The downtown

Buffalo is a "rust belt city". Its best years were at the beginning - middle of the 20th century. For the past 30 years alone it has lost almost half of its population and is now below 300,000 people. The views of the downtown area remind of the city's past glory but today it is very far from being prosperous.

View from the City Hall Toward Niagara and Lafayette Squares
View South East (with the HSBC building)
The HSBC building is the tallest one in downtown Buffalo

Skyway and the HSBC arena
Skyway (the elevated highway on this photo) is beautiful, but it is considered to be an example of bad urban planning since it 1) literally leads to "nowhere", and 2) has cut the downtown area from the waterfront of Lake Erie. The HSBC arena (on the left of the photo) is the home to Buffalo Sabres.

Waterfront of Lake Erie
Despite the alleged negative effects of the Skyway, waterfront is being developed and luxury apartment are being built.

City Hall is no doubt the crown jewel of Buffalo architecture. It was completed in 1931 and is considered to be one of the finest buildings in art deco architectural style. It has 30 stores and an observation deck on the 28th floor. But it is in disrepair.

City Hall viewed from Lafayette square
Niagara Square and the City Hall

Inside the City Hall in decorated in Indian motives. It is very beautiful!
Inside City Hall
City Hall ceiling

Niagara square (in front of the City Hall) has a cute buffalo decorating it!
Buffalo on Niagara square
Niagara square from the City Hall
Niagara square from South

Main street which is a pedestrian zone with a metro car (free of charge above the ground) shuttling on it from North to South was supposed to be a bustling shopping and entertainment area. It does have a Theater district but its shopping mall is not good at all and there are too many vacant buildings. The street is virtually deserted after offices close, which makes the whole downtown look like a ghost area.
Main Street with M&T bank headquarters
The building with the golden roof is M&T bank. The tower-shaped white building protruding to the right of it is the Niagara-Mohawk (utility company) building. This building is the site for ball-dropping (a la New York City Times Square) and fire-works on the New Year Eve. Note how few people there are on the streets, and the picture was taken at about 5:00 p.m.! Note also the building with "sale or lease" notice at the right side of the picture. Too many such notices around there!
Shopping Mall
This above-the-ground passage across Main Street at the shopping mall looks beautiful, but don't expect any great shopping there! The building in the back is the HSBC building. It also hosts the Canadian consulate.

Chippewa street
This is the street where most downtown bars are located. Those are open until 4 a.m. although the mayor is currently trying to make them close at 2 a.m. My impression is that Buffalonians really like to drink! There are not too many people here before sun-set, but it is quite cool at night. It is not advisable to hang around until too late, however, since brawls and fights often happen after midnight.

And if you get too hot in downtown during summer, you can always cool off on decks and patios. Cheers!
Sky bar

Festivities

As someone wrote in Buffalo News the other day, in a city with such a long and snowy winter, "we are entitled by law to three months of summer". And Buffalonians try to make the best of those three months, which feature a lot of festivals, outdoor concerts, etc. Look how crowded the streets become during those festivities - people come from the suburbs, and all of a sudden you realize that although the population of Buffalo has shrunk to below 300,000, the greater Buffalo area (including the suburbs) is still a home to more than 1 million people! Be also on your guard during those festivities - I went to the Taste of Buffalo by bike and did not find it afterwards. The thief cut off two chains that, I was told when purchasing them, "simply could not be cut" (the thief apparently didn't know it). He was a gentleman, however, because he left my wife's bycicle which was chained together with mine.

Taste of Buffalo on Main Street
Taste of Buffalo on Lafayette Square

Taste of Buffalo is said to be the second largest in the United States after the Taste of Chicago. I was at both (at the Taste of Chicago in 2002). Yes, Chicago is much bigger (and they continue for a whole week, while Buffalo is held only for two days), but the quality of food at the Taste of Buffalo is probably higher.

Allentown is a historic neighborhood with a lot of nice houses, bars, and restaurants. It also hosts its festival, called the Allentown art festival, at which artists and artisans sell their stuff. This is also a very crowded and cheerful event.
Allentown art festival on Allen Street
Cool stuff!

Hertel Avenue in North Buffalo has a lot of antique shops and Italian restaurants. Once the bigger Taste of Buffalo even is over, it hosts its own
Italian heritage festival
Again, there is a lot of excellent food (although mostly Italian, so not as diverse as at the Taste of Buffalo festival). Although Buffalo is world-famous for its chicken wings, I think it should really be famous for its fresh clams. You can eat them raw, steamed, or casino-style, in any case they are really, really delicious! Believe me, my Japanese wife knows something about clams, and she absolutely loves them in Buffalo.
Clam stand and Matsui's T-shirt at Italian heritage festival
Although the festival is about Italian heritage, it seems that even Italian Americans have fallen in love with Japanese Godzilla!

As the summer nears its end, the festival activity becomes really hectic. One of the highlights of late August is the
Elmwood Art Festival
One of the booths
Elmwood strip, North of downtown, which hosts this festival is one of the best (if not the best) shopping and strolling area in Buffalo, and is a very popular place.
Elmwood strip
It is also home to many restaurants that are regularly featured in "the best of Buffalo" vote. For example,
Steve's clam bar
adjacent to Merlins bar serving drinks and featuring music serves what are probably the best clams and oysters in Buffalo, and their quality is not inferior to the best places I know of in New York City, London and so on. Steve is also a very colorful character, so a large part of the fun is being entertained by him while you wait for your order. Since his clam bar is in the open air, it only operates April through October, so hurry up!

There are so many other festivals going on at the same time in different parts of the city and in the suburbs at this season that it is impossible to attend them all. This year Buffalo also hosted a two-day rendez-vous of Harley-Davidson bikers during their "Ride Home" from Washington D.C. to Milwaukee celebrating the 100th anniversary of Harley-Davidson bikes. The downtown, usually deserted hosted at least 20,000 bikers from around the country and from abroad in a blistering event.
Bikes, bikes, bikes...
The average age of a Harley-Davidson biker is said to be 48 years and the average annual income $75,000.
Biker
So the event was very orderly, and the city was very happy with its economic effect.
Parade at Chippewa Street at dusk
The city organized a free live music concert in front of the City Hall (featuring Chuck Berry, among others), and also fireworks fired from the top of the Liberty Building. We just hope we won't have to wait another 100 years to have an event like this in downtown Buffalo once again!
Fireworks