Buffalo: Frank Lloyd Wright Masterworks, Canal Heritage and the Wing That Conquered America
Explore the dramatically expanded AKG Museum, walk the Erie Canal western terminus at Canalside, tour Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie Style masterpiece at the Martin House, stand where Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office, taste wings at the Anchor Bar origin, and stroll the Olmsted-designed Elmwood Village.
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Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Buffalo AKG
The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, holds one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary art in the United States. The original Albright building, a 1905 Greek Revival structure designed by Edward Brodhead Green, anchors a campus that was dramatically expanded in 2023 by a 230 million dollar addition designed by OMA Architects. The AKG collection is particularly strong in Abstract Expressionism, with works by Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Franz Kline, and Clyfford Still. The museum holds one of the largest collections of works by Arshile Gorky outside Armenia. The Albright family and Knox family bequests built the collection into national significance despite Buffalo geographic and economic challenges. The 2023 renovation transformed the museum into one of the most architecturally distinctive in the country.
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Canalside and Erie Canal Heritage
Canalside, the 21-acre waterfront development along the inner harbor at the foot of Main Street, occupies the site of the western terminus of the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825 after eight years of construction, connected the Great Lakes to the Hudson River and New York Harbor, transforming Buffalo from a frontier village of 2,000 people to the ninth largest city in the United States by 1900. Canal Street and the Commercial Slip area are preserved as an archaeological site within the Canalside park. The Buffalo and Erie County Naval and Military Park, adjacent to Canalside, displays a decommissioned US Navy destroyer, submarine, and guided missile cruiser. Winter programming at Canalside includes one of the largest outdoor ice skating rinks in the northeastern United States.
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Darwin Martin House and Frank Lloyd Wright
The Darwin D. Martin House Complex on Jewett Parkway, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built between 1903 and 1905, is considered one of Wright greatest Prairie Style achievements and one of the most important residential complexes in American architectural history. The commission came from Darwin Martin, a Buffalo Larkin Soap Company executive, who became one of Wright closest friends and most important patrons. The complex includes the main house, pergola, carriage house, gardener cottage, and the Barton House, all interconnected by covered walkways. The house fell into disrepair after Martin death and was restored through a 50 million dollar campaign completed between 1992 and 2019. The interior features Wright designed furniture, art glass windows, and built-in fittings that survive in exceptional completeness.
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Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site
The Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site at 641 Delaware Avenue preserves the Ansley Wilcox Mansion where Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as the 26th President of the United States on September 14, 1901, following the assassination of President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo eight days earlier. Roosevelt was hiking in the Adirondacks when McKinley died and rushed to Buffalo by special train. The oath was administered in the Wilcox parlor in an improvised ceremony. The house, built in 1838 and substantially modified, is furnished to reflect its 1901 appearance. Roosevelt was 42 years old at his inauguration, the youngest person ever to assume the presidency. The site interprets both the assassination and the Progressive Era politics that characterized Roosevelt presidency.
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Buffalo Chicken Wings Origin Story
The Buffalo chicken wing was invented at the Anchor Bar at 1047 Main Street, owned by Teressa and Frank Bellissimo, on October 30, 1964. The most commonly told account holds that Teressa coated chicken wings in hot sauce and butter as a late-night snack for her son Dominic and his friends. The wings were an immediate success and within years had spread across the region and then the country. The Anchor Bar still operates and serves the original recipe. The National Buffalo Wing Festival, held annually in Buffalo since 2002, draws over 70,000 visitors and participants from across the country competing to eat and make wings. Buffalo Wing sauce, a blend of hot sauce and butter, has become one of the most recognizable American condiment flavor profiles in the world and appears on menus from fast food chains to fine dining restaurants.
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Elmwood Village and Cultural Corridor
The Elmwood Village, running along Elmwood Avenue from North Street to Bidwell Parkway, is consistently rated one of the best urban neighborhoods in the United States by national livability rankings for its combination of walkable independent shops, Victorian housing stock, street trees, and cultural institutions. The neighborhood contains over 200 independent businesses including one of the densest concentrations of independent bookstores and record shops in upstate New York. The Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State University focuses exclusively on art connected to western New York, with the largest collection of works by Charles Burchfield, a painter of visionary watercolors depicting nature and small-town American life, in the world. Bidwell Parkway, one of the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed boulevards connecting Buffalo parks, terminates at the southern end of the Elmwood Village.