This is a scan from a 1960s Chamber of Commerce promotional brochure. I will post the cover in the near future with a few more images. It is a classic example of corny civic pride but is kind of cool anyway. I used to collect this kind of stuff and had a whole cork wall in my bedroom covered with Buffalo images clipped from various sources. I don’t have a “now” image to compare to this but I think there are enough prominent differences to find without the comparison.
The first thing that stands out is that construction is still ongoing at the Rath County Building. That means that the whole upper center of the image including the Rath, One M&T, and Main Place Tower was new, representing a radical restructuring of downtown. These new buildings would have been a point of great pride back then. I loved all these new buildings at the time but knew nothing about what had been sacrificed for this ‘progress’. I remember the Rath building being completely lit up at night – every light was left on every night. It was spectacular in a way. Apparently the original heating system made use of residual heat from the lighting system—or at least that is what I remember being told.
Note that The City Court was not yet constructed on Niagara Square. When you add the opposite block to the north, which was also used for storing cars, a full 25% of Niagara square was dedicated to parking back then. It is mind boggling to think that it was logical to dedicate any land on your main civic square to parking let alone such a high percentage.
Another major difference you can see is on Court Street. The old Denton Cottier and Daniels piano store was still standing and in business. The building was torn down soon after the store vacated the building in the 70’s. It was torn down just because and the vacant site was soon prepared for surface parking. Interestingly there is still a Denton’s music store on Dodge Road in Getzville. Also still standing directly adjacent to the Denton store was a massive parking garage built in the 60s. That was torn down some time in the 80s or 90s. Part of this site was eventually filled in with a new county court building and a narrower taller parking garage, leaving the entire strip along Court Street for car storage. The new federal court building was scheduled to be constructed on this Court Street frontage but 9/11 put a halt to those plans. New anti terror design rules prevented building Federal facilities adjacent to a parking structure. The federal courthouse was, of course, eventually built on the north-west corner of Niagara Square. The Court Street space remains an ugly surface parking lot. Carl Paladino used to promise a new building there and fought a court battle with the owner of the Main Place Mall for the right to do so. As years passed with no construction start, his plans seemed to include a smaller and smaller building. No recent plans have been announced.
Can you find any other differences?