Campaign's 2019 LearnAboutBuffalo trips on the Open-Air Autobus off and running!
April 11, 2019
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!).
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 online by clicking on a highlighted date on the calendar, 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. Buffalo Whirlwind tour
The Buffalo Whirlwind
• 10:00am, June 23, 29; July 6, 14, 20, 27; Aug. 3, 11, 17, 24; Sept. 1
• Meet at Main & Huron streets. 90 minutes, $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. The tours are led by Tim Tielman, Executive Director of The Campaign for Greater Buffalo and recent Buffalo News Citizen of the Year, and Paul McDonnell, an award-winning architect and Chairman of The Campaign.
We start with Peak Buffalo, downtown buildings at the dawn of the Skyscraper Age (including Louis Sullivan's Guaranty Building and City Hall), proceed to the Canal District, and 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 • City Hall and Old County Hall • Theater Historic District • Bidwell, Chapin, Lincoln parkways
The Whirlwind is an compelling 90-minute session with the passionate experts of The Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture.
• 10:00am, June 22, 30; July 13, 21; Aug. 4, 10, 18, 25, 31
• Meet at Main and Huron 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, we have a special 3-hour Grand Tour session that covers all the sites of our 90-minute Whirlwind session, 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
• The Old First Ward
•The Grain Elevators (Hey, Tim Tielman, one of our tour leaders, wrote the book: “Buffalo’s Waterfront: A Guidebook.”).
• The revitalized Larkinville (um, in another life, Tim designed Larkin Square),
• 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.
The Grand Tour is led by Tim Tielman, Executive Director of The Campaign for Greater Buffalo and recent Buffalo News Citizen of the Year, and Paul McDonnell, an award-winning architect and Chairman of The Campaign.
The Buffalo Snapshot
• 12:00 noon, June 23, 29; July 6, 14, 20; Aug. 3, 11, 17, 24; Sept. 1
• Meet at Main & Huron streets. 60 minutes, $20. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.
• Reservations: Click on calendar at top, button below, or call 716-854-3749
This is designed to be a quick look at essential Buffalo, all within the original bounds of the city in 1832.
The tour features Chris Hawley, a planner for the City of Buffalo, whose work has been recognized by The Congress for New Urbanism.
You’ll see:
• Louis Sullivan's Guaranty Building, the prototype skyscraper • Ellicott Square by Daniel Burnham & Co. • St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral by Richard Upjohn • The Canal District • Niagara & Lafayette squares • Allentown Historic District • City Hall • Theater Historic District
The Snapshot is a 60-minute ride with an engaging expert you won't forget!
A Waterfront Expedition
• 10:00am Sunday July 28 & Sunday August 25
• Meet at Main and Huron streets. $70 includes a shore lunch. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.
• Reservations required: Click on calendar at top, button below, or call 716-854-3749
The Erie Canal, the great engineering wonder that made Buffalo and much of America, was underway 200 years ago. As part of that celebration, The Campaign for Greater Buffalo—whose members gave us our canal back through a decade-long battle to save the Canal District— has a special 5-hour expedition of Buffalo and its waterways: the Buffalo and Niagara rivers, the Erie Canal, and the Lake Erie shore.
Join Campaign Executive Director Tim Tielman, author of "Buffalo's Waterfront," 2018 Buffalo News Citizen of the Year, and 2019 Visit Buffalo-Niagara Ambassador of Year, on a very special tour of the Buffalo waterfront, from Lackawanna to Tonawanda, and up the Buffalo River. Discover scenic beauty, industrial heritage, forgotten historic sites, iconic Buffalo landmarks, and discuss future plans with someone who has shaped much of the public discussion over the last 30 years. Up close, personal, and unforgettable. Includes a shore lunch!
A Grand Waterfront Expedition
The Atomic Age on the Niagara Frontier
• 1:00pm Saturday September 21
• Meet at Colvin and Amherst streets. $40. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.
• Reservations required: Click on calendar at top, button below, or call 716-854-3749
Is it a bird? A plane? A UFAO (Unidentified Freakish Architectural Object)? You’ll find it on this intriguing tour that explores the nooks and curbless crannies of the post-war suburban frontier, Tonawanda’s Green Acres subdivision. In the mid-1950’s Howard Pearce and his Pearce & Pearce Company built thousands of ranch houses in Green Acres. He warmed up by building the nation’s very first split-level houses in Amherst, Clarence, and Tonawanda, perfecting mass-production techniques and space-age options and built-ins. Pearce would become head of the National Association of Homebuilders, helping to shape the environment of millions of baby-booming nuclear families.
We’ll look at the surrounding commercial architecture and signage, early Pearce & Pearce rental housing, its office building, the First Trinity Lutheran Church (A bird? A plane?), and some custom projects, including a mind-blowing cream-brick-and-stone Ranch-L with shed-roofed garage and carport at —where else?—the intersection of Glenalby and Glenhurst. Led by Tim Tielman, author of How Green Were My Acres, Builders, Designers, and Buyers in an Atomic Age Suburb.
Atomic Age on Niagara Frontier
Building Buffalo: Green & Wicks, Architects
• 1:00pm Saturday September 7
• Meet at Main & Huron 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 his 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. Fine structures of wood, brick, and stone, they are prominently sited or tucked away on side streets, radiating charm and poise. Join us as we hunt down dozens of the buildings and tell the tales of the people who lived, worked, worshiped, and socialized there.
Building Buffalo: Green & Wicks, Architects
This Old Mansion
• 1:00pm Saturday September 14
• Meet at Main & Huron streets. $40. Discounts for groups of 10 or more.
• Reservations required: Click on calendar at top, button below, or call 716-854-3749
The story of Buffalo's—and America's— rich and infamous unfolds on this fascinating tour of upper-crust strips and 'hoods. Delaware Avenue was the pioneer street of Buffalo’s titans from the Civil War to the Great Depression, but other precincts were established as the families grew in numbers and wealth, and sought stature. Learn of their feats and foibles, but most of all, their evolving taste in architecture.
Massive Italianate, Second Empire, Victorian Gothic, Queen Anne, and Shingle Style houses were built as displays of conspicuous consumption. They were bound by rigid codes of behavior that were fondly tweaked by Broadway playwright A. J. Gurney, who grew up in the cosseted confines of Buffalo's One Hundred. Some rebelled, most notably was Mabel Dodge Luhan, who, after a trailblazing and swath-cutting life on two continents, wrote a scandal-making memoir that dished the dirt on her youthful Buffalo neighbors. Devilish they may have been, but their taste in architecture was well-bred.
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 trips 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