The Seneca Buffalo Creek Development Advisory Board today outlined a grant application process for $1 million in projects designed to boost infrastructure, landscaping, lighting and signage in areas around the downtown Buffalo casino.

The process announced today is the result of nine months of work and a series of board meetings that involved input and guidance from stakeholders such as the Seneca Nation Council; Erie County; the City of Buffalo; the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority; Seneca Gaming Corp.; the Seneca Nation Planning Department; the Old First Ward Community Association;

This story originally appeared on Views of Buffalo

Buffalo's Talking Proud campaign of the 1980s was a huge booster for the city in a time where it was bombarded nationally with negative comments, sometimes even coming from the city's own residents. It took years to develop and almost never happened, but thanks to the perseverance of Pat Donlon the long road to actually launching the campaign was a success.

The concept for the Talking Proud campaign has its

Now that 7-11 has opened its doors it's time to take a look at a few of the differences that customers can expect from the convenience store (see history). Although the company got its name from the morning to night time period that it was open, 7-11 is now open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I discovered this while driving past an Elmwood location a couple of days ago at 4:30am. I stopped in to get a cup of coffee and ended up talking with the clerk who was on duty. "I just made a fresh batch of coffee," she told

The Hotel Lafayette is two months away from opening. That means that a crew of 270 workers is showing up daily to get the historic hotel ready for businesses and residents. "We're spending $10,000,000 on restaurants inside the building," developer Rocco Termini told me. "There will be 34,000 square feet of banquet space... all totaled this is a $42,000,000 project that will be 100% operational the day that it opens. That means that the 400 seat Pan American Brewery and Dining Room will be up and running, as will Butterwood Desserts with its 40 bakers and 3000 square feet of walk-in coolers.

Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Staff Review by Carol Ann Strahl:
In this day of persistent investigative journalism, the secrecy covering President Grover Cleveland's cancer surgery on a yacht in Summer 1893 would be an almost impossible task.  This is just one of the many issues covered in this fact-filled expose.
Cleveland of course began his career in Buffalo as a young lawyer; eventually became Erie County Sheriff (the only U.S. President to ever have served as hangman), Mayor of Buffalo and New York Governor

$5 for a leaf may seem a little stiff, unless each one gets pinned on a likeness of a bare tree, hung in most Buffalo Public Schools as a fundraiser for Re-Tree WNY.

That's just what's taking place in South Park and McKinley High Schools as students compete for a $500 prize offered-up by a retired teacher.  Mr. Juris Smiltins, who taught at Buffalo Public School Erie County Health Care Center for Children #84, has issued the challenge via Re-Tree WNY to coincide with the current fundraising the charity is doing to help meet their five-year

The country's largest two-day food festival got a nice mention in the New York Post as one of the eight food festivals to attend this year. Thanks to the growing diversity in cuisines and the addition of food trucks, the Taste of Buffalo is not only a giant draw for downtown, it's also a great way to show the world that Buffalo has a unique blend of locally owned restaurants. 
...and with the addition

Aaron Bartley's writings were recently published in the Huffington Post, where he drew an interesting picture of living green in modern day rust belt cities. In the column, Bartley, Co-Founder of People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH Buffalo), talks about the successes of urban farming initiatives in Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland and Buffalo. Following is a blurb from his writings - if you are interested in seeing the article in its entirety, click here.
In

By Douglas Gibbons:
The following diagram (see below) illustrates a pattern of growth and decline that is commonplace within America's Rust Belt Cities. Overly dependent upon outdated and monopolized industries, the city of Buffalo now features an excess of structural and infrastructural waste. Unused housing stock, coupled with an excess of roads and highways, now comprise an urban shell of yesterday's economic might. 
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Posted by Members of Preservation-Ready Sites:
For those interested and committed to saving Buffalo's built environment, please consider coming to a now-scheduled rally, from 2pm-6pm today (rescheduled for 10am to 1pm on Saturday) to protest continued demolitions in Buffalo (particularly on the East Side). Located just blocks from the Medical Campus, there is no reason that the City should be destroying this valuable infrastructure when millions of dollars are being poured into medical facilities just down the street. 

The expansion of the Pierce Arrow Transportation Museum is one of those ongoing developments that we have heard about for a long time, but the details are still a little fuzzy. That's partially due to the fact that we've seen all sorts of architectural renderings, yet haven't seen much as far as the interior make-up of the museum. Up until this point the exterior design has been the flag that owner James Sandoro has been waving, while many of us have been waiting for a real glimpse into the different components of the museum. Fortunately Motor

Throughout the United States, the problem of what to do with abandoned strip malls is a serious issue. Even as developers were building these dime a dozen complexes, the next best site was right around the corner. We've seen it time and time again - communities stuck with vast unusable land and derelict properties. Some of these strip malls are smaller, consisting of a handful of businesses. But even the smaller scenarios can present major reuse dilemmas. Then there are the much larger forsaken developments, such as Buffalo's Central Park Plaza, that can scar neighborhoods indefinitely. 
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Shepley Bulfinch Richardson & Abbott of Boston, MA, one of the country's top pediatric healthcare architects, has been selected for the physician-led plan to construct a new Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus (BNMC).  The building is expected to be up to 10-stories tall and 400,000 sq.ft.  It will be located on approximately 2.3 acres of the approximately 3.7 acre block surrounded by Ellicott, High, Main, and Goodrich streets. The remainder of the block will be used for the Medical Office Building ("MOB") previously

The University at Buffalo has announced a competition to select an architecture and engineering firm to design the new UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. It will be the largest new building project in the City of Buffalo in decades and would be located at the southeast corner of Main and High streets adjacent to the light rail station.

Robert Shibley, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning, is directing the competition. He says 19 firms from North America, France, the United Kingdom,

By Michael Hargrave:
Vince Kuntz's building has been looking tired. 
476 Rhode Island is a three story brick edifice, remarkably similar to the Left Bank just one block away. The rust colored brick walls stand straight and tall, a testament to their builders. The facade is beginning to show its age though, the soft sandstone having been worn down by time and weather. The faded remnants of an old Gold Medal painted sign still adorn the eastern wall. Painted over the bottom section of the mural is some graffiti, a reminder

MEETING SUMMARY for FEBRUARY 21, 2012
Meeting highlights include: Regulation or licensing of property managers who do business in the City of Buffalo must designate a property manager, grant City of Buffalo powers to sell properties at below fair market value so that residents will be more inclined to purchase and maintain them, notification of pending home foreclosures with City Clerk will allow Council Members to take a more active role in keeping people in their homes and ensuring that homes which become vacant are adequately

Buffalo CashMob has a simple goal: to get as many people as possible to "flash mob" a local small business and spend $10-20 each. There is no discount, no coupon, freebie. 
It's the anti-Groupon, really. 
Chris Smith came up with the idea and, after launching in Buffalo, the idea spread to other cities and has received attention from the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC and other major

Planners looking for a way to rebuild a downtown neighborhood have a good model in Portland, Oregon.  Portland's Pearl District used to be an area of decrepit warehouses and parking lots.  Today, the Pearl District is the city's arts district and a coveted residential location, an award-winning leader in urban renewal.  It is also home to two full-service grocery stores.

Portland has created the model for downtown neighborhood development. Over the last twenty years, this community adjacent to downtown Portland has been transformed.  What had been an industrial

I think the intersection between the Historical Society and Knox should be the first order of business - Tim (BRO reader)
After posting on the Delaware s-curves yesterday, a BRO reader pointed out that another crucial intersection should be closely examined, and that, of course, is the land surrounding the Albright-Knox and the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society (BECHS). You will see that a couple of the significant changes come in the form of 1) removing vehicular

This story originally appeared on Views of Buffalo

The Marlowe Theater at 257 Virginia was originally built as a modest movie house in 1915 by John R. Oshei, the same man who founded the Trico Corporation. Oshei owned and built a number of other theaters throughout Buffalo including the Teck Theater which was located in the 700 block of Main Street in downtown Buffalo. The theater was named after one of Oshei's