Friday, July 22, 2016

Of politics, baseball and murder at the fair - part four



Buffalo, where even the pawnbrokers have shut up shop. That for many years was the impression of what was happening - a kind of mini-Detroit spiralling into an economic black hole. 


A powerhouse at the turn of the 20th Century, the city claims to have been the birthplace of the grain elevator. Wheat flowed through the port and onto the world. Its proximity to Niagara and early, cheap electricity made Buffalo the ‘City of Light’. Steel production and manufacturing brought great wealth.



In 1896, Ellicot Square was the world’s largest office building.


That same year the Guaranty Building opened. It was one of the first steel skeleton skyscrapers in the United States. 


The building’s security guard - a splendid Buffalo ambassador - hands me a descriptive pamphlet and proudly points out some of the lobby features.

Who worked in these buildings? Perhaps better to ask who owned them. 




Buffalo has some truly impressive mansions, although many - at least downtown - are now occupied by prosperous law firms, an American art form.


The beaux-arts Buffalo Savings Bank welcomed mansion-owners (and others) in 1901, same year as the Pan-American Exposition. The roof tiles are gilded with gold leaf. 



The Rand Building debuted in 1929. Its ‘stepped back’ style may have influenced the Empire State Building' s design. 


Buffalo’s stunning, 1932 deco city hall faces onto a monument honouring the assassinated President McKinley. Although opened in the Great Depression, this building says ‘we’re tops’. If they’d only known.


Getting inside means a (polite) security check as thorough as an airport’s, but well worth it. Just look at this mural depicting city hall’s construction.


Unlike Toronto, too cheap to keep our city hall’s observation level open, visitors are encouraged to go to the top - and there’s Canada on the far side of the water. 

I eavesdrop on other tourists.

‘Is that Canada?“

‘Really?’

‘No!’

‘Never been to Canada’ (in tone of some disinterest).

But back to important matters. Buffalo wasn’t just stylish and monumental buildings.


The Pierce-Arrow, one of the most elegant and expensive cars, was made in Buffalo for decades. That is, until it folded in 1938.



A wander out to the city’s north end and I stare at the factory’s sad, mostly empty remains. But for a solitary passerby, I seem to be the only one around.


Across the street, a bar sign displays the company’s hood ornament, a stylized archer. The bar's deserted.


However, Buffalo's Pierce-Arrow Museum, a short walk from downtown, is just one sign of many that the city’s on a modest rebound. 

Frank Lloyd Wright created a number of Buffalo area structures. But his 1927 concept for a filling station was only seen when completed two years ago. 



In many ways impractical (gravity fed gas pumps were made from glass), its modern realization is, nonetheless, a delight. 


So, to revert for a minute, everything went wrong for Buffalo from the 1950s on: transportation patterns changed; traditional industries shut; jobs moved south away from the snow; the middle class fled and population declined; city revenues dropped; there were race riots and crime soared. Buffalo became one of the poorest cities in the country.


Down the street from my resurrected, upscale hotel, signs from what was Buffalo’s premier department store tell the story. 




Adam, Meldrum & Anderson’s, destination of choice for generations of Canadians looking for American goodies, was forced to call it a day.



Downtown became scary. Canadians and Americans went shopping and eating and clubbing elsewhere. 

But - and this is a story for another time - Buffalo’s staged a remarkable comeback. It still has enormous economic and social problems, however, in much of the city there is some hope - even realization - of a modest revival. And, for the visitor, this city can be a treasure. Thanks, Buffalo.


My blog ends at Ted’s Hot Dogs. I had wanted to get to the restaurant that delivered pizza and wings to President Bill Clinton’s Air Force One, but that must be on another visit.

Ted’s opened in 1927 and is known for charcoal-grilled hot dogs. Buffalo claims to be the home of this treat and they’re something of a cultural institution.

I order my first - and probably last - foot-long hotdog and a chocolate milkshake - yum!


I scan The Buffalo News (headline: 'Things have to change'). The first of the two political conventions is over.

In my country, as elsewhere, there is an undoubted, at times reluctant, fascination in the road to the White House. And be it Canada or the far side of the world, there is certainly no escape from the consequences of U.S. politics - past and present. As I have been reminded here in Buffalo.

Okay, let's get this hotdog down and head for the train.