Only the Parthenon-like headquarters of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society remains from the dozens of buildings built for the exposition. The city has changed swiftly in the last half-century. The State University of New York at Buffalo, with two campuses, is now the city's largest employer. With a population of 330,000, Buffalo remains the state's second-largest city, but it is dwarfed by New York's 7.5 million. It is fiercely proud of its football Bills and hockey Sabres, as well as Ani DiFranco, the punky pop star who runs her own record company here.
Buffalo stands apart, less homogenized than many American cities.
It eats hamburgers with the rest of us, but also Ted's charcoal-grilled hot dogs and Wardynski's kielbasa, Perry's ice cream and of course Buffalo chicken wings. Every block or so has its tavern, with a fish fry on Friday night, and people tend to identify themselves by their parish. Ask them where they live, and they answer, St. Monica's, or Holy Family, or St. Stanislaus. He boasts about the Bills, when they're winning, about the city's five lovely parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and about the accomplishments of people like Peter J. Crotty, the state and local Democratic leader who helped make John F. Kennedy President and Robert F. Kennedy a Senator. Masters of Modern Art Culturally, Buffalo owes a huge debt to the discerning eye and open wallet of a dynamo named Seymour H. Knox, universally known as Shorty.