Light up the night

Looks as though the City of Buffalo is looking into lighting up the grain elevators on the outskirts of the city to showcase the city of Buffalo. I think this is an excellent idea. Look how much improved the peace bridge being lit up is. It's amazing what a few small things can do to improve the look of the area.

Plus, i think it would make the overall skyline more interesting. Anything like this near the waterfront s an absolute improvement.

Also talked about was 3 proposals for the Memorial auditorium site. A childs interactive museum, a firefighters museum, and a great lakes interactive experience. If i only could choose one of these, i would pick the childrens museum for sure, maybe even lure the science museum down to the waterfront and create a fully interactive science/childrens museum that would bring familes and mass to the area. With concerts, restaraunts, the erie canal, and more down there, its becoming quite a family friendly destination!

-bob z

Covering the Kensington?

Extremely interesting article on The Buffalo News about a propsal from a local group to cover over the kensington expressway and, essentially, make a park on top of it.

Its an exceptionally intersting, and expensive, idea that i think is worthy some preliminary exploration. It would certainly help the science museum and the neighboring housing.

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article754336.ece

Do you love to fly, and does it show?

Delta airlines in coming to Buffalo, with routes from Laguardia airport, increases out daily passenger haul by %60.

Well this might not seem like a big deal, increases traffic between Buffalo and the largest city in the US can mean nothing but good things. WIth more visitors to each community, and more business being able to be conducted, it's another in a long line of positive steps for the region.

The winds, they are a blowin'

Good news for clean energy in the region. 4 More wind turbines are up in the Hamburg/Lackawana area, bringing the total to 14 power generating wind turbines. The new ones are 410 feet tall, more than twice the size of Niagara Falls, and trail on the HSBC buidling in terms of hieght in the area.

With the 14 turbines, about 10,000 WNY homes can be powered by wind.

These have also been placed on brownsfield sites, which are unusable by most standards for any other sort of use because of toxicity in the soil, so we're creating energy from area's that were ruined, partially by old forms of energy, if thats not a success story, i don't know what is.

And lastly, i know this isn't the most well agreed with statement, but i think theyre beautiful to look at. Im not sure what it is about them, but theyre like Steel flowers blowing in the wind (i know how cheesey that sounds), and i love to stare at them as much as possible.

What I Miss about Buffalo, Part III

There are former Buffalonians all over the United States, and one of the common things I've noticed is how much they miss certain aspects of Buffalo. This is a series I've started from Ex-Pats on what they miss most about Buffalo, in their own words:

Danielle now lives in Ohio, and here's what she misses about Buffalo, NY (Click here for posts from Margot Lane and Chris Nathan)

Good food, scenery and hockey are some of the things I miss about buffalo the most. You never realize what you have till you decide to move 6 hours away to an area that has no good scenic views, terrible food and a hockey team that is still considered to be in the infant stages compared to the Buffalo Sabers. The best thing to do was being downtown and either watching the Sabres play at the arena or watching the game on TV at the penalty box with great friends!! Didn't matter if the won or lost, the Sabres will always be the best team in the NHL.

What goes hand in hand with a great hockey team? Food!! I miss buffalo food more then anything!! Where to start?? Real pizza from Master Market! Delicious subs from John & Marys, Louie’s hot dogs and Anchor Bar wings are some of the places I miss the most. You can’t find food that good anywhere but Buffalo. Fish fry’s, beef on weck, hot dogs, bison chip dip, and loganberry!!! This list could go on and on. My husband grew up in Ohio and has come home to Buffalo a few times with me and can not get over on how amazing the food is! Another amazing feature of Buffalo is the view! To be able to look at a beautiful lake everyday that you drive in and out of the city is amazing. Doesn’t matter if its middle of summer or middle of winter, its something that makes Buffalo the city it is. I really miss swimming, fishing and boating. The view of the lake all the way down the magical Rt. 5. The soothing sounds of moving water. You never realize how wonderful a place is until you leave it all behind.

Donovan Building/Canalside bringing in a Marriot International

Exciting news (if your a Buffalo Revival nerd like me), Benderson development and the Canalside project have announced that a Marriot Hotel will be filling floors 1-4 in the soon to be remodled DOnovan Buidling, right outside the heart of the new canalside, and only a block away from First Niagara Center.

This is a bigger deal than just a regular old hotel opening downtown, mostly because of location. Its proximity to the arena, with dozens of concerts, NCAA Final Fours, Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bandits home games, and much more, is excellent, and with canalside slowly becoming a destination (with childrens experience museum, solar powered carousel, resteraunts, Erie Canal replica, winter skating, all in the works) this is exciting to being tourist mass downtown.

MOre from (you guessed it) the Buffalo News.
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/communities/downtown/article731556.ece

Historical reuse

Buffalo has been doing an excellent job recently of rehabilitating old building into mixed use/apartment building. With more young professionals looking to move into the downtown cooridoor, this has made sense.

Which makes it exciting to see that an old hotel from the 1890's on Johnson Park, and registered as a National Histoic Building, will be turned into 42 market rate and above apartments within the next year or so, bringing more much needed mass to downtown. I'm also excited personally because this is in a block near my house which has needed to be renovated for a couple years.

More from The Buffalo News

http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article731301.ece

Some Winter Pictures

Here are a couple new pictures that i have taken of the The city of Buffalo. Hope you enjoy!

Historical Society. Buffalo NY

Electric Building, Buffalo NY

Its all about the (one billion dollars worth of) Benjamins

So governor Andrew Cuomo has promised the City of Buffalo, and the western new york region, one billion dollars in state funding from the capital, similar to how the Albany area lured the nano technology private sector to the albany area.

Exciting times indeed. And before i get any inevitable comments about how we should be giving that money back to the taxpayers and not spending it, I hear what your saying, but public works and private investment is something that this area desperately needs, and this is the opportunity of a lifetime.

Along with the $100 million the western new york area won in the competition between the 9 different areas of new york, and there are some real funds available to further the advancement of downtown buffalo. Links to The Buffalo News articles touching on more of this to follow, but your friendly neighborhood blogger has gotta run!

Even if the sports have gotten you down.

What a difference a few months make.... The Bills did end up, in fact, tanking it, and the Sabres, after a great start in Europe, have imploded...

None of this is going to bring the great city of Buffalo, NY down though, because progress is moving in on the waterfront. The recent announcement that a market will be coming to the site of the old Aud site is exciting enough, but even more exciting is the children's interactive museum that has been proposed down on the canal side. With.... (wait for it, wait for it)

A solar powered mary-go-round! Right? how perfect is a children's hands on experience, next to the naval park, with the canal side, the unearthed erie canal and the beautiful bridge. It is indeed exciting times for downtown Buffalo.