Buffalo, Then and Now (1902-2011)

[Evergrey]

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/art...1902-2011/716/

Buffalo, Then and Now (1902-2011)

Mark Byrnes
1:52 PM ET

There were few better cities in America than Buffalo in 1902. The city installed America's first electric street lights, one of the world's first skyscrapers (Guaranty Building, 1894) and the world's largest office building (Ellicott Square, 1896). Fresh off of hosting the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition, the City of Light was cutting edge.

Time has not served Buffalo well since. Fighting rapid population loss and economic stagnation, the city's attempts to revitalize itself have resulted in swaths of surface parking and clusters of vapid office towers that impede on its radial street grid. We pulled sections from this 1902 map via the Library of Congress and compared it to current satellite imagery to see just how much has changed.


This section of downtown still has a few structures from the early 20th century. But it has also lost a lot to surface parking. A minor league baseball stadium and the city's tallest structure now occupy this area as well.

...


What was once a dense cluster of manufacturing and housing has turned into an urban prairie. This transition is repeated through much of the city's East Side.

..


This section of downtown is dominated by elevated roadways and surface lots but was once a vibrant cluster of rail and canal-based transit.

...

[Chicago103]

Buffalo is one of those cities that deserved better, there is still interesting things to see there architecturally but it is really a shell of it's former self. I did see one intact neighborhood in the link that looked interesting,

[ssiguy]

Hard to beleive that Buffalo was once larger than Toronto and Torontonians use to go to Buffalo for "a good time".

[Kingofthehill]

thoroughly heartbreaking. it is hard to imagine that this was once one of our nation's premier cities, yet now it is a place you rarely hear about, and is one that has largely disappeared from the american psyche. i hope the suburbs that flourished at the expense of once-great cities, such as buffalo, are happy.

[Dylan Leblanc]

that's a really good set of comparison images!

[LSyd]

sad...and most cities in the US are like this unfortunately.

at least there's one image in the article where things haven't changed much.

-

[mhays]

Many, not most. Every single one has made giant mistakes and many have lost population (*), but not to the same extent. *Losing population is easy when average family sizes shrink dramatically...staying even requires a big influx of new units.

[Centropolis]

A lot of cities have made mistakes like Buffalo, but some have been able or willing to build out of them. Chicago has been able to build out of a hell of a lot of mistakes. A lot of the 19th and early 20th century powerhouses panicked at the site of creeping blight and had or had access to the resources to (rather foolhardily) demolish it, but not to rebuild. By that time they were quickly sliding down the back side of the power curve, and who knows if that much could have been avoided in this violently whimsical America, the way cities continue to boom and bust.

[north 42]

It looks like Buffalo and Detroit are and were very similar to eachother, long gone glory days to post industrial rustbelt cities. Hopefully both cities can reinvent themselves and once again experience a rennaissance like other cities have been able to do, like Pittsburgh.

[urbanlife]

All of those Great Lakes cities were destined to become huge metropolises.

[Private Dick]

Originally Posted by north 42

It looks like Buffalo and Detroit are and were very similar to eachother, long gone glory days to post industrial rustbelt cities. Hopefully both cities can reinvent themselves and once again experience a rennaissance like other cities have been able to do, like Pittsburgh.

And I hope Pittsburgh can too! I've lived here for the past ten years and lemme tell you, this latest Pittsburgh "renaissance" is hardly what it is cracked up to be. It's far from days of wine and roses here.


Cool, but depressing comparison photos of Buffalo.

[Albicaulis]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

All of those Great Lakes cities were destined to become huge metropolises.

Quote from "The earth and it's inhabitants" by Elisee Reclus, 1890

"Port Arthur [one of the forerunners to modern-day Thundr Bay] is complacently called by its inhabitants the 'Future Chicago' of Canada"

How wrong they were.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

All of those Great Lakes cities were destined to become huge metropolises.

3 of them did: chicago, toronto & detroit.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Kingofthehill

thoroughly heartbreaking. it is hard to imagine that this was once one of our nation's premier cities, yet now it is a place you rarely hear about, and is one that has largely disappeared from the american psyche. i hope the suburbs that flourished at the expense of once-great cities, such as buffalo, are happy.

Word. Totally agree. It's shameful really.

[simms3_redux]

Frightening. Sure all American cities have destroyed themselves to a degree, but none it seems quite to the same degree as Buffalo. I am fortunate to have been to Buffalo, and it will probably have been my only visit by the time my life is over. Sad.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

3 of them did: chicago, toronto & detroit.

Plus, arguably when the City of Cleveland contained 900,000 souls inside city limits @ the 1930 census, that was a pretty damn big city for the time too. In the top ten for 80 years.

[s.p.hansen]

I don't always shed tears browsing SkyscraperPage

But when I do, the topic is always about the sacking of Pre War American density

[Dylan Leblanc]

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

Plus, arguably when the City of Cleveland contained 900,000 souls inside city limits @ the 1930 census, that was a pretty damn big city for the time too. In the top ten for 80 years.

I think that was one of the main problems... Cities were overcrowded, filthy and hectic. For many, many families the new suburban concept mustve felt like a godsend. Only in hindsight do we see what a mess razing entire city neighborhoods for expressways out to these generally soulless suburbs and the death of all the dense shopping districts and city vibrancy becomes so clear and awful.

[TarHeelJ]