Blog Posting 1: Second Stories

Blog Entry 1: Second Stories

      
      I decided to go to downtown Buffalo and walk down Washington Street as well as travel down Sweet Home Road pass campus.  They had very different landscapes, as well as colors, buildings and roads.  There were also many little differences I picked up on that I had never seen before.

      I picked Washington Street because my band plays at a venue called Club Diablo very often that is located on that street.  I always looked down the road and thought it looked unique, different and a cool part of the city I should explore.  Most of the buildings were very tall and looked as though they had been built in the early 1900's.  It was clear that they were built to provide the most space possible.  Within the four blocks I walked I noticed apartment buildings, bars, business buildings and parking lots.

     The apartment buildings were very generic and in square shape units mainly to provide as many rooms as possible.  They were dark colors and were made of very old materials (brick, concrete).  There were also apartments located above stores and some business buildings.

     The buildings were also very dark in color and made of many of the same materials.  They were very close together and did not provide much room in between.  Black steel fire escapes where on the side of most of buildings that were all very similar.  The buildings also looked like they had been occupied by a number of people a number of different times and had a lot of wear and tear.  I noticed that there were about 3 or 4 dead ends or dark alleyways in the few blocks I traveled.

     Walking down Sweet Home Road in Amherst was a very different setting.  For one, it was designed and set up for a school environment with students in mind.  UB is located on the road as well as Sweet Home High School.  It is a much newer and modern looking street that looked as though many of the buildings had been built in the last 20 years.

     There were apartment complexes, houses, businesses, gas stations and schools.  Most of them were painted brighter colors with new materials.  If anything was made of bricks they were much lighter in color not dark and dirty like downtown.  There was a lot of space and room between buildings and provides a lot of room for grass and trees.  This is definitely not the way Washington Street is set up.

    There were no dark alleys and the area had plenty of sunlight in the day and street lights at night time.  The streets were much cleaner and almost all buildings were in excellent condition and occupied.  Downtown Buffalo had many abandoned and vacant buildings no longer in use. 

     It was very interesting looking at the different landscapes of these places and allowed me to see many things that I didn’t notice in the past.  It also helped me understand the reasons for many of the placements of buildings and signs in different areas.  I also discovered how a place can age and become used over time in comparison to an area that was recently put together.