Downtown Buffalo 1963

[@jimfesta8981]

Was born in Buffalo and we left when I was 7 years old. Wished we had never left.

[@thomasm9139]

I was 6 years old in 1963 living in Buffalo's West Side. Moved down South in 1969 and missed it so much, didn't return until 1990 for my grandmother's funeral. Visited the old neighborhood and it was sad to see how much it went down hill from where it was safe for 5 and 6 year old kids to play outside all day, walk to school but not anymore for sure.

[@thomas45081]

Weird, I was born in january 1956, about same age, and stayed awhile on Maryland St which is West Buffalo I was told, but moved to Las Vegas shortly after. I live in Dallas today ... loved this old video of Buffalo though

[@JustBree716]

@@thomas45081 i lived in the mariner towers from 80-1990. Went to school ps18❤much love

[@jimfesta8981]

You're right about how it was. In the 1950s my younger brother and I would go outside and play all day. We walked to PS 78 and my parents never had to worry.

[@nancywhite2014]

Wow! What a blast from the past! I was born in Buffalo and worked downtown at the General Donavan building across from the Memorial Auditorium. After 40+ years for NYSDOT, I am now retired. Many buildings still exist but have changed ownership and names.

[@hodgeelmwood8677]

Neisners! I still miss that store to this day. Great video!

[@thomas45081]

I can remember when the Deco was 24 hours and buying home fries with gravy in there, which was a fav ... today I live in Dallas, but this was some good memories

[@NCVBflo]

Excellent footage. Thanks for posting. Cool to see how the city has changed in 55 years, some good and some bad. I wish we hadn't demolished so many historic places back then.

[@catlover34fl]

Especially the Erie County Savings Bank building. Unique and beautiful architecture. I was sick when they destroyed that building.

[@r.pres.4121]

Back when Buffalo was a proud, prosperous though grimy city of over 500,000 population.

[@MLZ1957]

What a different time that was. I currently live in Buffalo, man has it changed.

[@kennethlong4103]

This video makes me even more proud of my home city; so vibrant and vital in those days. Amazing!!

[@wmb1951]

wow this is awesome... would love to see more of this type of film...!!

[@lindadigesare9429]

I was a freshman in high school then. Loved going downtown to shop using my Mom's Charge-A-Plate. Great to see all the ladies with hats on!

[@chasbodaniels1744]

Haha, “Mom’s Magic Charge-a-Plate”!! IIRC, it was a lightweight metal credit card in a cardboard sleeve. The physically embossed numbers and letters would print 2-3 copies of a receipt when inserted into a countertop device when the salesperson pressed down on the lever (ka-chunk)! So cool to see Mom buy something without actual cash. (I’d just finished 6th grade at the fairly-new Maple Road Elementary in Amherst.)

[@richarddibello1581]

Great video. I remember a lot of this from being a kid in the 1960's.

[@samiam9008]

New library going up.. downtown was alive back them until the closing of traffic on Main st. killed it.

[@paulbookbinder4899]

My father was born in Buffalo in 1918, and I was born there in 1960. Growing up he always told me about his first job, flipping burgers at Deco Diner. I never imagined I would ever get to see it, as it is long gone, but at 4:42 I see what must be the place he was talking about, there can't have been TWO Deco Diners in Buffalo ! Thank you for posting this.

[@rivaridge7211]

I so agree that these old photos are great to see - my family came to Buffalo (from Maryland) in 1958 when I was just two. Deco was actually an early "chain restaurant" (Deco was very popular back in the day - open till the late hours). There were many Decos throughout the Buffalo area - though perhaps the Deco shown here was the very one your Dad worked at. Sadly, one by one they closed (the "Your Host" restaurant chain took many of them over) until just one "Deco" was left, which I believe, was closed (or taken over) sometime in the 1970's.

[@TheWilferch]

Actually DECO was a chain and there were many throughout the area. My mother was a waitress at one of these in the early 50's.......

[@seankayy4539]

I wasn't even born yet and this is way too cool.

[@GeorgeKenmore]

Great video with some good shots of old buildings. Hey, cities change. I do miss seeing more people on the streets than cars -- and there are plenty of cars. I have a vague recollection of being downtown when it was a center for office work. I still remember a lot of stores that catered to offices and legal firms. Ulrich's (Main & Court?) even had an elevator operator. A lot of the stores are not exactly high end but it still attracted a lot of foot traffic and there was no better way to get downtown than on the bus. The woman at 3:00 wears a hat, gloves, and a fur stole. For downtown Buffalo!

[@BrotherC-I-was-A]

Another great video of Buffalo! Thank you!

[@cindyk4294]

I was 13! It was so much fun shopping in the city…

[@AdvocatePower]

Great memories..I was ten.

[@joewiniewicz7603]

So many beautiful buildings gone. I had forgotten how many grain elevators there were!

[@ed.2009]

Some buildings downtown still stand. Most of them don't but Ellicott square, the Bank with the gold dome, The Church at North n South division are a few. It's really cool I was only born in 2000 and looking into the city history for school. Its soo interesting seeing time back then like seeing main st downtown before the tram was put in is crazy. My granddad would tell me stories about the parkway that once stood where the 33 expressway is now. He would take my dad n aunt there to bbq when it was warmer and everyone was there just chillin. you could see to downtown from mlk park and everyone was just vibin according to him. The fight for the buildings near where the skyway is sadly failed and I always feel like the central terminal is a sneeze away from demolition. I love this city and its crazy history of inventions, world fair, alot to be proud of here and we gotta preserve as much of it as possible.

[@NCVBflo]

Our city is one among many American cities that made a lot of lousy urban planning choices in the post WW2 years. Suburbanization, red lining, removal of street car lines, highway construction, relocation of industry, people moving out to find new jobs, etc. That's why Buffalo looks the way it does today. Though with all the open space we have now, there's an opportunity to rebuild and fill in many of the gaps. But honestly our local political leaders and developer class don't seem all to interested in actually doing anything that'd help the average Buffalonian.

[@debra2700]

@@NCVBflo Suburbanization was not an urban planning choice. My parents rented in a two-family house on Rhode Island St and we moved to the City of Tonawanda in 1960 because my father got tired of the landlord always complaining about me and my brother and my parents wanted a house of their own with a yard for us and an actual garage of his own. People fled the inconvenience of city life for the more easy going suburban life. What really destroyed Western New York was NAFTA. The area lost 85% of its manufacturing jobs to Mexico. The City of Tonawanda which is small to begin with, lost 1/3 of its population since the '70s and is down to one elementary school for the whole city. My husband and I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina in 1996 because we wanted our kids to have the opportunity to get the careers that they wanted and be in an area that was growing like crazy, not going into decline and Buffalo will always have the issue of long, gray, cold and snowy winters and that's a deal breaker for many people.

[@mikeinalberta1330]

Back when they had jobs. Look how busy and nice the city was. Thank your leaders for what you have today!

[@greg33770]

Nice ! Just as I remember it......thanx 4 posting !

[@birdsandpoohs]

It is so nice to see my McManus grandfather in this video before he did passed away in 1966 and I did not actually met him

[@garyciapa5474]

Look how clean the streets are, people were not pigs back then

[@jf13579]

A year before my parents were born. My grandfather was possibly at the fire hall downtown during this video. Looks different but eerily similar.

[@DenpaKei]

I can't believe how crowded it is...

[@FreePalestine20-25]

Me too

[@BassmanII]

I'm particularly interested in the old street lighting of Buffalo, much of which was still standing when I was growing up in the 1970s. It's all gone now. The Main St. Westinghouse HMA-60s, the GE teardrops, and Form 109s. All gone.

[@southtownsjoe3309]

everything isn't gone, lousy corrupt government & crappie streets are still here!

[@davidmccann9811]

Maybe they could have preserved it.

[@BassmanII]

@@davidmccann9811 not likely. Street lighting needs to be upgraded periodically.

[@r.pres.4121]

Those old streetlights were obsolete and their lighting was dim and inadequate. They had to be replaced. You can’t save every damned thing.

[@lindadigesare9429]

My Mom's came in a cloudy plastic. She always kept it in her jewelry box on her dresser.

[@jacquelinewatts6187]

ALL THE GOOD STORES ARE GONE

[@GG-yl2iw]

Awesome video

[@georgealmeter3562]

I’ve watched this a few times. The job I’m on right now is at the the m@t center on the 20th floor. I look out the window and can see the history of old buildings that where once there next to ones still standing. They should of never ripped down the western saving bank building.It was a beautiful building but then they replace it with that Godey rectangular office building only if people knew what they know now.

[@felinebline7154]

Unlike souless drug crime ridden hell today No-one is fat. Dressed neatly clean with self respect.

[@glen6945]

allways liked buffalo

[@Captain_Commenter]

Sigh, around this time my narcissistic pops met my mom at a dance hall here. Go Bills!

[@briannotafan3368]

in1963 i was a5 year od kid in the riverside section of buffalo royal ave to be exact

[@briannotafan3368]

sun mornings after church we'd have breakfast at your host & stop at freddies for a dozen doughnuts to go who would think i'd work next-door for 20 years at cold spring garage at for the N F T A metro

[@rivaridge7211]

It's so sad that so many of those beautiful and historic old buildings (most dating back to the 1800's) were torn down in the name of "modernization." This would never happen today!

[@southtownsjoe3309]

no today they would be still empty & corrupt government / developers would be scamming taxpayers for money!

[@f.w.2054]

Still happens all the time. Were lucky any survive when the politicians and contractors get together!

[@SPEARHEADGLOBAL]

Was hoping to see UB

[@marybutlin5605]

Great video, I wish I could hear the music louder.

[@funnyjeffstuff]

Urban Renewal destroyed a lot of historic architecture around the United States and looking back on it, it was a mistake. Thankfully Buffalo was big enough that the wreckers couldn't tear everything down, unlike smaller cities like Niagara Falls that leveled their whole downtowns. But some of the streets in this video had rows of four and five story brick buildings that would be high-end apartments today. One of those blocks was torn down to build the Main Place Mall. Nowadays, the mall is almost empty. Buffalo's developers should buy the mall, bulldoze it and replace it with brick row buildings like it once had. They'd rent for a lot of money. I'm talking to you, Rocco Termini or Doug Jemal.

[@shannonspage9360]

0:59 This is one of the historic buildings that was torn down

[@wizardoffrobozz]

born in Lackawanna, lived in buffalo through 1963

[@glen6945]

i was there in 1962

[@marknowak4115]

How did you convert this movie film or copy it to KZbin? What equipment did you use? the film transfer came out very good

[@chasbodaniels1744]

Good questions! I’d like to know who created this footage, and for what purpose.

[@rand503]

Western Savings bank could have incorporated it's gorgeous old HQ into the new.

[@ElectrologyNow]

I left Buffalo as a kid in 1959 (moved to Santa Barbara). I went back a few years ago ... Buffalo has changed. Why?

[@qupidtxt1558]

Poverty

[@TheWilferch]

liberal Democratic destructive politics ......

[@ElectrologyNow]

@@TheWilferch Sadly ... those same Leftists are trying their best to ruin my little city too. High taxes are running business out or town. Insane programs to fund illegal immigrants and de-fund the police ... well, you already know the drill. (In my City of 90,000 ... they estimate 16,000 illegal immigrants. Two of our public grammar schools are now 100% in the Spanish language; no English spoken.)

[@TheWilferch]

@@ElectrologyNow ...Buffalo was my home town all my life. I now live in South Carolina, a bit inland in a small town near Myrtle Beach...and my home taxes are $620 a year here....instead of the $10,000 per year I was paying in Orchard Park, a suburb of Buffalo. It's not a factor of 2X or 3X more in NY...but a factor of *16x* (!) more. Tell me this isn't insane.......

[@ElectrologyNow]

@@TheWilferch TOTALLY insane. I live in a little TRACT house (near the beach). The original selling price (back in 1960s) was $15,000. Today, homes in my "tract" are now about $2M ... with the tax just over $1,000 per month. Right now, the City is blowing a ton of money on "Global Warming" .... as if our tiny population can do anything about it. I say, if they want to reduce C02 ... just stop breathing! Please!

[@f.w.2054]

Before the fall.

[@jamesdellaneve9005]

I hated growing up in the 1970’s. The specter of poverty chasing all of my relatives out of town for work. I knew that I’d leave the area when I was in High School. After college, I left and spent 40 years in California. The city has come back a lot though. I still visit.

[@brokensword9689]

Wow 😳

[@tazsnuts99]

Its sad i can't find single movie on the brewing and beer history of bufflao ny

[@mimimeme2044]

I always thought the Ellicott Square Building had such impressive style back in the 60s-70s. Is it still there? I never liked City Hall; thought it was ugly and dreary-looking. I moved away in the 80s, but still love Buffalo.

[@robertwroblewski6797]

U missed the heart of downtown,Chippewa street and the Chippewa chippies.

[@jostones9829]

Hi Giovanni, this is great, please can you tell me where this footage is from? Many Thanks, Jo

[@54GARYBOY]

Nice but no Aud or Rockpile shots?

[@mimimeme2044]

The Aud is at 5:00

[@paulwild3676]

I was born in 1963.

[@raymondhoelscher9307]

I was only 13....

[@garyciapa5474]

Look how clean everything was before Welfare came into our system,sad

[@glen6945]

ass hole

[@longbeachhippy694]

I believe if the steel industry in buffalo would have never crashed and died , that buffalo would have been 3 times the size it is now. Lackawanna and Hamburg would probably have high rises and great waterfront ereas,etc.. instead, yu see the leftovers

[@joeyscleaninglady2877]

no peace bridge footage?

[@m64h]

Not downtown

[@Johnjohn-gq3du]

Better parking.

[@chazroseman2301]

Blacks are treated very poorly in buffalo I'm sorry to say it

[@phyllisdiller1996]

Google said the Ford hotel was imploded in 2000! I watched it go down in September of 97.