Big water and old industry
Western New York & the Great Lakes
Lake Erie, Niagara, Lake Ontario, Erie Canal cities, lake-effect weather, riverfront parks, and the western New York places where water and industry shaped the map.
The places
Buffalo
Olmsted parks, lake-effect snow, wings, architecture, and a city built around water and rail.
Open the place page ->Niagara Falls
The country's oldest state park, international tourism, and a city where the falls dominate the map.
Open the place page ->Rochester
High Falls, Kodak, the Genesee River, and a city between Lake Ontario and the Finger Lakes.
Open the place page ->Syracuse
Salt, the Erie Canal, university life, lake cleanup, and central New York weather.
Open the place page ->Cooperstown
Baseball's national museum, Otsego Lake, and village-scale tourism in central New York.
Open the place page ->Browse by county
Every city, town, village, and hamlet in this shelf is reachable through its county page.
Almanac notes from this shelf
Short, sourced notes tied to this part of New York.
Olmsted's Park System Runs Through Buffalo
Frederick Law Olmsted designed Buffalo a connected web of parks and parkways in the 1860s, with 350-acre Delaware Park as a free centerpiece.
Read the note ->The poncho boat that's been running for 150 years
The Maid of the Mist carries visitors into the spray below Horseshoe Falls, turning Niagara from a postcard view into a loud, wet, close-up river ride.
Read the note ->A 97-foot waterfall right in downtown Rochester
High Falls drops 97 feet on the Genesee River in the middle of downtown Rochester — and the restored Pont de Rennes pedestrian bridge gives you a front-row view.
Read the note ->How Salt Built Syracuse and Helped Dig the Erie Canal
Brine springs at Onondaga Lake made Syracuse a salt boomtown, and the tax on that salt helped pay to dig the Erie Canal that carried it across the country.
Read the note ->The Day Babe Ruth Walked Into Cooperstown
The day the Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1939, Babe Ruth and nine other living legends walked into a Cooperstown brick building that still anchors Main Street today.
Read the note ->Big-water checks
Other regional shelves
More ways through the New York map
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