Buffalo

Snow, the Buffalo Bills, and the gateway to Niagara Falls are just some of the things that come to mind when most people think of Buffalo. While it is true that the city is hit by at least one to four memorable snowstorms a year, Buffalo doesn't actually receive a great deal of snow compared to many other cities in New York. Buffalo is indeed a great sports town with tough professional teams, but it is also the home of Buffalo wings, beef on weck (thin-sliced roast beef and fresh horseradish on a hard roll crusted with salt and caraway seeds), and sponge candy (a confection with an airy, toffee-like center inside a chocolate shell). The city also boasts world-class architecture, a leading cancer-research institute, and one of the four research universities of the State University of New York.

The city's growth began in the early 1800s, when ships from the Great Lakes transported millions of bushels of grain from Midwest farms to Buffalo. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, connected Buffalo to Albany (and Lake Erie to the Hudson River), allowing the grain to be distributed along the East Coast, and Buffalo became known as the "Queen City on the Lake." Railroad tracks laid along the route of the Erie Canal continued the great migration of products. Laborers were needed to handle the boats, grain, and, later, the steel mills. The thousands of immigrants who came to fill those jobs brought rich ethnic diversity to the city.

Buffalo's success as a commercial crossroads resulted in a booming economy at the turn of the 20th century, and majestic mansions sprang up along Delaware Avenue, known as Millionaire Row. (It was in one of these mansions that Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated after President William McKinley's assassination in 1901.) Many ornate structures went up in downtown during these boom years, including some of the world's first skyscrapers. Among these is the steel-and-terra cotta 1896 Guaranty Building (at 28 Church St.); the 13-story building was designed by Louis H. Sullivan, who also gets credit for several other notable early skyscrapers in the United States.

The cultural scene offers great jazz and theater productions as well as art exhibitions. Resident theater companies put on a broad range of plays in the downtown theater district on Main Street not far from the waterfront. In summer, Delaware Park—one of several Buffalo parks designed by noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted—hosts free outdoor performances of Shakespeare plays.

A stretch of Elmwood Avenue is known for its record shops, boutiques, used-book stores, hip bars, and eateries, all aimed at the twentysomethings who fill Buffalo's six institutions of higher learning. The youthful feel extends along Elmwood from the historic Allentown district, at North Street, to the state college, in the 1300 block on Elmwood. Structures here are mostly two-story redbrick buildings, though there are some Victorian homes too, especially closer to Allentown.