Why Buffalo, New York Makes No Sense

Buffalo, New York was the eighth-largest city in America in 1900, a city of grand avenues and concrete grain elevators at the far end of Lake Erie. This is how Niagara Falls, the Erie Canal and a steam-powered grain elevator made Buffalo the world's largest grain port, how the St. Lawrence Seaway and the end of steel left it at the end of a dead-end street, and the one piece of the old grain machine still running on the Buffalo River. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, population of the 100 largest urban places, 1790-1990: https://www2.census.gov/library/worki... National Park Service, Buffalo timeline: https://www.nps.gov/thri/buffalotimel... Francis R. Kowsky, Buffalo grain elevators National Register study: https://buffaloah.com/h/elev/hist/1/ Erie Canal Museum, Buffalo or Black Rock?: https://eriecanalmuseum.org/western-t... NOAA GLERL, Great Lakes physical characteristics: https://apps.glerl.noaa.gov/coastwatc... National Library of Medicine, McKinley case: https://nlm.nih.gov/visibleproofs/gal... UPI, Bethlehem Steel cuts, Dec 28, 1982: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/12/... New York State Senate resolution on Cheerios in Buffalo: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/... Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:08 New Amsterdam on a Creek 4:26 The Canal Fight 8:52 A Machine for Grain 13:00 City of Light 17:22 The Dead-End Street Narration by a synthetic (AI) voice. Script researched and fact-checked from the sources below. Archival images are public domain or free licenses; maps and charts are made by the channel. Images (item numbers at each archive) Andre Carrotflower (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0): Downtown skyline and grain elevators as seen…, History Museum and Japanese Garden with autu…, Lake Erie Shore at Hamburg, New York, July 2…, Niagara River shoreline at Black Rock Canal…, Last remnants of the Black Rock, Interstate…, Niagara St btwn Auburn & Breckenridge - Uppe…, 20190621 - 06 - Lackawanna City Hall.jpg, Humboldt Parkway at sunset, Buffalo, New Yor…, Cargill Superior Elevator, Buffalo, New York… The original uploader was Pollinator at English Wikipedia. (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0): Holland land 8911.jpg Dommatarese (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0): Buffalo & Erie County Naval & Buffalo River… Ymblanter (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0): Niagara-on-the-Lake King Street 287.jpg Paranormal Skeptic (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0): Black rock neighborhood.jpg DanielPenfield (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0): SenecaChief2025BicentennialVoyageTroyF.jpg Mys 721tx (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0): Concrete-Central Elevator, Sept 2019.jpg, Marine arms, Concrete-Central Elevator, Sept…, Grain elevators in Silo City, Sept 2019.jpg Bmzuckerman (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0): Buffalo, NY - Concrete Central Elevator.jpg, Buffalo, NY - Concrete-Central Elevator.jpg UK Reading Tom from Reading (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0): Delaware Park, Buffalo, New York - October 2…, Connecting Terminal Elevator, Buffalo, New Y… Canada BriYYZ from Toronto (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0): Buffalo Grain Elevators (3) (2082981038).jpg, Buffalo Grain Elevators (4) (2082195619).jpg J. Passepartout (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0): Humboldt Parkway.jpg Nick Amoscato (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0): General Mills, Buffalo, NY (14486678280).jpg André Carrotflower (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0): October 14, 2019- Canalside scene, Downtown… Quintin Soloviev (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0): General Mills cereal plant, Buffalo NY.jpg Michael Barera (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0): Buffalo December 2024 27 (General Mills plan…, Buffalo December 2024 37 (city skyline).jpg, Buffalo December 2024 41 (Buffalo City Hall)… slgckgc (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0): Coca-Cola Field.jpg Public domain, Library of Congress: Detroit Publishing Co.; Marjory Collins; Historic American Buildings Survey; Carol M. Highsmith; Library of Congress; Historic American Engineering Record; George Barker; Hauser Bob & Sons; Pach Brothers (Firm); Robert Lee Dunn; Marion S. Trikosko Public domain, Wikimedia Commons: George Burns; Scan by NYPL; Guillaume Tell Poussin; Rembrandt Peale; Marjory Collins; Le Corbusier; Jet Lowe; Fortunate4now; Man Ray; C. D. Arnold; Detroit Publishing Company; U.S. Navy Maps: Natural Earth (public domain).