Helium Comedy Club

Five nights a week, this hip Cobblestone District bar hosts live music in an intimate yet appropriately gritty setting, all exposed ducts and rough brick. Shows here split the difference between major national touring groups and local acts playing rock, country, and acoustic music.

The 118-foot (36-m) Edward M. Cotter is the oldest fireboat in the world still on active duty, and is inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historic Landmark. Launched in 1900, the boat was originally named the William Grattan after Buffalo's fire commissioner at the time. After it suffered a devastating explosion in 1928 (flying sparks from a burning oil barge entered its fuel tank), it was rebuilt from the burned-out shell of its hull at a cost of nearly $100,000. With a maximum speed of about 15 miles per hour (24 km/h), the Cotter is the slowest piece of firefighting machinery the Buffalo Fire Department owns, but it's indispensable for its ability to reach places on the waterfront inaccessible to ordinary fire trucks, and it has ten times the water-pumping capacity of the average fire truck. Over the years, the Cotter has seen action such as going across the lake to Port Colborne in 1960 to help fight a fire at a grain elevator complex; helping keep afloat the Buffalo Naval and Military Park's USS Little Rock after it began taking on water in 1978, and towing the Polish ship Zawisza Czarny off of a sandbar when it came to Buffalo Harbor for a visit in 1983. During the quiet winter months, the Cotter serves double duty as an icebreaker on the Buffalo River; during the summer, it can frequently be seen at local waterfront festivals and boat shows, where tours are also offered.

Located in the historic Cobblestone District and convenient to downtown and the waterfront, the brand-new, $130-million permanent home of the Seneca Buffalo Creek Casino opened with great fanfare in August 2013, and was expanded four years later to the tune of an additional $40 million. Today, over 3 million people a year flock here to try their luck on over 1,100 slot machines and 36 table games, both on the main casino floor and in the exclusive High Limit Room. If you get hungry, choose from four bars and restaurants onsite: the rowdy Stixx Sports Bar with pub grub and local brews on tap, the brand new B Lo Bar, light casual dining at The Creek, and a satellite location of the upscale Western Door Steakhouse that has proven a huge draw at the Niagara Falls Seneca casino, whose second-floor dining room features panoramic views over Elevator Alley and the downtown skyline.

The Grand Lady is an 80-foot cruise ship that's been offering scheduled cruises and private charters since 1998, first on the upper Niagara River from their former home at Rich Marina in Black Rock, and since 2017 of Elevator Alley from RiverWorks. Passengers on the Grand Lady have their choice of itineraries: the Buffalo River and adjacent areas of Lake Erie are the focus of 90-minute narrated afternoon sightseeing cruises (some departures include a three-course plated lunch; see schedule); dinner cruises are a longer (2½-hour) more elaborate affair with live entertainment, a cash bar, and an elegant three-course meal; craft beer-themed cruises and evening casual cruises are also offered. The schedule is variable, but in general it features one to two of both types of cruise weekly; it's recommended you reserve as early as possible. The Grand Lady sails rain or shine.

Choose your own adventure with this boat tour outfit operating from the Central Wharf at Canalside. The classic Buffalo River Tour aboard the River Queen leaves five times daily, destination Elevator Alley: you'll feel the wind whip through your hair as you listen to the captain recount the history of the grain elevators and their contribution to the huge importance of Buffalo Harbor in the 19th and 20th centuries. Other tours include the Silo City Tour, which also offers a brief walking tour inside three of the grain elevators themselves, and the Silos and Steamships Tour for a close-up look at the SS Columbia, which at the time of its retirement in 1991 was the last of the old passenger steamers that once plied the Great Lakes. For something a bit less in-depth, non-narrated one-hour cruises around the harbor and Canalside are offered on a separate boat.

Opened in May 2013, Wilkeson Pointe is 22 acres (9 ha) of waterfront green space named for Samuel Wilkeson, the former War of 1812 hero, State Senator and Buffalo mayor who vigorously oversaw the dredging and improvement of Buffalo Harbor, which was the deciding factor in the location of the end of the Erie Canal there rather than in Black Rock. Today, Wilkeson Pointe's location between two slips at the former site of Seaway Piers makes for excellent water access: public docking is available, and the park packs in a ton of amenities befitting its status as a focal point of the Outer Harbor: more than just the great views over Lake Erie, Elevator Alley, and downtown that you can get anywhere on the lake shore, Wilkeson Pointe has a large playground for kids, volleyball courts, rain gardens, a beach, a concession stand run by Consumers' Beverages selling beer and light snacks, and its signature feature — a pair of lovely, pinwheel-like rotating wind sculptures. The Shoreline Trail also passes directly through the park: the chunks of marble you see alongside it near the wind sculptures were once part of St. Joseph's New Cathedral on Delaware Avenue, dumped here after its demolition in the 1970s when this was still a derelict industrial site. You can still see architectural details in the stone, such as Ionic volutes, fluting, and dentils.