Walking Tour of Buffalo 2006: The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader"

Let No Man Scare You


Lately there has been an organized effort to memorialize Buffalo's abolition/civil rights movement. While still in the development stage, prospects look promising.

The Michigan Avenue Baptist Church

It may not look like much now, but for countless numbers of people this was the last stop on the Underground Railroad. The hiding place still exists inside (it wasn't open the day of the picture).

Reverend for over sixty years, Dr. Nash lived at this house on what is now Nash Street. It is currently being converted into a museum and park.





This building is nearby.



I'm not totally sure, but I think this old lyceum used to house the Albright Gallery in the 1800s. Either way it's a pretty cool building.

The Market Arcade entrance

The Market Arcade lobby

Walking Tour of Buffalo 2006: The Lost World

Stanislaw Lem, RIP


A Spanish-American War statue, with the Electric Building in the background

The inside of the Electric Building is closed for renovations but I snuck a pic of the lobby

The inside of the Ellicott Square building, once the largest office building in the world.

Floor detail

Door detail

Entrance detail. So many bloody details . . .

The Guaranty Building was one of the world's first skyscrapers. On this day I finally decided to go inside.

Outside, some terra cotta patterns

Inside, the cafe

Stairs. On the left are the elevator cages, which didn't come out well in the next picture



More outdoors details

County Hall security took my camera so I couldn't get any indoors pictures here. This is where the public viewed President McKinley when he died. When struck by lightning, this clock tower conducts over 1.21 jigowatts of electricity.

Walking Tour of Buffalo 2006

Leprechauns Invade Alabama


Last week I took a walking around downtown Buffalo, which I recommend everyone in Western New York should do. My first stop was the old Goldome building, now run by M&T. They have a sizeable collection of old toy banks. Who ever thought this one was amusing?

Or THIS one?

The dome, fitted with signs of the Zodiac

This is how you can tell the building is old

Outdoors



Don't do what I did and take pictures of the teller lines. They'll ask you to leave.

The Holy Jell-O Bowl of Antioch

Ketchup Pitchers Too

Pin All Your Romantic Hopes on Google


Lincoln Parkway in Buffalo has some fancy-pants houses. While it may not look like it, this building cost the modern equivalent of $10 million. The sun was awfully bright that day, eh?

I took a lot of these pictures so I could look up what the little details were but I haven't done it yet. I think all the stuff around the windows are made from terra cotta, and the windows themselves from a rare material known as "glass".

Buffalo has prime examples of every era of American architecture dating back to colonial days. For more information you'll just have to take a summer tour.

"Beaux-arts" design

"Birdhouse of Death" chimneys

Examples in redundancy: a tour group of tour guides, and someone taking a picture of someone taking a picture.

MEANWHILE, my Spam alter-ego "Fred Schrode" is now a member of the AARP. At 25 years of age, I must be the youngest AARP in the organization's history. The card isn't exactly legit until I pay a membership fee, but I'm still going to try it out at McDonald's and the movie theater.

Misty (floor) and Hannah (chair). In case you're wondering, Scott is cheaper than Puffs.

Tim came into town and took the family out to dinner. Here's Marg (right) and Tim (left) not knowing the best times to swallow or move their head, respectively.

Big Jer and his pythons (left); Hannah and her big mug (right)

Then I went to the arena with Joe and his uncle. Here's the newly dedicated Pat LalalalalalalaFontaine banner.

The flash/my hand's impersonation of the inside of your eyelids.

A goal in progress

A local tribe tries to end the Sabres' losing streak

Ketchup Pitchers

Search for MP3s using Google


Oh, that silly Dave! He just can't eat his sushi with those chopsticks! That's our Dave! [laugh track]

At this point in time Joe was mad at me. But as long as there's a record deal we'll always be friends. Dave still can't use those chopsticks!

The new background to my laptop

This metallic "book" of Buffalo's history is currently on display in Capen Hall at UB. I first saw it a couple years ago at the International Airport.

One of the pages. Note the Michigan Avenue Baptist Church (left) as I'll refer to it in a later post. And on your unit test.

I just liked the lighting. I took this at about 8 in the morning on a Saturday, during Spring Break, because I somehow thought the library would be open and learned the hard way that it wasn't.

I'm part of a group of volunteers that will give tours of the Albright-Knox grounds this summer, so I took some pictures during a training walk-through. More importantly, here's a squirrel protecting his nuts from the Christ Child.

The newest outdoor installation. It's bright colors and horizontal stripes are supposed to contrast against the building and generally cheese you off.

Hoyt Lake and Delaware Park, near the Casino

The morning I took this, a shirtless jogger was running in between all of the columns singing 80s punk songs at the top of his lungs. So here's a picture of a chubby guy. He was easier to take a picture of because he didn't move.

The Rose Garden isn't much to look at during winter.

Pretty flowers.

These are caryatids; statues acting as columns. Fun fact: the portico these are on was supposed to be marble but the gallery ran out of money. Not a fun fact: I once heard a 8-minute discussion on how to pronounce and spell "caryatid".

The new, 44-year old addition, made by an architect named Bunshaft. That's a great name to say: Bunshaft. BUN-shaft. BUN-SHAFT.
"Shut yo' mouth!" "Just talkin' about Bunshaft." "We can dig it."
Can you tell I didn't get to sleep last night?