Fontana Boathouse

One of Buffalo's many Olmsted parks, Front Park (or "The Front", as it was originally named) is situated along Porter Avenue just south of the Peace Bridge and contains a soccer field, tennis courts, and picnic facilities, as well as original features such as "The Hippodrome", a 3.5-acre (1.5-ha) lawn intended for picnicking or informal team sports, and a terrace concourse for carriages adorned with a handsome statue of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. Intended to both showcase and enhance the beauty of the Niagara River and Lake Erie and emphasize its significance to the history and identity of Buffalo, the park once also boasted extensive formal gardens. At the north end of the park stood Fort Porter, built in the mid-1840s as a customshouse and military installation. Some time later, Olmsted was given the green light to extend the Front beyond the canal to the edge of the river itself; though it never materialized, this extension would have included playgrounds, a beach, and a boardwalk. Sadly, together with the West Side's other Olmsted park, Riverside Park, Front Park was badly damaged by the urban renewal that decimated the West Side in the middle 20th century: the construction of Interstate 190 over the former canal bed robbed the concourse of its serene lake views, and the construction of the new plaza for the Peace Bridge in 1951 culled seven acres (2.5ha) from the size of the park, resulted in the demolition of Fort Porter, and routed noisy trucks bound for Canada through the park (the latter problem will be solved by the controversial expansion of the Peace Bridge plaza slated for the next few years, after which trucks will access the bridge from a new entrance away from the park).

The Bird Island Pier dates from 1822, when it was built as a buffer between the Erie Canal and the rough waters of the Niagara River, and was once a lively place of fishing shacks, canal boats, and pleasure steamers bound for Canada and Grand Island. Though those are long-gone, an extensive renovation and structural stabilization of the pier was completed in the early 2010s and, it was reopened as a scenic pedestrian walkway. Proceeding southward from Freedom Park past the Peace Bridge and onward to a point parallel to LaSalle Park — 1.3 miles (2 km) in all — walkers can experience an unparalleled view of the Niagara River and Fort Erie to their right, then turn their head and watch rowing crews from Canisius, St. Joe's, and other area high schools set off along the canal from the West Side Rowing Club. At the end, you're treated to a waterfront panorama that is simply without equal, with the Erie Basin Marina in the foreground and the downtown skyline and grain elevators off in the distance.

On a limited basis, Community Beer Works offers free, informal tours of the newly expanded production facility where it churns out such Buffalo craft-beer favorites as the zesty, piney "Frank" American pale ale and the 5.9% ABV "Whale" brown ale. As of November 2018, a permanent tour schedule is said to be forthcoming. Contact brewery staff for more information.

The Kavinoky Theatre is located in Prospect Hill on the campus of D'Youville College. Over the course of its history, not only has the Kavinoky Theatre thoroughly restored the historic former Porter-View Room under the auspices of the D'Youville Capital Campaign, but this local repertory company of professional actors has produced nearly 150 plays and musicals of a consistently high quality, earning them more awards than any other troupe in Buffalo. The Kavinoky Theatre has given many actors of local extraction their start in the business.

This handsome old Victorian in Prospect Hill is part private residence, part archaeological dig and part art gallery: award-winning artist, architect, author and UB professor Dennis Maher bought it in 2009 when it was on the city's demolition list and has been living in and renovating it ever since, a process that has yielded a treasure trove of salvaged structural and decorative elements that he assembles — along with found items from thrift stores, flea markets, and other sources — into imaginative collages displayed in the gallery space on the house's first floor. This ongoing project has earned him praise from the New York Foundation for the Arts and in the pages of the New York Times, among others. Aside from Maher's own work, the Fargo House also occasionally hosts exhibitions by other artists from the local area.

Though not an Olmsted park, LaSalle Park is the largest park along Buffalo's waterfront, and its plethora of amenities — baseball diamonds, soccer fields, a swimming pool, a skate park, and a dog run ("The Barkyard") — have made it popular among locals. This 89-acre (36 ha) expanse was named Centennial Park when it opened to visitors in 1932, Buffalo's 100th year as a city. Later, of course, its name was changed to honor the French explorer René-Robert Cavalier de La Salle, whose ship Le Griffon passed along the Lake Erie shore in 1679, the first European to see the land now called Buffalo. Architecture buffs will enjoy the Buffalo Water Authority's historic Colonel Francis G. Ward Pumping Station, built between 1909 and 1915 to a design by the local firm of Esenwein & Johnson in a style that's an eclectic hybrid of Beaux-Arts Neoclassicism and the Romanesque Revival.