100915BuffaloNYTripMP0269

Just south of downtown Buffalo,N.Y., near the city's First Ward, lies an area of abandoned grain elevators known as Silo City. The grain silos sit in a state of half-decay and serve as reminders of Buffalo's heyday. The city serves as the western terminus for the Erie Canal, which doesn't mean much today as most of the grain from the Midwest moves east through the Saint Lawrence Seaway, but in the 19th and 20th centuries there was no other option but to move the harvests through the Canal. As a result, Buffalo became one of the United States' economic powerhouses. But once the city's strategic position was made useless by the Seaway, manufacturing in the city mostly dried up. The massive grain elevators were left abandoned, relics of a better time. Buffalo, N.Y. is the second most populous city in the state of New York and is located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River. By 1900, Buffalo was the 8th largest city in the country, and went on to become a major railroad hub, the largest grain-milling center in the country and the home of the largest steel-making operation in the world. The latter part of the 20th Century saw a reversal of fortunes: by the year 1990 the city had fallen back below its 1900 population levels.

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Filename: 100915BuffaloNYTripMP0269.JPG
Copyright: © 2015 Marc Piscotty
Image Size: 5760x3840 / 11.3MB; Denver CO travel photographer Denver Colorado travel photography Denver Colorado travel photographer Denver Colorado travel photography Denver travel photographer Denver travel photography
Contained in galleries: Forgotten Buffalo - Remnants of Greatness, Travel

Just south of downtown Buffalo,N.Y., near the city's First Ward, lies an area of abandoned grain elevators known as Silo City. The grain silos sit in a state of half-decay and serve as reminders of Buffalo's heyday. The city serves as the western terminus for the Erie Canal, which doesn't mean much today as most of the grain from the Midwest moves east through the Saint Lawrence Seaway, but in the 19th and 20th centuries there was no other option but to move the harvests through the Canal. As a result, Buffalo became one of the United States' economic powerhouses. But once the city's strategic position was made useless by the Seaway, manufacturing in the city mostly dried up. The massive grain elevators were left abandoned, relics of a better time. Buffalo, N.Y. is the second most populous city in the state of New York and is located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River. By 1900, Buffalo was the 8th largest city in the country, and went on to become a major railroad hub, the largest grain-milling center in the country and the home of the largest steel-making operation in the world. The latter part of the 20th Century saw a reversal of fortunes: by the year 1990 the city had fallen back below its 1900 population levels.