By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
Some still waiting?
Peace Bridge, US bound cars, July 4, 1949. From a book written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bridge in 1977.
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
North and South Buffalo. The East and West Sides. But how many neighborhoods can you name that don’t fit any of those descriptions?
From the biggest geographical sections, to the dozens of micro-neighborhoods and hundreds of great intersections, each little bit of Buffalo has it’s own unique story, and many of those stories are right here.
Scroll to read more about Buffalo’s Neighborhoods or search for something specific…
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
Some still waiting?
Peace Bridge, US bound cars, July 4, 1949. From a book written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bridge in 1977.
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
Good Ol’998…
Shop and Save at Sattlers…. 998 Broadway!
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
Hunh? It’s Buffalo, but I can’t quite put my finger on what’s wrong here…
Have you figured it out yet?
The image is backwards! Here it is the right way…
Buffalo, NY – Here are dozens of beautiful photos showing downtown, areas along the Black Rock Canal that have been replaced with the 190, and photos of the Fruit Belt neighborhood devastated by the building of the 33 Expressway, great old downtown flicks, a few from the First Ward, and even some shots from “out in the country.”
These photos are mostly from 1957 & 1958.
Becky Harbison had a car trunk full of old slides rescued from the home of a relative, who obviously had a great love for some of the more interesting scenes around Buffalo in the late 50s.
Read more about William Harbison (and see a few more GREAT slide) here. We scanned in the slides, and here they are… Along with a few other slides I had laying around.
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
The B-kwik Food Markets chain was a part of the Tops Friendly Markets family.
The stores were medium sized markets, between the large Tops stores and the small Wilson Farms stores.
My grandma lived a block away from the Seneca Street b-Kwik, my dad worked there when it was Food Arena. Living in North Buffalo, I shopped often at the Hertel b-Kwik, which was bought out by Dash’s.
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
It’s hard to fathom that so many big work, pleasure, and ferrying ships were steaming in and out of Buffalo not all that long ago.
Who wouldn’t love to “cruise” from the foot of Main street!
This is the Steamer Western States in steaming into Buffalo Harbor around 1900-1910.
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
BUFFALO, NY – For the second half of the twentieth century, industry was on a steady decline in Buffalo– but it was really at it’s height when Fortune Magazine did a 10-page cover story on manufacturing and the industrial might of Buffalo and Western New York in its July 1951 issue.
The Frederick Franck painting of Buffalo’s waterfront and downtown is great by itself, but the 27 photos of humming industry, almost half in color, and the rich accompanying text show the general sense of optimism about the future of the Niagara Frontier just after World War II.
There’s even a reference to one corporation deciding to build a factory elsewhere because there just weren’t enough people looking for work in Buffalo.
Outside of a few big names, many of the mid-sized factories that came and went here are all but forgotten to the collective memory. Buffalonians often use “Bethlehem Steel and GM” as shorthand for the providers of thousands of blue collar jobs that were once plentiful in Western New York.
And while those two giants may have employed 30,000 men here at the height of it, there were more hard working Western New Yorkers punching a clock in dozens and hundreds of other smaller factories. Large corporations and mom and pop outfits.
As you’ll read below, ‘the 200,000 factory workers (of Buffalo) make everything from pig iron to pretzel benders.’ It also says that Buffalo is heavily Polish, mostly Catholic, and anti-Red.
Just like many of you, my own family history is reflected in these photos. My great-grandfather worked at Westinghouse, my grandfather scooped grain at General Mills. My father-in-law worked for Hooker Chemical.
Of course, the mere mention of Hooker is a reminder of what a truly mixed blessing the high paying jobs of dirty industry was in so many cases. Western New York became ground zero for one of the first disasters to call attention to the disposal of toxic waste. The the company was found negligent, along with the City of Niagara Falls, in what was to become known simply as ‘Love Canal.’
Enjoy this look at Buffalo’s “fascinating industrial kaleidoscope,’ and make note that the photographer on this story was Victor Jorgensen, more famed for his V-J day shot of a sailor and nurse kissing in Times Square.
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
Um, no?
The postcard company obviously put the wrong image on this 1949 postcard. The only mountains in Cheektowaga are made by the old clothes and sneakers left in the mall parking lot by Canadian shoppers.
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
BUFFALO, NY – The outpouring was amazing.
After agreeing to give a lecture at Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery about some of the city’s great retailers of the past, I was deluged with people offering up their memories, and thirsty for the memories of the stores of Buffalo’s grand old stores.
Consider this page a taste of the Golden Age of Buffalo Retailing talk that’s been seen by thousands of Western New Yorkers (and can become a part of your next meeting or event. )
Take a stroll down memory lane, and play some classic jingles while looking over some images of Buffalo’s by-gone retailers.
By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo
I found this postcard a while ago, showing two men standing in a West Side liquor store in the 1940s.
The Man on the left would become a congressman in the 60’s (Anthony Tauriello) and the man on the right would become Buffalo’s Mayor– Frank Sedita, the current DA’s grandfather.
Now that I dug out the card, I’m giving it to the Sedita family. Neat heirloom.