[NoCtUrNaL]

...is so mesmerizing, it drives people to distraction...

This crash occurred sometime in the early morning hours of May 5th near the intersection of Goodell and Maple streets. BTW...the car was going the wrong way on a one way street.​

 

[NoCtUrNaL]

Another perspective...

 

[CiceroClark]

Wow, no brush along the slopes of the overpasses in your city! It looks so nice compared to Syracuse. Overgrowth is all over my city and suburbs. Wish someone would cut it down. Sorry to go off topic...

 

[sargeantcm]

Man, judging by the description, I'd say he/she deserved that. As long as it doesn't affect my insurance rates!

Is that a chunk of sidewalk they pulled up?

I'd say keep the car there and make it a sort of "shrine to stupidity". Little things like that truly make a city lol.

 

[steel]

I am more disturbed by the destruction brought to the city by the highway seen in the backround.

 

[ECoastTransplant]

Let me guess.... woman driver? :runaway:

 

[bjfan82]

i hope noone was in that car dying when you stopped to take a picture from four angles. did u just drive by and see a car randomly smashed ??

 

[NoCtUrNaL]

i hope noone was in that car dying when you stopped to take a picture from four angles. did u just drive by and see a car randomly smashed ??

I did what I could first...I picked up some brain matter off the sidewalk and tried my best to stuff it back in the drivers broken cranium but it kept oozing out his ears.


Seriously, didn't you read the caption, it happened in the wee hours of the morning, like 3 or 4am, I took the picture about 10am. Anyway, the car was stolen and believe it or not, the dude who stole it ran off after the accident.

 

[bjfan82]

I did what I could first...I picked up some brain matter off the sidewalk and tried my best to stuff it back in the drivers broken cranium but it kept oozing out his ears.

me and my friend are laughing so hard reading your quote.



No i didn't read the caption...i didn't get down that far.

 

[BuffCity]

I caused it! lol

 

[nostyle]

I am more disturbed by the destruction brought to the city by the highway seen in the backround.

Yep, that highway played a big part in the downfall of the east side. It tore neighborhoods right apart, and even dislocated a cemetery. Yet more brilliance by Buffalo's leaders.

 

[DarkFenX]

Let me guess.... woman driver? :runaway:

Let's not be a sexist.

 

[sargeantcm]

I can't help but keep coming back to this...such a beautiful work of "art".

I find it especially interesting how it managed to dislodge an entire panel of sidewalk, trip over it's own front end, wrap the driver's side door around a bollard, and right in front of a church no less. I also see a breakaway U-channel post in the foreground, did it take out a stop sign and swing around a 180 per chance?

 

[BuffCity]

Yep, that highway played a big part in the downfall of the east side. It tore neighborhoods right apart, and even dislocated a cemetery. Yet more brilliance by Buffalo's leaders.

Like the Kensington or not, it is the quickest way in or out of downtown, and to blame the "flight" from the neighborhoods on the expressway is a little too easy, I would say the lack of jobs, high taxes and overall economic situation decided how these souls packed their bags, the expressway just gave them an onramp.

Buffalo should be glad it has the Kensington, look at what Rochester has...the inner loop, the 490, 390, 590...they have a mess, Buffalo still has highways, but atleast they pretty much ran over trail beds and canal paths. (in the important areas) lol

 

[steel]

Like the Kensington or not, it is the quickest way in or out of downtown, and to blame the "flight" from the neighborhoods on the expressway is a little too easy, I would say the lack of jobs, high taxes and overall economic situation decided how these souls packed their bags, the expressway just gave them an onramp.

Buffalo should be glad it has the Kensington, look at what Rochester has...the inner loop, the 490, 390, 590...they have a mess, Buffalo still has highways, but atleast they pretty much ran over trail beds and canal paths. (in the important areas) lol

This one ran through one of Buffalo's Olmstead designed parkways. What was once Humbolt Parkway ran through here lined with some of Buffalo's best houses, churches and museums. It was a very stable middle and upper class community. The parkway connected Humbolt Park and Delaware Park with the type of parkway you can still see on the south side of Delaware Park. When you are at the Buff meet-up make sure you take a walk down Chapin, Lincoln and Bidwell Parkways. Then ask yourself if it is worth destroying to allow suburbanites easy in and out access to downtown.

Buffalo's highway track record

-Two parks sliced up (can you imagine cutting central park in half for a highway)
-One parkway obliterated
-The kensignton neighborhood cut in half by
-100% of the waterfront cut off from the city
-historic Erie canal burried


You are right about Roch though. they have completely cut their downtown off from the neighborhoods with a ring highway that tightly surrounds the cocre

 

[xzmattzx]

This one ran through one of Buffalo's Olmstead designed parkways. What was once Humbolt Parkway ran through here lined with some of Buffalo's best houses, churches and museums. It was a very stable middle and upper class community. The parkway connected Humbolt Park and Delaware Park with the type of parkway you can still see on the south side of Delaware Park. When you are at the Buff meet-up make sure you take a walk down Chapin, Lincoln and Bidwell Parkways. Then ask yourself if it is worth destroying to allow suburbanites easy in and out access to downtown.

Buffalo's highway track record

-Two parks sliced up (can you imagine cutting central park in half for a highway)
-One parkway obliterated
-The kensignton neighborhood cut in half by
-100% of the waterfront cut off from the city
-historic Erie canal burried


You are right about Roch though. they have completely cut their downtown off from the neighborhoods with a ring highway that tightly surrounds the cocre

while i don't know much about the situation of many of the freeways in buffalo, i do know that i-190 along the river was built over the old branch of the erie canal. however, you make it sound like the canal was covered up for the purpose of building a freeway. the erie canal from tonawanda to buffalo was abandoned in 1918 when the new york state barge canal replaced the erie canal. the new york state barge canal widened and/or replaced the erie canal, allownig for bigger and more powerful boats to use the canal. these boats were powerful enough to navigate the black rock ship channel, and so the section of the erie canal became obsolete. it sat for a while, becoming a stagnant cess pool. it was finally eradicated some 30 or 40 years later when it was filled up and covered with i-190.

 

[BuffCity]

I guess the point being, because of the 50's Expressways craze...every city went nuts, Rochester a little too crazy, buffalo made a mistake in taking out it's parkways and interupting the system by olmstead. some things happened to be done right, like filling the canal and rail lines, the 198 is a good shot east and west, and I still think the Kensington as much as it really did cut this park deal up, it does give one hell of a ride (at 75mph) into downtown, seeing much of what Buffalo is...it is a ride both in and out, and I think IMO the city needed this artery.

 

[steel]

while i don't know much about the situation of many of the freeways in buffalo, i do know that i-190 along the river was built over the old branch of the erie canal. however, you make it sound like the canal was covered up for the purpose of building a freeway. the erie canal from tonawanda to buffalo was abandoned in 1918 when the new york state barge canal replaced the erie canal. the new york state barge canal widened and/or replaced the erie canal, allownig for bigger and more powerful boats to use the canal. these boats were powerful enough to navigate the black rock ship channel, and so the section of the erie canal became obsolete. it sat for a while, becoming a stagnant cess pool. it was finally eradicated some 30 or 40 years later when it was filled up and covered with i-190.

All very true except that again the city residents pay the price for the ease and convenience of the suburbanite. Is a highway the only solution to reuse of an extremely historical canal corridor. Perhaps it could have been a recreational channel ala San Antonio or simply a linear park. Of course this kind of thinking would have been extremely advanced for the 1950's.

But even today when the city proposed Turing the Scajaquata exp. back into a parkway with low speeds through Delaware Park they where shut down faster than a fly on fresh turd. Funny isn't it that there are no suburban parks with highways cutting through them. Why do the citizens of Buffalo have to traverse expressways to use Martin Luther King, Delaware, Front, and prospect parks, not to mention Squaw Island and Tift Nature Preserve in the name of sububran convenience.

All of Buffalos's major museums sit in the shadow of expressways. 100% of its water front is cut off by expressways. Perhaps saddest of all is poor Riverside Park, named for its position astride the mighty Niagara, one of the most famous rivers in the world. Here the park sits within a few hundred yards of the river edge enduring the pounding highway noise with no way to get to the water edge. But hey, It must be worth it since the highway makes it so easy to get to Tonawanda.


The people of Buffalo sure are generouse to their suburban cousins.

 

[xzmattzx]

Turing the Scajaquata exp. back into a parkway with low speeds through Delaware Park

this comment reminds me of something larry anderson said while broadcasting a phillies game a couple years ago:

"why do we park on the driveway and drive on the parkway?"

 

[sargeantcm]

...city residents pay the price for the ease and convenience of the suburbanite.

While I don't entirely disagree with you on this matter, I don't blame it all on suburban convenience as you say. First of all, this type of problem is not specific only to Buffalo, it's a by-product of the relative boom-time of the 50's when people across the country took to the highways for travel, as well as exercising some of their newfound economic might but buying the one thing that's definitely not being made anymore: land.

I agree with BuffCity on the claim that we could have had it much worse. Sure it's a shame what's happened to the grand old boulevards of Olmstead's plan. However, I don't think you have to look very far to see some far greater travesties. I think the Kensington and Scajaquada were designed pretty damn well to fit into their surroundings considering the highway land grabs that were going on everywhere else.

The I-190 on the other hand is horrible, but even then it's perfectly fit to occupy a narrow strip of what was then cheap, useless land. Where would you have placed it? Just be glad they didn't plow it through downtown! And I don't see it all as the Thruway's fault, either. Elevated and ugly as it may be, it's very design allows for uninterrupted travel across the right of way. I see the problem there as being the horrible land usage under the highway that has rendered the waterfront virtually inaccessible, not the highway itself.

But to blame it on suburban convenience alone would be shortsighted. You have to see the whole picture and think of it as economic, commercial, recreational, and industrial convenience as well. We'd sure be up a creek without a paddle without them, you think it's bad now. Tough as it may sound, the city isn't lost in innocence itself.