Taking a Buffalo tour on the Open-Air Autobus is THE way to explore Buffalo!

Hi Gang, check out our tours for Summer 2017: Our ever-popular Whirlwind Tour and our new Picturesque Buffalo Tour.

All the details are below, and you can download the pdfs, pass them along to friends, or print them out! 

Reserve online by clicking the button below, or call us for reservations at 716-854-3749.

Download 2017 Picturesque Buffalo tour

Download 2017 Buffalo Whirlwind

 

Buffalo Whirlwind tour

 

Open-Air Autobus: See, hear, smell the city with passionate experts!

There is simply no better way to see Buffalo and grasp what it is all about than a tour on the Open-Air Autobus. 2017 is our 11th season. It really is the best way to get around and see, hear, and smell Buffalo (ahh, toasted oats, chicken wings, charcoal-grilled hot dogs!). Peeling off the roof of our custom bus gives full visibility for everyone: up, around, and across.

Open-Air Autobus tours are built on 30 years’ worth of architectural and historical research by members of The Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture in the course of preservation activities. The tours enhance our educational mission and help cover the costs of wide-ranging preservation work.

The Campaign is Buffalo’s most dynamic preservation organization. Our tours reflect our character: Passionate, lively, and knowledgeable. Five-star reviews: People rave about us on TripAdvisor.

The Campaign’s tours are popular, informative, well-done. We are the go-to organization for the general public and experts alike. To recap: Experts aboard; full visibility, one-of-a-kind bus; great reviews; and, you help save Buffalo's heritage!

By doing a tour, you are doing good: We are a charitable organization chartered by the New York State Dept. of Education. Revenues are plowed directly back into local historic preservation.

The Buffalo Whirlwind Tour

 

• 10:00am Saturdays & Sundays July 1 - September 3.

• Meet at Elmwood & Potomac Aves. $25. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.

• Reservations: Click on button above or call 716-854-3749

There are few places you can see buildings by America’s Big Three architects— Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and H.H. Richardson— plus a park system by Frederick Law Olmsted. Buffalo is one of them.

On this tour, besides the master works by the Masters, you’ll see scores of other beautiful buildings and houses by prominent national and international architects and the streets and neighborhoods where Buffalonians carry on their everyday lives.

We start with the foundation of modern Buffalo, and modern urban America: The building and grounds of what was the Buffalo State Hospital, designed by H.H. Richardson and Frederick Law Olmsted, conceived in 1870. We end with the Heath House by Frank Lloyd Wright of 1904.

In between, you’ll see world-altering industrial architecture, the preening mansions of Delaware Avenue, and the prototype for the skyscraper, Sullivan’s Guaranty Building. We’ll put it all in context for you, as we point out dozens of buildings as markers of Buffalo’s progress through the years.

You’ll see:

• Kleinhans Music Hall • First Presbyterian Church • Ellicott Square by Daniel Burnham & Co. • St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral by Richard Upjohn • The Canal District • Niagara & Lafayette squares • Millionaires’ Row • Allentown Historic District • Delaware Historic District • City Hall and Old County Hall • Theater Historic District • Bidwell, Chapin, Lincoln parkways

The Whirlwind tour is an astounding 90-minute tour of a great American city, given by the passionate experts of The Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture.

 

The Picturesque Buffalo Tour

 

• 12:00 noon Saturdays & Sundays July 1 - Sept. 3

• Meet at Elmwood & Potomac Aves. $20. 

• Discounts for groups of 10 or more.

• Reservations: Click on button above or call 716-854-3749

Buffalo’s development wasn’t all about bare-knuckled capitalism, political turpitude, and pell-mell growth. Fun as that was, the sense that the city needed some civic grace came to the fore after the Civil War. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designers of Central Park in New York, were brought in. They conceived a system of expansive parkland and parkways with residential areas of curving streets.

It was capital-P-Picturesque, for the movement that shaped England from the late 18th century onward. Olmsted envisioned the neighborhood of Parkside, built by others a generation later, just as the Arts and Crafts movement was peaking, and wonderful examples of the style line the streets by the dozen.

Buffalo was left a legacy which pays dividends to this day. Enjoy a 60-minute ride through Buffalo’s most beguiling precincts and see how artistic principals were integrated with urban planning and domestic architecture. Delaware Park, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House, and Craftsmen bungalows highlight this tour given by the capital-P Passionate Experts of The Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture.

Charter the Open-Air Autobus!

Tour anywhere around Buffalo anytime you want by chartering the Open-Air Autobus. There is no better way to see, hear, smell the city. We’ve done tours for students from grade 2 to graduate students, weddings, bar mitzvahs, reunions, and corporations. You get a ride like no other and expert commentary from the passionate pros of The Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture. We know our stuff!

• 46-person capacity • See-thru, roll-down rain fly • $700 for up to two hours with expert commentary; longer tours available • About $15 per person at capacity • $400 for up to three hours for bus & driver only • Take a walking tour with same top-notch experts: $200 for 2 hrs. for up to 20 people; $10 ea. add’l. Call now: 716-854-3749