What They're Saying About Buffalo
Quotable Media Coverage
“The City of Good Neighbours long ago shook off its rust-belt image and is undergoing a cultural renaissance.”
- National Post
“Although gazing lovingly back to one’s glory days can often impede forward progress, Buffalo has discovered that mining a treasure trove of top-notch classical American architecture can be a cornerstone in the re-branding process.”
- Building Magazine
“The city's faded glory, its gritty history, and its brave aspirations I found irresistible.”
- Newark Star Ledger
“While some communities struggle to save one or two landmark buildings, the city of Buffalo has summoned the will and the resources to preserve and restore an architectural heritage that has at its heart some of the most important names in early American architecture”
- Building Magazine
“Buffalo is a city of endless, calorie-laden food choices, offbeat museums, quirky neighborhoods and some early-20th-century architectural gems..”
- Delta Sky
“After decades of decline, the rust-belt city — with its forgotten landmarks, funky restaurants and bohemian boutiques — has now become a hip destination for those in the know.”
- Toronto Star
“You may know it simply as the home of the Buffalo chicken wing, but it harbors all kinds of surprises.”
- Frommer’s New York State
“Western New York is home to some unique characters, unusual museums, and strange foods that are fun to check out.”
- Frommer’s New York State
“I’ve spent much of my adult life in pursuit of the latest and greatest culinary trends…so it may surprise some to see the blue-collar likes of Buffalo on my short list of America’s greatest food cities.”
- Spirit Magazine
“This is a city that is truly a mecca, and it’s an unknown mecca, The quality of architecture, and the diversity of architecture, is so astonishing, really.”
- Daniel Libeskind (as told to the Buffalo News)
“Imagine a neighborhood garden tour where every house on the block is on the tour. So many people want to see the gardens — thousands, actually — that parking spaces are in demand and the sidewalks filled. Imagine low-income gardeners on the tour who speak not a word of English but who gesture excitedly at the outrageous tropical shrub they smuggled in from Vietnam, and who employ a kind of universal gardener’s sign language that says, “Would you like a cutting?” to their well-heeled suburban visitors. Imagine a garden tour that charges no fees or ticket prices, runs on a modest budget and still has money left over to give beautification grants to community groups to help further its mission. Oh, and it’s so popular that it sells a slick coffee-table book and a DVD documenting its success...Garden Walk Buffalo takes place on the last weekend of July, and this year more than 260 gardens participated. Based on the number of maps distributed, organizers estimate that more than 40,000 people descend on Garden Walk every year.”
- San Francisco Chronicle
“Before the Buffalo-Atlanta game Friday night, a Bills employee, a nice gal in the end zone, told me, ‘Hey, give the Spot a chance.'
What? Turns out ‘SPoT’ is a coffee shop across the street from Starbucks on Delaware Avenue downtown. I went Saturday morning at 7. What a gem! The latte was creamy, with superb espresso, good and dark. I knew I shouldn't have done this, but I had to try the fresh blackberry bear claw. Real blackberries, whole ones. Wow. And the most hospitable thing in the comfy place: Two hours of free Internet service. Starbucks whacks you for the T-Mobile hotspot charge, $6.99 for an hour, $9.99 for the day. Nice atmosphere in the SPoT. I'll be back.”
- Peter King, SI.com
"In my line of work, it doesn't get any better than this. To come up here and in one day see the best of Upjohn, Sullivan, Richardson, Wright, Saarinen and Olmsted -- nowhere else, nowhere else in the United States, with the possible exception of Chicago, do you see the rich array of 19th and 20th century architecture that you have here in Buffalo."
- Richard Moe, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation (as told to The Buffalo News)
"The problem with vacations is that they're always too short, yet for five days this last week, I think I died and went to angler's heaven. Each year, my wife Cindy and I take turns picking one particular vacationing area in North America, and this year she chose a smallmouth bass fishing adventure that landed us in Buffalo, N.Y. and Lake Erie...Our total count for the three days we fished had to be close to 275 smallmouth bass plus the odd assorted species we also landed. What a fishery! Huge smallmouth bass only minutes from the dock and they bit with a wild abandon that, while I wouldn't call it easy, anyone with an ounce of fish sense could catch. Talk about fun -- we had it and we're already planning to go back next year."
- Bakersfield Californian
"The Bacon show - a difficult and challenging examination of a highly important Modern artist - comes as a powerful reaffirmation of the Albright-Knox's essential role as a champion of art from European Post-Impressionism to the present day.
No other museum in the region, including Cleveland's, can match its depth in that particular area, which means if you want to understand the art of the recent past, a reasonably short drive to Buffalo is essential."
- The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Music lovers and fans of Gothic Revival architecture have a new reason to visit Buffalo, the hometown of the punk folk-singer Ani DiFranco. Ms. DiFranco recently raised $10 million to buy and restore a Victorian church, which has been converted to house a performance hall, offices for her recording company, Righteous Babe Records, and an arts center.”
- The New York Times
“Depending on where you look while at the Darwin D. Martin house complex, you get impressions of three completely different things: an archaeological ruin, a 1904 construction site, or a well-preserved historic home. Rest assured that they’re all worth the two-hour drive to Buffalo.”
- The Globe and Mail
“Against all odds – crumbling and vanished buildings, a transformed landscape and a daunting price tag to make it all right again – this lakeside city 14 years ago dared to think the unthinkable and do the undoable. The result? The restoration of the Darwin D. Martin House and the miraculous regeneration of its outbuildings, an expansive Frank Lloyd Wright-designed estate long given up for gone. Driven by a desire to make their city a must-see stop on the architectural tourism trail, Buffalonians raised $35 million in public and private funds to revive one of Mr. Wright’s most important early houses and resurrect its long-demolished pergola, conservatory and carriage house.”
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“The folks who dismiss the city’s blue-collar charm have never experienced all that Buffalo has to offer. From the world-class collection of modern art at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, to it pristine Olmsted-designed park system, to the art deco masterpiece that is City Hall, the Nickel City has always been, for lack of a better word, underrated.”
- Spirit Magazine
"Few places in America measure up to the waters around Buffalo, N.Y., for variety and quality of fishing. Within a few minutes drive of the bustling downtown, fisherman can work the sprawling Lake Erie waterfront for smallmouth bass and walleyes; fish in the picturesque Niagara River for smallies, walleyes, trout and salmon; or tap nearby Lake Ontario for the same species. The proximity of these three diverse waterways affords Buffalo-area anglers the opportunity to catch fish in virtually any weather 12 months of the year."
- Outdoor Life
"The Albright-Knox is, of course, justly celebrated for its modern and contemporary collections -- only MoMA outshines it in terms of quality and depth."
- The Financial Times
Multimedia presentation and related articles from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"If architecture crystallizes a moment in time, the clock is doing strange and wonderful things at Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin D. Martin House. It's running backward and forward at the same time. Recognized globally as a masterpiece of Wright's pivotal, early 20th-century Prairie Style, the Martin House is undergoing a long, loving and expensive restoration and reconstruction."
- Cleveland Plain Dealer
"I'm not into a Disneyland kind of experience. I like the real thing, and Buffalo has the real thing."
- Randy Duchaine, photographer, Spirit Magazine
"Elbert Hubbard was a Gilded Age original, his eccentricities exaggerated by a Dutchboy haircut and ubiquitous floppy tie. He believed in women's suffrage, free speech, equal opportunity and big business. He spoke out against alcohol, capital punishment, censorship, child labor, religious superstition and distinctions of class.
Hubbard left his distinctive mark on a workshop of handmade goods called the Roycrofters, a throwback to medieval guilds and reaction against the mechanization of the industrial age. Hiring boys and girls from the farms around East Aurora, N.Y., 18 miles from Buffalo, Hubbard printed books and published three of his own magazines. He also produced high-quality copperware and small amounts of furniture, ceramics and leather goods."
- Forbes
"From Buffalo to Big Horn, wonderful treasures await in overlooked art institutions
Almost everyone -- art aficionado or not -- has heard of the Louvre or New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, but such big, celebrated institutions hardly hold a monopoly on great art. In fact, some of this country's best art museums are ones that most people outside of art circles know little or nothing about. Take the highly respected Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y., of all unlikely places. It boasts what director Louis Grachos justifiably calls 'an almost textbook history of 20th-century art,' yet most people have never heard of it."
- Denver Post
"The Albright-Knox Art Gallery's serenely classic Greek revival bones and good, old-fashioned Beaux-Arts galleries have long been hospitable to the grandest gestures of 20th-century painting...(it) is such an elegant building that almost everything on display there looks tailor-made for the spaces."
- The Wall Street Journal
"On an afternoon's walk through downtown Buffalo, New York, an architecturally minded visitor should prepare for an accelerated heart rate. For here is beautifully restored and fastidiously maintained evidence of what happened when the City Beautiful movement waltzed with industrial prosperity. The concentration of monumental structures by the likes of Daniel Burnham, Louis Sullivan, and Carrère & Hastings-plus later twentieth-century works by Rapp & Rapp and Minoru Yamasaki-explain why historians hail the city as an architectural museum."
- Architecture Magazine
"By looking past a half-century of decline to Buffalo's gilded age, a grass-roots movement has seized on a legacy of architecture, history, and art, aiming to transform the city into a cultural destination. The restoration of a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece, the 1905 Darwin Martin House, anchors an effort to draw affluent culture-minded tourists and rebrand the city. Enough architectural gems survive from the late 1800s and early 1900s to bolster its image, said New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger. 'It's an extraordinary and, in many ways, beautiful city,' he said."
- The Boston Globe
"On a pleasant but seemingly unremarkable residential street, just a few minutes' walk from a large public park, sits the Darwin Martin House. This house has all the "Wright" stuff: the sleek horizontal lines, the soft Earth tones and the long, narrow, natural bricks. Plus an abundance of windows -- hundreds of them, some adorned with Wright's distinctive, geometrically complex "Tree of Life" pattern. Built from about 1903 to 1905, for an executive of the Larkin soap company, the house was designed by Wright when he was an up-and-coming architect. It was a sensation...Even today, it looks experimental, abstract, faintly otherworldly."
- Orlando Sentinel
"Beyond/In Western New York is giving every indication of positioning itself to morph into the major art biennial north of the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh. Notions similar to this have floated around Toronto art circles for some time now...but Buffalo simply isn't waiting for Toronto to get its act together. This is funky old Buffalo sticking it to glitzy new Toronto. Last Saturday's gala opening at the Albright-Knox, the force behind 'Beyond,' saw a good number of gallery owners, agents and curators up from New York City looking for local talent."
- Toronto Star
"Like Pittsburgh's Edgar Kaufmann, (Darwin) Martin commissioned multiple buildings from (Frank Lloyd) Wright. Unlike Kaufmann, Martin was able to build them, making Buffalo a big draw for Wright fans. Both Graycliff, built on a shale cliff overlooking Lake Erie, and the Martins' Prairie-style winter home in Buffalo are undergoing restoration as house museums."
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"It's a beautiful city, just an amazing mix of architecture and detail. Really stunning."
- Demetra Aposporos, Editor, Old House Journal
"One late night visit to Chippewa Street will erase any fading dowager image from your mind forever. Young college students fill the city with energy and fun giving it a SoHo resonance."
- Currents (Cleveland, Ohio)
"Buffalo stands apart, less homogenized than many American cities. It eats hamburgers with the rest of us, but also Ted's charcoal-grilled hot dogs and Wardynski's kielbasa, Perry's ice cream and of course Buffalo chicken wings."
- R.W. Apple, Apple's America: The Discriminating Traveler's Guide to 40 Great Cities in the United States and Canada
"The combination of intimate scale and grand painting and sculpture makesfor sophisticated ambience at the Albright-Knox."
- Toronto Life
"Elmwood Village is famous for Queen Anne and Victorian Gothic homes, and its Elmwood Avenue bustles with night spots, cafes and shops. Browsers can find everything from vintage clothing at Don Apparel to an extensive fiction selection at Talking Leaves, an independent bookstore with attitude. The cozy neighborhood features international cuisine choices of Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Caribbean and Spanish food."
- Chicago Sun-Times
"Our eyes were opened to a different Buffalo, a city that has at once become vibrant and relevant, while remaining true to its historic roots by preserving its outstanding buildings."
-Welland Tribune
"What do the Chautauqua Institution, Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft and Frank Lloyd Wright have in common? At least two things: they flourished almost side by side near Buffalo, New York, and you can visit all three today."
- Style 1900
"The time to visit is summer, when Buffalo gets a glorious payback for its snowy winters with some of the best weather in the nation - three months of mostly sunny, dry days with temperatures in the high 70's and low 80's."
- The New York Times
"For the third time in two years, I was back in Buffalo...We've developed quite a comfortable routine: Book into the reasonably-priced Hampton Inn and Suites on Delaware Avenue, which always sets out an afternoon tray of tasty cookies for its customers; have at least one good meal along bar and restaurant-lined Elmwood Avenue; and drop by the world-class Albright-Knox Art Gallery."
- The Ottawa Sun
"People go to Buffalo for the high culture of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery or the low culture of NFL football. I go for all the stuff in between."
- NOW, Toronto
"In Buffalo, we got more than our (money's) worth. In fact, part of the joy of the visit was discovering world-class attractions in a city not known as an international tourist mecca. Such as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, an impressive neoclassical structure on the edge of a park designed by the legendary Frederick Law Olmsted, also the architect of New York's Central Park. Although the setting alone is worth the visit, inside is a collection of late 19th- and 20th-century art that holds it own against almost any museum in the nation outside of New York or Chicago."
- USA Today
"Buffalo is an indigenously, intrinsically hip place."
- Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class
"In an age of cultural tourism, an age in which people are eager to find ways to explore places that are different from other places, places that do not look like the banal Anywhere is Nowhere is Everywhere of the American Interstate, Buffalo has a kind of power, the power of the authentic place."
- Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for the New Yorker
"Like the Maid of the Mist boat ride at nearby Niagara Falls, which immerses visitors in the Horseshoe Falls' spray, the Darwin Martin House immerses us in elements of nature. The horizontal thrust, low ceilings...and overpowering hearths are major elements of the 'Prairie Style.'"
- The Wall Street Journal
"I remember every meal I have ever had, and some of the best of them have been at a little chain of hot dog joints called Ted's, in the Buffalo area."
- David M. Shribman in Bon Appetit
"With its thriving medical-technology, aerospace and automotive-parts industries, sprawling State University of New York campus and burgeoning trade with Canada, Buffalo has cast off its old rust-belt image."
- The New York Times
"Buffalo -- yes, Buffalo -- is now walking proud as a hip center of arts and performances."
- The Washington Post
"Our visit to western New York's biggest city was blessed with gorgeous weather and mild temperatures, perfect for a stimulating long weekend visiting some of the nation's finest architectural landmarks and a major museum stuffed with terrific modern art."
- The Record (Bergen County, New Jersey)
"If you care about the art and architecture of the past century, a weekend in Buffalo may not be long enough for any dull moments. With cheap flights available, affordable rooms, good food, sassy weekly newspapers, uncomplicated driving, and laughably convenient parking, Modigliani admirers, at the very least, should make a plan."
- The Boston Globe
"Buffalo is a vast outdoor museum, displaying the work of many of the greatest architects of the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. The homes and public buildings they erected are often breathtaking and always interesting...The architectural treasures of Buffalo are riveting. They must be seen."
- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Looking for a place to visit over a long weekend or a busy sight-seeing tour? Want a sleeper of a location chock full of name-brand architecture, vibrant neighborhoods, and parks to die for? Try Buffalo - that's right, Buffalo, N.Y. Believe it or not, this upstate port on the shores of Lake Erie offers much more than wings, waterfalls, snowstorms and Bills. Architecturally speaking, Buffalo is one of the most diverse and sophisticated cities in the country. If you haven't been there, you don't know what you are missing."
- Old House Journal
"USA Today launched a nationwide search for a "City with Heart" - one with the energy, excitement and community fellowship that make a one-stoplight town or a swarming metropolis a treasured hometown.The people of Buffalo.managed to be simultaneously proud and humble about their world-class art, architecture and grand urban parks; a great history including two U.S. presidents; and generations of immigrants and their descendants who turn every weekend from May to October into a street festival."
- USA Today (Upon naming Buffalo "The City With Heart")
"Buffalo has an even longer history of architectural distinction than Chicago; you could do worse than to take it as a textbook for a course in modern American buildings."
- The New York Times
"The Albright-Knox Art Gallery should be on everyone's list to see, for it's an overwhelming art experience. Small, intimate, and seductive, the museum has one of the most thumping modern and contemporary collections in the world."
- Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
"Go for the festivals, but stay for the impressive array of visual arts."
- AmericanStyle Magazine (In an article ranking Buffalo the No. 8 U.S. Arts Destination)
"Our last day in Buffalo, we went to the Albright-Knox Gallery on Elmwood Avenue. This was the best thing Buffalo had to offer, even considering the wings. We wandered around the museum for hours, delighted at the whimsical, wacky artwork. We found pieces by Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichenstein, Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock."
- The Baltimore Sun
|
