Subversive Theatre Collective

Situated at the corner of Elmwood Avenue and Amherst Street and especially popular with students of nearby Buffalo State College, Voelker's may seem like it was plucked from another time. Behind a lively bar redolent of old-school Buffalo — the kind of place where you might see Pabst Blue Ribbon being drunk by rough-around-the-edges blue-collar types, rather than ironically by hipsters — are 36 bowling lanes, as well as three pool tables and a few dartboards. Open daily till 4AM, Voelker's is the place to go for late-night bowling in Buffalo.

On the center island in the middle of Fordham Drive, in Park Meadow on what once were the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition, is a small rock with a historic plaque marking the spot where President McKinley was standing when felled by the bullet of his assassin, Leon Czolgosz. (Well, not the exact spot, which is now inside the living room of the house at 29 Fordham, but close enough.)

The oldest continually operating billiard hall in North America, Hippodrome Billiards opened in 1914 in the Theater District; through its early years of operation, some of history's great pool sharks, such as Minnesota Fats and Willie Mosconi, were regulars here. Sadly, Hippodrome is situated today in a nondescript suburban-style strip mall at the southwest corner of Delaware and Hertel Avenues. Despite the unfortunate location — and its spacious, bright and clean ambience that runs counter to the stereotype of pool halls — Hippodrome manages to conserve some of the old-school feel with chairs, cue racks, and several billiard tables retained from the original property. And, for those who'd rather skip the history lesson and just shoot a few games of pool, Hippodrome's rate of $4 per person per hour is hard to beat.

Inaugurated in 1974 as a gesture of friendship between Buffalo and its sister city of Kanazawa, Japan, Delaware Park's Japanese Garden is located on six acres (2.4 ha) on Hoyt Lake, behind the Buffalo History Museum. This beautifully manicured oasis of greenery slopes gently down from Nottingham Terrace to the shore of the lake, also encompassing three small islands in the lake connected to the mainland by a lovely ornamental footbridge. Over the past years, the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy has been hard at work restoring and maintaining the more than 1,000 plantings of ornamental trees, shrubs and plants in the garden, including a large stand of Japanese cherry trees, and also have added or will soon add a stone garden and an authentic karesansui waterfall. Amid it all there are many benches and other sitting areas perfect for serene contemplation of one's peaceful natural surroundings.

Located just off Elmwood Avenue in Park Meadow, adjacent to Delaware Park, the newly renamed Buffalo History Museum has by far the most extensive collection of artifacts relevant to the history of Buffalo and Western New York from pre-Columbian times to the present day. It was built for the Pan-American Exposition in 1901, so it is perhaps not surprising that the Exhibition is a particular focus of the exhibits at this wonderful museum. A Pierce-Arrow roadster built in Buffalo, the medal presented by George Washington to Chief Red Jacket, prototypes of the cardiac pacemaker invented by Clarence native Wilson Greatbatch, and artistic renderings of historical scenes and people flesh out the collection. Further historical records, manuscripts, photographs, and personal documents are housed at the Research Library. The Buffalo History Museum is also an invaluable resource for local residents interested in genealogy.

The first installation of public art to be placed in Delaware Park and one of the first in the entire city, this 4-foot (1.2-m) bronze bust of the most prolific, prodigious and influential composer of the Classical era was sculpted by Olin H. Warner for the Buffalo Liedertafel — a fact that bears testament to the profound importance of the German-American community in Buffalo's history, who made up more than half of the city's population when the statue was dedicated in 1894. The statue's pink granite base contains a number of bronze plaques inscribed with biographical facts about Mozart's life, the titles of some of his important works, and honorifics. Today, Mozart serenely overlooks Hoyt Lake from a spot near the Buffalo History Museum.