Buffalo’s Pop Culture Heritage 72 - Buffalo Stories Archives & Blog

Buffalo in the ’50s: ‘Gorgeous George’ arrives in Buffalo, perfumes his room

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Sixty-five years ago, wrestling was treated like a legitimate sport on the pages of The News, with the comings and goings of wrestlers and blow-by-blow details of the matches detailed in words and photos. It was also covered live on Buffalo’s only TV station, The News’ Channel 4, as well as on radio stations, including WBEN.

What can only be described as the entrance of “Hollywood’s perfumed and marcelled wrestling orchid” Gorgeous George into Buffalo and his eventual defeat of Maurice “The Angel” Tillet were right there with Bisons news from Offermann Stadium.

The review of the match was written by Hall of Fame writer Cy Kritzer — who was best known for his nearly 40 years as The News’ main baseball writer.

Way before rotary dials or even party lines: The History of Telephones in Buffalo

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thirty-five years ago this week, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper’s starting a daily edition.

In the special section called One Hundred Years of Finance and Commerce, The News recounted the history of a handful of Buffalo’s financial and commercial industries and provided ad space for many companies involved in those industries to tout their own contributions.

In 2015, if we think at all about “the old days” and telephones, perhaps we think of phones that were actually wired to the wall. Or, saints preserve us, the tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat of the rotary dial.

And in 2015, it’s a bit difficult to fathom that for most of the history of the telephone, you picked up a receiver and spoke with an operator. Of course 35 years ago, there were plenty more people who remembered those days … and that’s what this piece is about.

Buffalo in the 20s: The Buffalo Stock Exchange opened only months before the market crashed

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thirty-five years ago this week, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper’s starting a daily edition.

Among the many industries in which Buffalo was a nationwide leader was finance.

Just like in steel and milling among dozens of others, before the Great Depression Buffalo was one of America’s top five cities for finance. The Buffalo Stock Exchange even opened its doors in celebration, marking Buffalo’s advancing place in the world of finance.

That open came in May 1929 — only months before the stock market crash that ushered in the Great Depression.

The elegance of Pitt Petri

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thirty-five years ago this week, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper’s starting a daily edition.

Pitt Petri’s history as one of the warmly remembered shops of the upscale Delaware Avenue shopping district was recounted elsewhere in the special section.

The reason Pitt Petri is better remembered that most of the other shops on Delaware is probably two-fold. First, Pitt Petri opened a branch store in Williamsville. Second, Pitt Petri was the final survivor out of the dozens of shops from a bygone era.

The small storefront next to the Buffalo Club was the last heritage retailer standing when it closed in 2011.

Buffalo in the 80s: Typical office shows typewriter and a ‘work-saving’ computer

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thirty-five years ago this week, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper’s starting a daily edition.

Radio Shack’s TRS-80, this ad implies, “works hard to save you money.”

For many business people in 1980, having a computer in the office still sounded more like science fiction than a solid business plan, especially when the computer offered here was offered for $8,766. In 2015 dollars, according to a government inflation calculator, that equals about a $25,000 investment.

Buffalo in the 80s: Some WNYers still expecting the shipping industry to return

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thirty-five years ago this month, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper’s starting a daily edition.

By 1980, the port of Buffalo was obviously and irrevocably in decline, along with the grain, steel and lumber industries that the port once supported.

While the port was gasping, it was still alive — and this piece looks at would it would have taken to breathe new life into Buffalo’s lakes freight industry.

Buffalo in the 50s: The opening of Thruway Plaza

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thirty-five years ago this month, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper starting a daily edition.

Easily the forerunner of indoor mall shopping in Western New York, the Thruway Plaza opened in 1952, a decade before Buffalo’s first covered mall, the Bouvelard Mall, opened its doors.

Thruway Plaza was enclosed to become Thruway Mall in 1974, but the shopping center fell on hard times when it began losing shoppers and tenants to the Walden Galleria Mall, only a mile away, starting in 1989.

Celebrating the glory of EM Statler in Buffalo

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thirty-five years ago this month, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper’s starting a daily edition.

Ellsworth Statler came to Buffalo in 1896 to open a restaurant in the world’s largest office building, the Ellicott Square Building. His first hotel was temporary — it was built one block from the Pan-American Exposition.

His second hotel was built in 1908, and a photo of it is shown with the article. The building was still standing in 1980 at the corner of Washington and Swan streets, but it was torn down to make way for Coca-Cola Field.

Of course, the most famous of his hotels in Buffalo, the grand Statler on Niagara Square, was built in 1923. This article deals with the ups and downs of this last address.

The Knoxes, Rands and Diebolds — the big names in Buffalo banking

Thirty-five years ago this month, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper’s starting a daily edition.

In the special section called One Hundred Years of Finance and Commerce, The News recounted the history of a handful of Buffalo’s financial and commercial industries, and provided ad space for many companies involved in those industries to tout their own contributions.

Buffalo’s wealthiest and most philanthropic families through most of the 20th century were in change of Buffalo’s banks. Each was known for its pop-culture contributions to Buffalo as well.

The grandfather of the founder of the Sabres, Seymour Knox Sr., was credited with building Marine (later Marine Midland) Bank into a modern giant. It was Seymour Knox II’s love of art and patronage that saved the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, know now, of course, as the Albright-Knox.

The Rand and Diebold families made their wealth in banking — but they were also well known in the broadcasting world.

It’s an old, probably apocryphal story that the call letters of Buffalo’s first successful commercial radio station — WGR — were selected in homage to George Rand, an early financier of the station. It’s more likely that the call letters were randomly assigned and the Rand reference was a happy coincidence.

The Diebolds were influential in early television in Buffalo, helping to bring the financial backing of Western Savings Bank to a handful of stations in the 1950s.

Buffalo in the 80s: The Big E offers Visa

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thirty-five years ago this month, The News began celebrating the 100th anniversary of the paper’s starting a daily edition.

Probably because it was fun to say, Buffalonians who were around remember well the Big E, even if they don’t remember Erie County Savings Bank. Just like Buffalo Savings Bank, which became Goldome in the ’80s, the Big E started buying up other banks around the country and changed its name to Empire of America.

Also like Buffalo Savings Bank, Empire was bought out and out of business by 1990 as savings and loan institutions around the country faltered.