New York - Day 13 - Buffalo

Evangola State Park
Sunday, 13 May 2018

Happy Mother's Day!  This was my first Mother's Day since Momma died, and I decided to go someplace she'd have been interested in: the place Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office.

In 1901, the US had just recently won the Spanish-American War and was establishing new relationships with the rest of the Americas.  To promote that, Buffalo hosted the Pan American Exposition, and President McKinley made an appearance.  He was shot there and died a few days later.  Vice-Pres. T. Roosevelt was in eastern New York on vacation with his family and took a train to Buffalo.  He took the oath of office here, in the home of a friend of his. 

That home is now a national historic site and the National Park Service offers tours, which I took.  The home became a restaurant for some years before the NPS bought it back and then restored the changes that had been made.  Fortunately, some features were the same, like the ceiling decorations and a stunning fireplace.  They were also able to track down some of the original furniture, including the desk where TR wrote the statement he issued to reassure the public.

My momma really liked TR and I'm sure she'd have liked to see this place.  They have exhibits about the issues he dealt with during his presidency, which ran from 1901 to 1909 - he filled out McKinley's term, which had just started, and then was elected to a term of his own.

The Anchor Bar

Oddly, less than 4 blocks away is another landmark of a different sort: the restaurant where buffalo wings were first created.

Sorry, I'd already started eating before I remembered to take a photo of a small order of original buffalo wings, that includes 10 wings, celery and Roquefort.  They offer choices of how hot you want them and I chose original, which they call medium, and they were just right to this Texan, though the guy next to me at the bar ordered the same thing and thought they were too hot.  I'd never had them before, but I thought these were so wonderful that I doubt any other version could measure up.

McKinley Memorial

This obelisk was erected in memory of McKinley, partly because he was very popular but probably mostly out of a sense of guilt because he was assassinated here.  It's in a circle in the center of downtown and can be seen from a long distance because the city is set up a little like Washington DC, with spokes aiming toward the center of town.

Memorial and Buffalo City Hall

City Hall

Just across the street from this memorial is city hall, an amazing example of Art Deco.  I couldn't get a good angle on it so I cribbed these photos.  It looks just stunning from almost any angle.

The town of Buffalo fronts on Lake Erie at the very tip east end of the lake, and there's a long breakwater protecting the shore from lake weather.  Oddly, the people on the radio call it a breakwall, a word I've never heard.  I don't know if Buffalonians (maybe?) use that word or if the radio person was from somewhere else and had never heard of a breakwater.