Take a virtual bike tour around Buffalo’s historic Olmsted circles!
Do you have a favorite Olmsted landscape?
Take a virtual walk around Cazenovia Park, with sunshine and bird notes.
At 83 acres, significant features of Cazenovia Park include the Crotty Casino (designed by the Buffalo firm of Esenwein & Johnson and completed in 1912) and the Shelter House (built in 1902 and restored in 2016).
Take a virtual walk around the Japanese Garden in Delaware Park.
Kanazawa, Japan, has been Buffalo’s sister city since 1961, and the Japanese Garden in Delaware Park serves as a special friendship initiative between both cities. We are so grateful to have Atsuko Nishida-Mitchell, native of Kanazawa, discuss the unique aspects of our Japanese Garden.
Take a virtual walk around Front, Columbus and Prospect Parks. Front Park is one of three original parks included in Olmsted’s initial plan for Buffalo’s park system.
Its chief feature was the semi-circular terrace designed to command a panoramic view of Lake Erie and the opening of the Niagara River. Here, Olmsted remarked, one could observe “a river effect such as can be seen, I believe, nowhere else — a certain quivering of the surface and a rare tone of color, the result of the crowding upward of the lake waters as they enter the deep portal of the Niagara.”
Enjoy a virtual walk around South Park, a 156-acre Olmsted Park designed in 1894 that included plans for an impressive arboretum. Plans also proposed a conservatory (now the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens).
Phase 1 of the South Park Arboretum Restoration Project began in 2019, with support from several founding donors along with the First Niagara Foundation, in partnership with KeyBank. Learn more here: bfloparks.org/sparp
Enjoy a springtime virtual walk around the River Rock Garden in Riverside Park! This Olmsted Park was designed in 1898 by the Olmsted Brothers, and once had a landing on the river where boats from downtown would load and unload passengers. The River Rock Garden was restored in 2014 and is a reinterpretation of the original Minnow Pool.
Learn more history of your Olmsted Park System at the free self-guided mobile audio tour at http://bfloparks.org/audio-tours.
