures, but the security guard stopped me, telling me no photography was allowed. We had a categorically curious chat after this and he commented on long-standing economic problems of Buffalo and how in his opinion, the current mayor had only made things worse. One example of the city's economic problems is that the stately ballroom of the Statler Hotel had only been recently reopened after having been terminated down since 1957. Furthermore, a former owner of the building had tried to create a food court in the basement and had opened up the main floor, but ran out of money before the food court could be built. So now you have a rather obtrusive opportunity on the ground floor with a view into an empty basement without stores or food outlets. Our local feel also commented on the reasons why uptown Buffalo was so devoid of people, and he said that all the locals did their shopping at the suburban malls and big storage stories. That, combined with the economic woes of the city, has apparently created a flight into the suburbs that has left the city's core rather lifeless on the weekend.
It was categorically quite sad to see that a city like Buffalo, which has such a great estimate of outstanding architectural heritage sites, had virtually no street life, retail or shopping opportunities in the uptown core. A lot of stores were boarded up and the few stores that were there were terminated down tight on the weekend.
Well, we had to move on to our tour of an additional one architectural jewel, Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House. Darwin Martin was a high-ranking executive with the Larkin Soap enterprise and his brother-in-law had encouraged Darwin to seek out Wright's work in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago. After familiarizing himself with Wright's work, he brought him to Buffalo in November 1902 to build a house for his sister, the Barton House, with a size of about 4000 feet, and then to build his main house, a 15,000 quadrate foot Prairie Style home, characterized by Wright's careful and consistent use of cruciform plans, piers and cantilevers, and other prairie house principles. After many years of neglect, the Martin house is now under reparation to restore it back to its traditional early 1900's authentic splendour.
Right now the building is empty and a few large photographs elucidate the former decor and furnishings. It's very illustrated that this building has been neglected for a long time and the Martin House resumption Corporation is working very hard to restore it back to its authentic 1907 characteristics, even to the degree of rebuilding the pergola and the coach house that were demolished by a former owner. The tour lasted about 90 minutes and was in case,granted by a very passionate docent and all the volunteer staff in the gift shop and the chaperone were very helpful. We even received a glass of water in the 60s style kitchen of the Martin House which will be torn out and replaced by more authentic furnishings as the reparation continues.
After the humid heat inside the Martin and Barton Houses we were glad to get surface to cool down. We drove through the Park Side East Historic District surrounding Delaware Park, a creation of the predominant scenery designer Frederick Law Olmstead, who also designed Central Park. The area nearby Delaware Park and the Forest Lawn Cemetery is a gorgeous part of the city with gorgeous mansions and manicured lawns, and this beauty is most illustrated on Millionaires' Row along Delaware Avenue. There was much more traffic and street life in this part of Buffalo, the climate was pleasant and the residential areas impressive.
We headed over closer to the Niagara River and drove along the Seaway Trail, crossed Grand Island and continued on the outskirts of Niagara Falls, Ny, right along the Niagara River towards Lewiston. The drive north of Niagara Falls to Fort Niagara State Park on Lake Ontario is gorgeous, with gorgeous old homes overlooking the Niagara River, huge trees overhanging the 2-lane country road, with well-kept properties on either side of the road. We stopped for a snack just surface the very quaint town of Lewiston, in a place called the Silo, which is right next to the river, overlooking a launch area for the high-speed boats that whisk visitors into the rapids of the Niagara Gorge. We had a lovely greasy lunch outside, enjoying the breeze (hey, you don't have to eat wholesome every day) and then continued our drive all the way to Fort Niagara State Park, admiring the villas and estates.
We had chosen to cross the border at the Queenston-Lewiston Bridge, but building work had caused confusing detours and a local New York State father and son team stopped their car when they saw us by the road, staring at the map, trying to figure out how to get to the border crossing. They rolled down the window and said they'd guide us to the bridge, which they did. We followed them for about 10 minutes through the maze of detour signs until we found the bridge and headed back over to Canada. Both of us were very impressed with the friendliness and helpfulness of the locals.
Back on the Canadian side we drove along the Niagara Parkway and stopped in the gorgeous limited hamlet of Niagara-on-the-Lake. Notl calls itself the "prettiest hamlet in Ontario", and they might just be right. The hamlet is home to beautifully maintained Victorian homes, overflowing flower baskets, souvenir shops, cafes, bed and breakfasts, as well as the predominant Shaw Festival, and for many Ontarians it is a favourite destination for a quick weekend getaway.
From Niagara-on-the-Lake we headed through vineyards and orchards to St. Catharines, and to its Port Dalhousie waterfront entertainment area, not forgetting to stop by a road-side fruit stall to buy ripe red cherries and nuclear-size apricots fresh from the tree. About 20 minutes from Notl, Port Dalhousie harbours a marina and a long pier and numerous outdoor patio restaurants, ice cream parlors, souvenir shops and other entertainment. Hundreds of people were parading along the pier, couples, parents with children, dog owners, retired folks and a very curious young lady with red hair, whose friend had given her poodle a matching-colour hairdo with the leftover hair dye.
The climate in Port Dalhousie was practically like in a Californian seafront resort town with rollerbladers, walkers, beach volleyball players, boaters and relaxed pedestrians taking a rove through the hamlet and on the pier. I did not even feel like I was in Ontario. The sun was starting to set and lake was laid out in front of us like an ocean, with no seashore illustrated on the other side. It was a gorgeous hot evening and I felt like I wanted to spend a whole week in this happening spot. But no such luck, we had to get back to Toronto after our curious girls-only excursion to Buffalo and the Niagara Peninsula.
We got to contemplate some phenomenal architectural gems, linked with the heritage of Frank Lloyd Wright, had a lovely greasy lunch right next to the Niagara River, enjoyed the hospitality and the helpfulness of the local New York State residents, and back on home territory, we hopped along the Lake Ontario seashore to enjoy fresh fruits, frozen yogurt and an amazingly relaxing late afternoon by the waterfront. It doesn't get much great than that...
Exploring Frank Lloyd Wright in Buffalo and Serenity on Lake Ontario
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