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.
M&T Bank had been keeping Buffalo’s money safe for 24 years by the time The News started its daily editions, but in 1980 the bank was solidly in growth mode — including in the Elmwood Village.
The bank’s new “Elmwood Plaza” office offered state-of-the-art bank technology as well as what they called a “mini-park.”
It’s easy to laugh at the idea of a mini-park — especially since the same bench and trees on concrete slab stand there today. But in 1980, the idea that a tree might be planted in a spot “where a car could park” likely seemed pretty radical.
