“Buffalo….who knew?” that Forest Lawn, the cemetery located in the city proper/adjacent to Olmsted’s Delaware Park that dates back to 1849, was part of the 19th-century rural (or garden) cemetery movement.  The movement, which represented a nationwide shift inspired by Romanticism, aimed to move burials out of cramped, unsanitary city centers into beautifully landscaped, park-like settings. It was centered on three primary tenants: picturesque landscapes, art & commemoration, and public recreation. The visionary founders of Forest Lawn took inspiration from other notable garden cemeteries, including Père [...]

Until recently, I had never paid a visit to the Niagara Arts & Cultural Center (The NACC) in Niagara Falls, NY. So when I was invited to tour the facility with its executive director, Jennifer Pauly, I jumped at the opportunity. It just so happened that when I toured the massive building complex, Phase One of The NACC’s Theatre Restoration Project had been completed, including ADA accessibility, and six updated ADA toilet rooms. Both of these major restoration and adaptive [...]

“Buffalo…..who knew” that the first woman to practice architecture in the US, the first woman member of the American Institute of Architects and the first woman to be made a Fellow of the A.I.A was Buffalo’s own Louise Blanchard Bethune? Bethune, who apprenticed with esteemed Buffalo architect Richard A. Waite as of 1876, launched her own firm in 1881 and, then, another with her husband in 1891, ultimately designed approximately 180 (known) buildings in Buffalo and Western New York. While [...]

“Buffalo… who knew” that one of the city’s neighborhoods has been recognized as one of the country’s 10 best neighborhoods by the American Planning Association?  Elmwood Village, which started to take form in the post-Civil War period, was developed as a city within a park framework—in this case, Frederick Law Olmsted’s Delaware Park.  Elmwood then went into a period of decline from the 1920s until the 1990s but has experienced 20+ years of resurgence, growth, and in-migration.  Today, it represents one of the [...]