The Campaign for Greater Buffalo's Open-Air Autobus is on the road again after a two-year hiatus during the pandemic. We are glad to be back and starting our LearnAboutBuffalo programming once again. To thank our members-in-good-standing for their steadfast support, we are offering them a free pair of seats for any Buffalo Whirlwind tour this summer! All others—what are you waiting for? Support preservation in Buffalo and get a 20% discount on all our tours and events!
There is no better way to learn about Buffalo than to travel around and about Buffalo with the experts of The Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture. They have the Open-Air Autobus, a mobile classroom and part of The Campaign’s Learn About Buffalo outreach— the best way to see, hear, and smell Buffalo (toasted oats, chicken wings, charcoal-grilled hot dogs!).
This year you can reserve a seat with one of our news-making experts for their personal take on Buffalo. Tim Tielman, the leading voice for preservation in Buffalo for 30 years andrecent Buffalo News Citizen of the Year. Paul McDonnell, president of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo and president-elect of the American Institute of Architects: New York. Mark Goldman, educator, historian, author, and entrepreneur. Chris Hawley, planner, Buffalonia collector, restorer and operator of Eugene Debs Hall, a classic shophouse.
The Campaign is Buffalo’s most dynamic preservation organization. Our trips reflect our character: Passionate, lively, and knowledgeable, led by experts who love exploring the world around them. Our trips are built on 30 years’ worth of architectural and historical research and help raise funds for our wide-ranging preservation work.
By doing a trip, you are doing good: The Campaign is a charitable organization chartered by the New York State Dept. of Education, and revenues are plowed directly back into local historic preservation.
The Campaign’s trips are popular, informative, well-done. Book yours or schedule a charter today!
Reserve your tour by clicking on a one of our scheduled tours on the calendar below. Have a charge card handy. Want to reserve over the phone, or something not working right? Call us at 716-854-3749. Walk-ups are always welcome, space permitting.
Reserve online by clicking on a highlighted date on the calendar below, or the button below the individual tour descriptions. You can call us for reservations at 716-854-3749 as well. You'll need a charge card handy.
The Buffalo Whirlwind
• 10:00am Saturdays and Sundays from July 2 to September 4.
• Meet at Larkin Square, Seneca & Emslie streets. Two hours, $25. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.
• Reservations: Click on calendar at top, button below, 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 trip, 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 at the Larkin Square, in the heart of the Larkin Historic District (which The Campaign created!). We proceed to the Old First Ward and its grain elevators, the Canal District (we saved it!), downtown buildings at the dawn of the Skyscraper Age, then out to the broad Victorian-Era residential districts and the foundation of American Architecture, H.H. Richardson's Buffalo State Hospital, conceived in 1870.
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 • Larkin Historic District • City Hall and Old County Hall • Theater Historic District • Bidwell, Chapin, Lincoln parkways.
The Whirlwind is an compelling two-hours with Tim Tielman, Paul McDonnell, Mark Goldman, or Chris Hawley. Entertaining experts all!
The Grand Tour
• Saturday, 10:00am September 10
• Meet at Larkin Square, Seneca and Emslie streets. $40. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.
• Reservations: Click on calendar at top, button below, or call 716-854-3749
Some people just want more: More buildings, more neighborhoods, more stories, more impressions, and more understanding of The City of Buffalo. To meet that demand, Tim Tielman will lead a special 3-hour Grand Tour that covers all the sites of our Whirlwind trip, but adds all the places we wish we could’ve shown you before with our mobile classroom the Open-Air Autobus.
Spend three hours with an expert and see:
• Lake Erie and Buffalo’s harbor defenses
• Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House compound
• Fredrrick Law Olmsted's Delaware Park
• The Linwood Historic District
The Grand Tour is also available as a charter, with lunch and a rest stop—it makes a great afternoon outing! Contact us for special pricing at 716-854-3749, or FrontDesk@ c4gb.org.
Lofty Expectations on the Belt Line
• Saturday, 10:00am September 17
• Meet at Larkin Square, Seneca and Emslie streets. $40. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.
• Reservations: Click on calendar at top, button below, or call 716-854-3749
Join Chris Hawley, The Man Who Knows Too Much Cool Stuff, as he uncovers one of Buffalo’s Hide-in-Plain-Sight secrets: The New York Central Belt Line railroad of the 1880’s, the city’s most consequential transportation project after the Erie Canal. Chris lives along the Belt Line and has just restored and occupied both parts of a classic Buffalo shophouse!
The Belt Line attracted huge industrial plants like Pierce-Arrow, Ford Motor, Larkin Soap, and, of course, the titanic NY Central Terminal itself.
See how John Larkin and Darwin Martin built a gargantuan factory complex that, building-by-building, traces the de- velopment of modern architecture. Today it is Larkinville, a new neighborhood of offices, apartments and gathering places.
See the changes to Henry Hyde’s innovative Mentholatum factory, F.N Burt’s Niagara Street and Seneca Street folding box plants, and other former factories that have been converted to lofts, restaurants, and commercial space trading on industrial appeal. Learn their stories and those of the diverse neighborhoods it traverses, Parkside, Polonia, Black Rock, and the “Yammerthal,” the stone quarries called the “Vale of Tears.” Reserve now!
Building Buffalo: Green & Wicks, Architects
• 10:00am Sunday September 18
• Meet at Larkin Square, Seneca & Emslie streets. $40. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.
• Reservations required: Click on calendar at top, button below, or call 716-854-3749
The firm of Green & Wicks (1882-1917) coincided with Buffalo's Golden Age. W.S. Wicks (1854-1919) and E.B. Green (1855-1950) were Buffalo’s most distinguished architects of the period. The firm had dozens of major commissions, many of them superb examples of their type, whether office building, hotel, apartment building or grandiose mansion. The number and quality of its commissions is staggering: Buffalo Savings Bank, The Market Arcade, half of “Millionaire’s Row,” the Twentieth Century Club, the American Radiator factory, the Marine Bank, the Albright Art Gallery, department stores, and more.
Join Campaign for Greater Buffalo president Paul McDonnell, who is also the incoming president of the American Institute of Architects: New York, to explore fine structures of wood, brick, and stone, prominently sited or tucked away on side streets, radiating charm and poise. Join Paul as he hunts down dozens of the buildings and tell the tales of the people who lived, worked, worshiped, and socialized there.
Travel anywhere around Buffalo anytime you want by chartering the Open-Air Autobus. There is no better way to learn abot Buffalo than to see, hear, smell the city. We’ve done school trips from grade 2 to graduate students, weddings, bar mitzvahs, reunions, and corporate affairs. 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