Buffalo’s downtown merchants group branches out to the ‘burbs

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.

The Downtown Retail Merchants Association was a driving force in getting shoppers downtown, making sure they stayed there and making sure they shopped in multiple stores.

In 1978, the group’s name was changed to the Western New York Retail Merchants Association, with the focus changed from keeping shoppers downtown — which was looking more and more like a lost cause in the late ’70s — to making sure that people continued to shop throughout Western New York.

The “Larkin” behind the Larkin District

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.

Except for perhaps attending a concert or food truck Tuesday in the Larkin District, most Buffalonians aren’t aware of the impact that Buffalo’s Larkin Soap Co. had on the national and world economy and the way we all shop.

While many of us remember the Sears catalog, it was John D. Larkin’s company that created many of the processes that became standard in mail-order retail and remain the basis for the systems used by Internet age mail-order retailers to this day.

Buffalo’s Western Savings Bank headquarters

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.

Known for generations as Western Savings Bank, in 1980, Western New York Savings Bank took an ad touting its history and showing off its still relatively new headquarters building on the corner of Main and Court. Today, this building has a CVS Pharmacy at street level.

M&T shows off its new Elmwood office

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.

Buffalo Savings Bank looks to the future

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.

Before the 1982 finality of the closure of Bethlehem Steel, there was hope in Buffalo surrounding the revitalization of the Theatre District, the light rail installation on Main Street, and the building going on at near the waterfront — specifically the Hilton, the WKBW-TV studios and the small boat harbor.

Buffalo Savings Bank was getting ready for the next 100 years by adding onto its classic Beaux Arts gold-domed headquarters, getting ready for what was expected to be a New Buffalo. It was also buying up other banks around the country, and later, in 1983, changed its name to Goldome Savings Bank.

Goldome became caught up in the nation’s Savings and Loan crisis. In 1991, it was sold off to M&T.

Buffalo in the 80s: Malls serve as 1980s-style general stores

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.

It was difficult to ignore the decline of downtown Buffalo shopping by 1980, and while the first pages of the special section were devoted to the names that conjured up thoughts of Main Street, the next pages talked about malls.

Oddly, and maybe with the same sort of vision problems suffered by downtown businessmen, the only actual malls mentioned (very briefly) in the story were the Thruway and Boulevard Malls. While the Eastern Hills, Main Place, Seneca and Summit Park Malls weren’t mentioned, somehow the Grant-Ferry and Broadway Market districts were lumped in with suburban shopping.

Buffalo in the 70s: ManTwo men’s (disco!) fashions

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

A man looking to look his best at Club 747 or Uncle Sam’s might have shopped at one of the three locations of ManTwo in the late ’70s and early ’80s.

This ad appeared in The News in July, 1980.

It’s probably fair to say any suit purchased at this sale, held 35 years ago this week, would now only come out for once a year for the day after Thanksgiving at the Convention Center, if ever at all.

Buffalo in the 80s: ‘The Original (Jimmy Griffin) Buffalo tie’

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Kleinhans, AM&A’s, Riverside Men’s Shop and others all sold their own version of the Buffalo ties that were popular with the men of Buffalo in the ’80s (and especially with the mayor), but few had as wide a selection as the Squire Shop on Main Street in Snyder– which was the original home of the Buffalo tie.

Thirty years ago this week, the neckwear most associated with Jimmy Griffin came in 20 different colors near Main and Harlem.

Remembering Buffalo’s first jeweler, Tanke’s, established 1857

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.

T.C. Tanke was one of Buffalo’s early prominent citizens and was one of the city’s first silversmiths in 1857. Thousands of finely crafted pieces of jewelry and silverware made their way into Western New York homes through the 131 years Tanke’s was in business downtown. The shop closed in 1989.

Buffalo in the 80s: Retailers are sold on 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.

This piece traces the history of retailing in Buffalo with names like Robert Adam and his brother JN, William Hengerer, Edward Kleinhans, Mathias Hens and Patrick Kelly.