Thomas F. Higgins Riverfront Park

An expanse of meadows, wetlands and forests on a natural floodplain of the Buffalo River just a few hundred feet (meters) from Thomas Higgins Riverfront Park, the land on which the Seneca Bluffs sit was a truck farm before going fallow in the middle 20th century. Today it's been redeveloped as a park and nature preserve very similar to its downstream counterpart. The Seneca Bluffs are not only a haven for wildlife but also a great place for fishing — particularly walleye, which teem in this stretch of the river. Walking trails crisscross the greenery, but otherwise it's just you and nature.

Aside from the scads of Irish-American not-for-profit groups who have their home offices here (such as the Gaelic-American Athletic Association and Rince na Tiarna Irish Dancers), the Buffalo Irish Center also includes a pub which, every Friday and Saturday night, plays host to live music featuring local bands of diverse genres — everything from country to hard rock to Dixieland jazz. For those in the mood for something more Irish, head down to a seisiún if you're in town at the right time: held on the third Sunday of each month, these hoedowns of traditional music, dancing, and storytelling feature Guinness on tap and plenty of merriment.

Opened in 2012 on a 35-acre (14-ha) site that used to be home to a chemical dye plant, the Heritage Discovery Center contains space for community organizations and events as well as a pair of small museums that celebrate various aspects of Buffalo's industrial history. As money from government organizations and private donors continues to flow toward the restoration of the old Buffalo Color buildings, more developments are on the way.

Ask locals about Cazenovia Park Falls and you'll likely get little more than quizzical looks: even more so than Buffalo's other natural waterfall, Forest Lawn Cemetery's Serenity Falls, this is truly a hidden gem. Strange, because it's easily the more impressive of the two — by comparison with its counterpart which is little more than a series of rapids, the horseshoe-shaped Cazenovia Park Falls is a six-foot (1.8-m) vertical plunge along Cazenovia Creek over a ridge of dark, oil-rich shale. The scene at the falls is a very changeable one — after heavy rains the falls might be temporarily submerged again, and during the dry summer months the flow often slows to a trickle, but come at the right time and you'll bear witness to a lively affair of trout or bass jumping up the cascade as anglers try their luck.

Seneca Indian Park is a tiny, out-of-the-way patch of lawn in a quiet residential neighborhood near the city line, but the historical importance of the site is huge. During the early 19th century, the land was part of the cemetery next to the Seneca Indian Mission Church, which was located a few steps away on what's now called Indian Church Road. Originally buried here were such Seneca luminaries as Chief Red Jacket and Mary Jemison, the "White Woman of the Genesee"; their remains were moved to Forest Lawn Cemetery and the grounds of the Glen Iris Estate at Letchworth State Park, respectively. It's said that the Buffalo Creek Reservation's longhouse was located on the site too; while that's not certain, it was definitely somewhere nearby. Commemorating the site's historical importance are a trio of large boulders, on which are placed historical plaques explaining local Seneca history.