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Cynthia Van NessCynthia Van Ness

Librarian, author of Victorian Buffalo (Western New York Wares, ©1999), president of the Preservation Coalition of Erie County, founder and creator of BuffaloResearch.com.

Favorite Activities

Walking to Broderick Park at sunset and enjoying the view of the Peace Bridge, Niagara River, Lake Erie, and Canadian shore; shopping at Buffalo's best Salvation Army (Grant & Ferry); attending festivals from Juneteenth to Infringement to Gay Pride to Garden Walk; participating in preservation activism and public affairs; tinkering with my website; biking to work almost year-round; contributing to the vibrant Buffalo blog/online culture, writing yet another opinionated essay.

6 things I love about Buffalo

Sorry. Couldn't pick one to leave out.

  1. The H.H. Richardson-designed State Hospital complex. The towers here are by no means the tallest thing in town, but they are so monumental that they seem to, well, tower over everything else, including skyscrapers twice their size.
  2. Buffalonians welcomed me as a transplant and became the finest friends I have ever had.
  3. Buffalo has some of the highest-quality Victorian neighborhoods you'll ever see, with everything from Italianates to Queen Annes, at prices that ordinary people can afford.
  4. Grain elevators. Once you take a guided boat tour around them, you'll never see them as mere concrete silos ever again. Buffalo has the world's largest collection of grain elevators.
  5. The burgeoning participatory urban culture, from guerilla gardeners to housing co-ops to Critical Mass to neighborhood reclamation projects to peace vigils.
  6. History, history, history, from Seneca Indian hunting grounds to Erie Canal terminus to progressive industrial powerhouse to President McKinley's assassination to Rosie the Riveters building WWII aircraft to economic collapse to impressive civic regeneration. It is a profoundly gripping history.

My favorite local hidden treasure you shouldn't miss

The New Phoenix Theater on Johnson Park is one of the oldest surviving performance spaces in Buffalo and was originally built as a clubhouse for women teachers in the 1880s. Not only is it the most enchanting hall in town, but the schedule regularly features original puppet productions by renowned local puppeteers.

My perfect day spent in the Buffalo area

My husband and I hop on our tandem bicycle and head to breakfast at Mythos on Elmwood, with Greek selections and inventive omelets. In Buffalo summer is rarely too hot or humid for exercising under the midday sun. Then we pedal downtown and board the Miss Buffalo for a boat tour around the Buffalo waterfront with an expert guide from the Preservation Coalition. Lunch is a minutes away at Fables Café in the Central Library, with homemade spinach gorgonzola soup. From there, it's up to Forest Lawn Cemetery, which has gentle rolling hills, ponds, streams, and some of the most over-the-top Victorian cemetery art you have ever seen. Dinner is tofu pad thai at the Saigon Café on Elmwood. If our perfect day is in June, we go to the summer concert of the magnificent 70-voice Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus. If it is July, we drop the tandem at home and walk our folding chairs to the grassy lot next to the Unitarian-Universalist Church on Elmwood for Cinema Sotto le Stelle, which offers free Italian movies under the stars.We go home thinking we live in the most magical city in America.