In the early 1900s, when Buffalo was so great that it had the Pan-American Exposition, when it was so forward-looking that the first major exhibition of photography in an art museum was at the Albright Art Gallery, the Pierce Arrow company made cars in this beautiful brick building on Delaware Avenue.
Then the Welland Canal opened, and Buffalo was no longer astride a major trade route. And the city government repeatedly did boneheaded things to the city in the name of restoring lost economic glories.
In the 1960s, they ripped up beautiful parks that had been landcaped by the same guy who did Central Park, in order to put in highways. Believing that they could counteract the national trend toward suburbanization, they figured to "revitalize" downtown by making it more easy to drive there. They're still waiting.
In the 1980s, the steel mills closed, having been made obsolete by more modern mills in Japan and Germany. We still make steel in this country; but the economy has moved on.
Also in the 1980s, the city government tried to "revitalize" Main Street by putting in a subway connecting downtown with the UB South Campus. What happened was that it delivered the final death blow to any businesses that were still surviving on Main Street, by ripping up the street in front of them for years and years.
Now they are going to put in a casino downtown; they've got the Seneca to sponsor it, and the governor has signed off.