Stressed by
the thought of filling you holiday gift list? Relieve that stress by
giving a little Buffalo to your friends and family. You can do that with
a plethora of recent publications focusing on the history, architecture and
life style of Western New York. I love books, and I especially love books about Buffalo. When I was young there was a tremendous dearth of written
material on Buffalo, and today we have a tremendous variety of Buffalonia
available in print.
The newest
of these publications titled Frozen Assets:The Beautiful Truth About
Western New York’s Fourth Season is published by Buffalo Heritage
Unlimited and authored by Mark D.
Donnelley PhD. It will be launched at a public reception Saturday,
November 21, from 6PM to 8PM, at the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Admission
to the gallery will be free during the reception. Frozen Assets is a fun
and appreciative look at Buffalo’s most difficult to appreciate season, Winter.
It is filled with fun facts, insights and winter poetry, and is
illustrated by some wonderful winter photography. It is a reminder that
winter can be very beautiful if you give it a chance. The book’s Facebook
page notes that it “is meant to transform its readers into full-throated
weather evangelists.”
Dr.
Donnelley is not new to the WNY publishing scene. He also recently
release another photo book by the same publisher titled Fine Art of Capturing
Buffalo. This book illustrates the delights of life in WNY through
many beautiful color images accompanied by brief text. Chapters have
titles such as Parks and Gardens, Arts&Cultural, Architecture, and Fairs and Festivals, among others.
AUDieu:
Buffalo Says Goodbye to the Aud should be a big seller this year. It
is also by the prodigious Buffalo Heritage Unlimited. It was authored by
Susan K. Taylor also known as the Aud Broad. The book web site notes that
she was the official photographer of the Aud demolition. The book
documents the Buffalo War Memorial Auditorium from its construction in 1938 to
its recent demise in 2009, showing memorable events such as the “Mayday
Game” and a concert by The Grateful Dead. The book also has many
demolition photos including a time lapse, flip-book series. Check out the
Buffalo Heritage Unlimited website for many other WNY
titles including Buffalo Garden Walk, Oakland Place, and Classic Buffalo: A
Heritage of Distinguished Architecture.
Not to be
confused with the previous publisher Western New York Heritage Press, publisher of Western New York
Herritage magazine, also has several WNY centric publications. Most
interesting to me is the recent reprint of Beautiful Homes of Buffalo
which I wrote about here. This book was originally released in
the 1930s, and it documents Buffalo’s collection of grand homes with
references to its great families of wealth. Anyone interested in Buffalo
heritage will love this one. Western New York Heritage press has several
other titles as well as photo reprints, posters, and historic image note cards.
Last but not
least, many know that I also have my own Buffalo publication in print. It
is titled Buffalo: Architecture in the American Forgotten Land. This book is a richly
illustrated photographic documentation of Buffalo’s tremendous architectural
collection. It is intended to focus attention on Buffalo’s under appreciated wealth of great buildings. To the best of my knowledge the book
documents buffalo’s built environment more comprehensively than any other
publication past or present. You can get it at select local stores and at the Blurb website.
The gift of
Buffalo this season will certainly be a hit and all of these books can be
purchased form the comfort of your own home if you so Choose.