For Buffalonians, WNYers and those from Southern Ontario: A tribune to the Aud.

Seeing the Floyd in that dark old cave must've been a trip.

 

Despite the bad rap the city gets, Buffalo has some of the most distinctive and historically important American architecture of the 20th century.

If you're an architecture buff (like I am), this is a great piece on the challenges in preserving Buffalo's architecture--and saving the city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/arts/design/16ouro.html?em

Buffalo was founded on a rich tradition of architectural experimentation. The architects who worked here were among the first to break with European traditions to create an aesthetic of their own, rooted in American ideals about individualism, commerce and social mobility. And today its grass-roots preservation movement is driven not by Disney-inspired developers but by a vibrant coalition of part-time preservationists, amateur historians and third-generation residents who have made reclaiming the city’s history a deeply personal mission.

There's so much phony "small-town" architecture and thoroughly offensive facadism around right now that it'd be nice to see the actual thing preserved.

But it's an ongoing political fight in every city where you're not only up against a lot of politicians who know squat about urban design or architecture and developers who are always trying to co-opt the preservationists.

 

[/oldschoolMISLfanboy]

 

William McKinley liked the place, until he didn't.

 

It was the Anchor's wings that did him in:

 

I've been to the McKinley Mall.

 

I believe the Hungarian for those is "Czolgosz."
It's also exactly what I say after eating one and before groping blindly for the nearest Utica Club.