Buffalo
Introduction
Buffalo sits in Western New York, on the eastern shore of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River, right on the border between Canada and the United States. It is the seat of Erie County, and the city anchors the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area.
That position on the water and against the Canadian border shapes the city you'll encounter: a Great Lakes port and border city whose wider region reaches out toward Niagara Falls.
Before you go
Buffalo is the cultural and economic center of Western New York, a former industrial powerhouse whose economy turned around in the early 21st century with cleaner, high-tech industries and services. The city still wears its history openly, with majestic historic buildings and sites that tell the story of its rise, fall, and resurgence. Plan your trip around the neighbourhoods and seasons rather than a single checklist: downtown has gained new vitality from converted office space and high-end apartments, while the city as a whole retains a palpable sense of its industrial past.
Buffalo has four very pronounced seasons, and what you pack depends entirely on when you go. Winter brings lake-effect snow from roughly November until Lake Erie freezes over, though the city is neither the coldest nor the snowiest in the country, and its most famous storms were not normal occurrences. Spring stays rainy and cool through the end of April, with temperatures that can swing wildly in March and April. Summer tends to be relatively comfortable and sunny, moderated by the lake. Whatever the season, expect the weather to shape your plans.
Getting there
Buffalo Niagara International Airport (BUF) serves the city along with Niagara Falls, the rest of Western New York, Northwest Pennsylvania, and Southern Ontario, and is a popular alternative to Toronto Pearson for Canadian travellers. It is served by American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest, and United, with nonstop flights to a long list of US cities including Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and Washington, plus seasonal international charters to Cancún, Montego Bay, and Punta Cana. From the airport, NFTA Metro Bus #24 — Genesee connects the terminal to Canalside and the Municipal Transportation Center; the #24B and #24L take roughly the same time, while the weekday-only #24X express runs in the morning toward the city and in the afternoon back out. Avoid boarding Bus #24A if you are returning to the airport, as its route ends at the city line. Long-distance buses also call at the airport, and all buses, NFTA and intercity alike, board at the bus lane on the east side of the terminal on the arrivals level, where Uber and Lyft pick up as well. Taxis and rental cars are found across from the terminal's main exit.
By car, the New York State Thruway (Interstate 90) links Buffalo with New York City, the Hudson Valley, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, and Rochester to the east and Erie and Cleveland to the west; it is a toll highway for most of its length, with the stretch between Exits 50 and 55 roughly covering the inner-ring suburbs, and E-ZPass or a mailed bill replaces cash payment. Interstate 190 branches from I-90 near the city line and runs into downtown before turning north along the Niagara River toward Niagara Falls and on to Canada via the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge. From Ontario, the Queen Elizabeth Way is the best approach, with the Peace Bridge at Fort Erie the most direct crossing; the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls and the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge are alternatives, and waits are usually shortest at the Peace and Rainbow bridges outside holiday weekends. Amtrak serves two stations: Buffalo-Depew, about eight miles east of the city, reachable by cab or with difficulty via NFTA Metro Bus #46 — Lancaster, and Buffalo-Exchange Street downtown, served directly by several NFTA Metro Bus routes. The Empire Service, the Maple Leaf (run with VIA Rail Canada, with border processing at Niagara Falls), and the Lake Shore Limited all call in Buffalo, though the Lake Shore Limited does not stop at Exchange Street. Intercity buses arrive at the Buffalo Metropolitan Transportation Center on Ellicott Street downtown, which is also a stop on most NFTA Metro Bus routes and the city's main taxi terminal; Adirondack Trailways, Fullington Trailways, and Greyhound all serve it, with connections from New York City, Toronto, Niagara Falls, Syracuse, Rochester, Cleveland, and points across the Southern Tier.
Getting around
For most visitors, having access to a car is extremely useful, though Buffalo's public transportation system reaches the majority of the metropolitan area. Getting around the city proper by transit is relatively hassle-free, especially on weekdays, but if you're heading to the suburbs, be prepared for infrequent service that is often non-existent on weekends.
- The NFTA operates the Metro Rail, a single-line light rail system running along Main Street from the University at Buffalo's South Campus southward to Canalside, plus an extensive bus network focused on downtown, University Station, and the Portage Road Transit Center in Niagara Falls. The northern part of the Metro Rail is underground; it emerges at the Theater District and runs at street level through downtown. Rides on a single bus or light rail vehicle cost the same regardless of length, with a surcharge on "Enhanced Express" routes, and there are no free transfers between buses, so a day pass is worth considering if you'll be switching lines.
- Several intraurban expressways are useful: the Kensington Expressway (NY 33) runs from the airport through Cheektowaga and the East Side to downtown; the Scajaquada Expressway (NY 198) links the Kensington with I-190 and is a convenient route to Parkside, the Elmwood Village, Hertel Avenue, Grant Street, Delaware Park, and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; and the Buffalo Skyway (NY 5) runs south from downtown along Lake Erie toward Gallagher Beach and Tifft Nature Preserve. Because the highway system was designed for a much larger city, congestion is mild — rush hour runs roughly 6:30AM–9AM and 4PM–6:30PM on weekdays, and even then downtown to the outer suburbs generally takes no more than 30 minutes.
- Rental cars are concentrated at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, with Hertz, Budget, and Enterprise also operating smaller facilities in the city. Zipcar members can access vehicles at various city locations and at UB's North Campus in Amherst, and Uber and Lyft both operate in Buffalo.
- Taxis can generally be dispatched quickly, but can only be hailed on the street at the airport, around the Metropolitan Transportation Center, at downtown hotels, and sometimes in Allentown, the Elmwood strip, and around the colleges.
- Buffalo lags behind other bikeable cities in dedicated bike lanes and bike parking, though the Shoreline Trail and the Scajaquada Creekside Bike Path are popular scenic routes. Reddy Bikeshare, using Social Bicycles technology, lets you reserve a GPS-equipped bike through the app or unlock one at a rack with your account number and PIN, then lock it at any Reddy rack or in a free parking zone such as Elmwood Avenue, Allen Street, or Main Street downtown.
Where to stay
Buffalo and its suburbs offer a wide range of high-quality lodging, from hotels and motels to B&Bs, hostels, and guest houses. If you stay downtown, you may find yourself in a restored Gilded Age building — many beautiful old structures have been repurposed as hotels. In the suburbs, budget and mid-priced chains cluster mainly around highway interchanges, with two especially large groups of hotels just south of the University of Buffalo's North Campus in Amherst and around the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.
- Hotel Lafayette — An architectural masterpiece in the French Renaissance Revival style on Lafayette Square in the heart of downtown. Rooms have flat-panel TVs; suites include full kitchens with refrigerator and stove. There's a restaurant, coffeeshop, two bars/lounges, banquet facilities, and complimentary breakfast.
- Lenox Hotel & Suites — The oldest continually operating hotel in Buffalo, once home to a young F. Scott Fitzgerald. The ground floor holds the Nina Freudenheim Gallery and the Lenox Grill, and upper floors have lovely views of downtown and the waterfront.
- Buffalo Marriott HarborCenter — Rooms feature flat-panel TVs, workstations, mini-fridges, coffeemakers, and irons, with panoramic views over Lake Erie or the downtown skyline. On site are a sports bar, the fine dining restaurant Panorama on Seven, a Tim Hortons, a fitness room, laundry, and dry-cleaning.
- Hyatt Regency Buffalo — On Fountain Plaza.
- The Mansion on Delaware Avenue — A luxury boutique hotel in the Sternberg House, a restored 1870 French Second Empire-style mansion near the border of Allentown and downtown. Expect butler service, fine dining, and working fireplaces in most rooms; guests have access to the Buffalo Club's Spa 388.
Food & drink
No visit to Buffalo is complete without trying wings — though around here, they're just "wings", never "Buffalo wings". The classic preparation is a chicken wing fried crisp, then tossed in a mixture of butter and hot sauce in proportions that suit your spice tolerance, and optionally finished on the grill for extra char. The debate over who serves the best is endless, but as a general rule, head to one of the city's many off-the-beaten-path corner bars. If Buffalo sauce isn't your thing, most places with wings on the menu also offer barbecue sauce, and you'll frequently come across garlic parmesan, lemon pepper, honey mustard, and "Italian style" (breaded and smothered in marinara). For something truly unique, head to South Buffalo, which has its own homegrown style of wings.
Beyond the wing, Buffalo has its own slate of specialties. Beef on weck layers slow-roasted beef on a kümmelweck roll topped with caraway seeds and Kosher salt, traditionally garnished with horseradish; Schwabl's in West Seneca and Charlie the Butcher have the best reputation for it. Texas hots — a hot dog with mustard, onions, and spicy meat sauce or chili — began in the area's Greek restaurants. Chiavetta chicken is marinated in garlic and cider vinegar, broiled on a charcoal grill, and found at church lawn fetes, fire department cookouts, and the Erie County Fair. Fish fry, a legacy of the area's Catholic heritage, is a beer-battered haddock or cod filet served with tartar sauce and lemon, best enjoyed at smaller neighborhood watering holes and greasy spoons, with especially long lines during Lent. Chicken finger subs and the stinger sub (a steak hoagie plus chicken fingers, invented at Jim's Steakout) are local staples, and Burmese cuisine is popular thanks to the West Side's immigrant community, with the West Side Bazaar and Sun among the best-known purveyors.
For sweets, look for sponge candy — a brown sugar and corn syrup toffee with a crunchy latticed interior, covered in chocolate — at any local candy shop. The Mexican sundae tops vanilla ice cream with hot fudge, whipped cream, and skin-on Spanish peanuts, available at walk-up stands in summer. The Charlie Chaplin combines shredded coconut and chopped cashews in melted chocolate over marshmallow, and pastry hearts, or angel wings, are a specialty of the local Polish community. Loganberry, a sweet dark purple soft drink, is a Buffalo institution; Aunt Rosie's is the best-known brand, available at local soda fountains, while Johnnie Ryan is the bottled option for a souvenir.
Every neighborhood has its own restaurant character: head downtown for fine dining, to the Elmwood Village for Greek diners and sports bars, to Allentown for late-night "drunk food", to Hertel for homestyle Italian, and to the East Side for barbecue and soul food. For Asian cuisine, look to the West Side or the quasi-Chinatown in Amherst between the two UB campuses.
What to see and do
Buffalo packs a surprising amount of culture for a city its size, and much of it looks backward at the region's past. The Buffalo History Museum holds the most extensive collection of artifacts relating to Buffalo and Western New York from pre-Columbian times onward, with particular attention to the Pan-American Exposition, and it occupies a building constructed for that 1901 event. Maritime history gets its due at the Lower Lakes Marine Historical Society Museum, housed in a former ship chandlery and devoted to the Great Lakes shipping trade. Jazz has its own shrine at the Colored Musicians' Club Museum, a storied club founded in 1918 that still hosts live music alongside exhibits on jazz in Buffalo. The Nash House Museum preserves the home of Rev. Dr. J. Edward Nash, chronicling the city's African-American community and showcasing the wood-frame "Buffalo doubles" built here by the thousands. Car buffs gravitate to the Buffalo Transportation Pierce-Arrow Museum, with its antique autos and a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed filling station, while the Buffalo Fire Historical Society Museum displays antique fire trucks and fire department history. For art, head to the Museum District at the north end of the Elmwood Village, home to the city's two largest galleries. The Albright-Knox Art Gallery holds a premier collection of modern and contemporary art — impressionist, cubist, surrealist, abstract expressionist and pop works among them — inside a Neoclassical building modeled on the Erechtheion in Athens, and it also sends out an Art Truck for hands-on artmaking around town. The Burchfield Penney Art Center focuses on local and regional artists, anchored by the world's most extensive collection of paintings by watercolorist Charles Burchfield. Smaller storefront galleries cluster in Allentown, the Theater District and along Hertel Avenue, with emerging scenes on the Lower West Side, in Grant-Amherst, and on the 500 Block of Main Street. The Buffalo Religious Arts Center, in the former St. Francis Xavier church in Black Rock, displays religious art salvaged from closed places of worship. Outdoors, Buffalo rewards you in the warm months, when locals pour into the streets on the first nice day after the long, bleak winter; autumn is crisp and fragrant, with fallen leaves underfoot. The city holds over 200 parks, the finest designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as an interconnected network of large parks and smaller green spaces joined by tree-lined parkways modeled on Parisian boulevards — the oldest and one of the best-preserved Olmsted systems anywhere. Delaware Park is its central node, with a grassy meadow, thick stands of trees, Hoy Lake and the Buffalo Zoo. South Park resembles Delaware Park in miniature.When to go
Buffalo has four pronounced seasons, and each one shapes a different kind of trip. Early winter brings cold winds off Lake Erie and heavy lake-effect snow, usually from about November until the lake freezes in January; snowfall is substantial over the season, though extreme blizzards are not the norm, and only a handful of days each year drop to bitterly cold extremes. Spring stays cool and rainy through the end of April, and March and April swing wildly — snow one day, mild spring warmth the next. Summer is the most reliable season: relatively comfortable and sunny, with Lake Erie moderating the heat, and typical daytime conditions warm rather than oppressive, though occasional sweltering days do arrive.
Fall is warm and beautiful, often staying warm enough through October, with warm days, cool nights, and the first frost typically well after Halloween. The many trees in and around the city make it a good time for leaf viewing. If you want the sunniest, most comfortable weather, aim for summer; if you want color and mild days, aim for autumn.
Festivals & events
Buffalo's festival calendar fills the summer months. The Buffalo Greek Fest arrives in June, followed by the Buffalo Infringement Festival in July, an event that spreads performances and creative work across the city. In August, the Jack Craft Fair brings makers and their wares together.
Three days in Buffalo
Day one: Start by getting your bearings in Buffalo itself, then follow the water north. The Niagara River runs out of Lake Erie and carries you toward Niagara Falls, where Canada sits just across the water. Keep the pace easy on your first day and let the scale of the Great Lakes settle in.
Day two: Give the day to the river and the falls. The Canadian side is a short crossing away, and the falls themselves are the obvious anchor of any trip through Western New York. If you would rather stay on the American side, the shoreline and the river corridor still reward a slow wander.
Day three: Use your last day for the city before you fly out. Buffalo Niagara International Airport, known as BUF, handles the region, with American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Southwest and United among the carriers, and connections through Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Detroit and Las Vegas. Travelers also reach the area from Toronto Pearson, Northwest Pennsylvania and Southern Ontario. Plan around the season: winter is bitterly cold and snowy, November can already bite, while spring from March into April thaws slowly and summer turns warm and humid. Whatever the weather, build in slack for the drive to the airport.