Buffalo Photos From the 1970s and 1980s

Hey Mike, any idea what/where about that Statler Garage seen in this and the next photo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/views_of_buffalo/8363963641/in/set-72157632476567001/

I could look at these photos all day long.

Thanks for taking the time to post. Look at the condition of the Birge Mansion jeepers!

Wow - The 70's and 80's were bad times for Buffalo.

Dig those crazy wide whitewalls on the 1970 Buick Electra in front of the Lake Hotel!

Things are better now. Perhaps looking only at the numbers one wouldn't get to that conclusion (population was higher than; Buffalo was still among the 50 biggest cities then; relative incomes were higher then; more people were in the middle class then). However, Buffalo was on a steep descent then and is no longer deteriorating at as quick of a pace, or is possibly even on a slight uptick now.
Most importantly, Buffalo wasn't leveraging its best assets then but is doing so more now (beautiful architecture and lay-out; good arts and music scene; big-city vibe at more afforable cost).

Jeez Mike - I think your father was following me around. I would have had all these pictures if I could have afforded the film back then. I wonder if they just tossed those St. Mary's windows into the trash with the rest of the building.

These look oddly familiar. I think I may have been the one who catologued them. And a few posts ran about them last fall. Glad they weren't just shoved away to never be seen again

http://www.buffalorising.com/2012/09/then-and-now-this-thing-was-golden.html

http://www.buffalorising.com/2012/09/now-and-then-allendale-too-far-gone.html

You know, you see pics even from the 50s and 60s and although Buffalo was much more crowded, it was already starting to look very tattered. Kind of like the old catskills in its heydey, still crowded, but the clientele was aging and the hotels overall were starting to struggle and become run-down. Buffalo is in much better shape in many ways now than it was back then.

Wow. I went through the later referenced 'cache of vintage Buffalo pictures' and compared each photo with the current google street view.

The one can I say regarding the buildings that are still there - boy, have we come a long way! I don't remember downtown looking that bad when I was a kid. We should be proud of how far we collectively have come.

As for the lost buildings... Well I think we all pretty much feel the same way about that subject.

Thanks for the pictures. They're great to look at. I always find this series of photos of lost Linwood Ave houses sad to look at:

http://estrip.org/articles/read/matthew/56008/Lost_Linwood_Avenue_of_Buffalo_NY.html

Chippewa at Delaware, 198?.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/views_of_buffalo/8363994029/in/set-72157632476567001

Chippeawa at Delaware, 2005.
http://i.imgur.com/EJQem.jpg

Chippewa at Delaware, 2009. Not that much different.
http://i.imgur.com/uYRrQ.jpg

Probably the worst period in Buffalo's history since it was burned in 1813. 1955 to 1985. Three polish mayors and Sedita get the rap for that. All four are responsible for the neglect, destruction, and total rundown of some of our finest buildings and city as a whole, especially downtown.

Very depressing photos of rundown boarded up buildings. Looks like Detroit. I hate to say it but Buffalo was an ugly city back then. It is amazing that some of buildings were able to survive. I myself frequented some of these businesses but I think it looks 100% better now.

Can't remember what the big painted castle like building was originally on Chippewa in the top photo. Anyone?

Anyways a fantastic post. Great for the archives.

I would have to imagine if Fishermans Wharf were there today Rocco would rescue it, instead we have the architectural wonder of Soho, but the burgers are great atleast.

Great stuff Mike! I was at the St. Mary's fire and those images bring back some memories of that day. Thanks

Buffalo isn't as transient a city as say Rochester or other cities...so its fair to say there is a special bond among Buffalonians...look at these pictures and see what they lived thru.

Downtown Buffalo was a cross between Berlin and Auschwitz after WWII

Chippewa will never reach its potential without Fisherman's Wharf and LaNova.

Look what we lived thru...for younger generations...its got to be so difficult tô wrap their mind around it All they have is the inherited memory of those who experienced it.

The great lakes were loaded with fish.. it wasn't flown in from Alaska or the Gulf. There were fishing trawlers docked in our harbor and our fish fry was the Buffalo Blue Pike. Our land was fertile.

Our neighborhoods walkable and safe...our avenues broad and richly designed. Arched like cathedrals with 100 year old Elms and Maple, Sycamore and Chestnut

Science and industry and trade flocked to our city and we held our heads high with dignity and self respect

Then we descended into incompetence and neglect and poverty as if transported to Dickensian England. Our city near death just like our extinct Buffalo Pike and apoxic lifeless lake. Even today we can see the echos of that time in the troglodytes that call themselves leaders who ontinue to provide nonsensical opportunistic corrupt decisions...that benefit the few rather tan the whole.

Great pictures. I find the one of M&T's "Midtown Branch" particularly interesting since referring to any part of Buffalo as Midtown usually ignites a series of furious comments here. Maybe with a photo of a longtime local institution using the M-word the Midtown rage will stop.

Growing up in the 1960's and early 70's I can remember was downtown was fairly vibrant and the old neighborhoods were relatively stable. The city was well into decline but still held on to many long established businesses and longtime neighborhood residents.
I think the perception of the city as gritty is due somewhat to the black and white images. I am not saying there wasn't air pollution and grime, just that the photo's tend to amplify that perception.

> I think the perception of the city as gritty is due somewhat to the black and white images

I was a child of the 1970s, and I remember Buffalo during the 1970s and early/mid 1980s as being incredibly gritty. The place just felt like the community collectively gave up, and stopped caring.

* Outside of some stretches of Delaware Avenue, there was very little in the built environment that could be considered "polished", unlike today.

* Litter, trash, and cigarette butts everywhere.

* There was very little tree cover in many neighborhoods, since Dutch Elm Disease hit hard just a decade or two earlier.

* Most older commercial buildings had minimal or no maintenance since the start of the Depression. They were caked in decades of soot, plastered with uncoordinated signage, and often subject to insensitive updates, paint jobs in hideous colors, and so on. Ground floors of many older commercial buildings were occupied, but upper floors often weren't.

* The interior of downtown's busy department stores were untouched since the 1950s, except for some drop ceilings. It was as if the owners of AM&As, Hens & Kelly, Hengerer's, and the like just stopped putting any money into their downtown stores after 1953. I remember the brass escalators of AM&As being tarnished.

* Rust. Rust was everywhere; overpasses, railroad bridges, cars, buses, factories. Thanks to improved metallurgy and use of galvanized materials, rust on cars isn't nearly as prevalent.

* Fleabag hotels, SROs, and the like were still prevalent downtown.

* Most city streets were in brutal condition. Even with the floaty four-wheeled land barges of the 1970s, drives down most city streets were jarring.

* Cheesy displays concealed vacant storefronts; piano keys along Main Street, plywood painted to look like someone is looking out behind curtains, etc.

Downtown businesses and property owners couldnt invest a dime in their property...for a very real and valid reason.

Retail follows disposable income and the high disposable incomes were all going to the suburbs. Downtown property owners were struggling with less and less disposable income to remain solvent.

By the time the 1970s came and the courts demanded forced integration of schools violating the traditional neighborhood district schools....combined with race riots...the flight from the city was epic.

The sad thing was...the ethnic urban neighborhoods were intact and diverse in income and size of business. They had what was needed for entrepreneurs, small business and most of all hiring of working age teens necessary for maturing responsible adults.

Today those same kids are more likely to be playing video games than packing groceries.

Great series of photos, and great comments too. Let me add:

1. The Statler Hotel inlucded the parking garage and the theater across the street. This formed, on three corners, an architectural coherence in an important part of downtown that is perhaps unparalled in any American city, then or now. How and why it was allowed for them to be torn down will be a shame for generations.

2. So many of the buildlings downtown were actually fairly small -- either low level, or very narrow. Perfect for small scale business when they were built, they were obsolete by the 70s and 80s. However, had they been allowed to stand, they would e perfect for downtown housing today, as well as office space for startups, non profits, restaurants and all sorts of businesses that can't pay high rental fees in modern office buildlings. IOW, the seeds of our future economic vitality are in the empty old buildlings we tore down. Too bad so many are now gone.

3. Amazing all the old movie theaters. I remember that in the 1980s, precisely at a time when we were touting a "Theater District" we tore down two major theaters ,the Century and the Teck. How insane is that? "Let's tear down the very infrastructure we want to have!"

4. I recall the old Fitch Creche -- even in the early 90s, when it was torn down, it was obviously this was a major buildling from a very early part of our history. Torn down for another surface parking lot. Ridiculous.

5. I agree retailing downtown was depressing, especially among the old line department stores. You can't put money into a building if nothing is coming in, so I don't blame them. And even in other major cities, downtown retailing just isn't there. Still, what a shame.

6. We should put together a coffee table book, "Lost Buffalo." A compendium of photos of our most amazing buildlings in they heydey now gone. It should also include photos of city streets overflowing with pedestrians. It should include some of the great neighborhoods, like Broadway -- Fillmore.

7. I agree that downtowns in America reached their peak in the 1950s. From there on end, it was decline, and we are struggling with the lack of investment and loss of good paying middle class jobs. Not sure what the answers are, but when you look at places like NYC, Chicago and Toronto, you realize that it can be reversed.

Detouring a bit – just wondering where there would be a collection of photos showing the areas that were intact before the Kensington Expressway was built.