EXPRESS WAY: A Sneaky Cool Getaway

With its new sunlit galleries, stretches of green space, and stunning outdoor sculptures, the recently expanded and renamed Buffalo AKG Art Museum (formerly the Albright-Knox Art Gallery) in Buffalo, N.Y., is a showcase of one of the nation’s finest modern and contemporary art collections. The historic museum sits on the edge of Delaware Park—what Frederick Law Olmsted envisioned as a “city within a park”—and if you take a turn at the bend in the road, you’ll find the Martin House, Frank Lloyd Wright’s “domestic symphony.” These are just some of the top attractions and hidden gems groups will find in this one-of-a-kind, weirdly wonderful place.

Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie, Buffalo abounds in arts, culture, and history. Whether you’re eating Ethiopian cuisine in a repurposed 1920s Prohibition-era alcohol factory or enjoying modern amenities at a National Historic Landmark hotel, experiencing the city’s modern renaissance will inspire and educate your group.

Take a docent-led tour of the BuffaloAKG Art Museum and discover why the Wall Street Journal calls it “a required stop for cultural travelers.” See the evolution of modern and contemporary art through the works of Picasso, Van Gogh, Pollack, and Warhol and then head to the nearby Buffalo History Museum and the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s celebration of regional artists.

Choose from a variety of guided tours of Buffalo’s architectural masterworks, including Frank Lloyd Wright’s Martin House.

The expanded, renamed Buffalo AKG Art Museum, with its sweeping park views, emerges from the lawn like an ice floe made of glass.

Groups can taste cuisine from around the world at Buffalo’s two incubator spaces: Downtown Bazaar and West Side Bazaar.

The Richardson Hotel is a National Historic Landmark located near the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, parks, boutique shopping, and dining.

Art and ecology come together at the reimagined industrial grounds of the Silo City campus of grain elevators where a theater company performs the avant garde, a literary nonprofit showcases poetry with live readings, and musicians play on stages indoors and out. At Canalside, a park on the water in the heart of downtown, take a walk to the Seneca Chief, the volunteer-built, full-size replica and floating museum of the first boat to travel down the Erie Canal.

Listen to the music and learn about Buffalo’s jazz history at the expanded Colored Musicians Club and Jazz Museum when it reopens in the African American Heritage Corridor later this year. One of the nation’s only continuously running Black music venues celebrates the contributions and influence of African American musicians.

Make a hearty meal with Buffalo favorites, such as chicken wings, Friday fish fries, and beef on weck sandwiches (a local specialty made with thinly sliced roast beef on a kummelweck roll with au jus and horseradish). Buffalo’s artisan approach to food comes through in global offerings from new residents who make Buffalo home. Taste their work from the kitchen of two restaurant incubators: the Downtown and West Side Bazaars.

Get a good night’s rest at The Richardson Hotel, the former state insane asylum on grounds designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. In the heart of the theater district, the stylish Aloft Downtown Buffalo hotel includes a 1914 fraternal order clubhouse, a rooftop bar, a boutique bowling alley, and tiled pool.

Welcoming visitors is what makes this City of Good Neighbors on Lake Erie great. Anthony Bourdain called it “weirdly wonderful.” We say, it’s the kind of place you weren’t sure you wanted to visit until you don’t want to leave.

For help building your customized group itinerary to Buffalo, visit visitbuffaloniagara.com/travel-trade or contact Leah Mueller, Visit Buffalo Niagara’s director of tourism sales at mueller@visitbuffaloniagara.com or (716) 852-0511.

visitbuffaloniagara.com | (716) 852-0511

Photo credits:
BUFFALO MARITIME CENTER; ED HEALY; MARCO CAPPELLETTI AND BUFFALO AKG ART MUSEUM; SHARON CANTILLON; RICHARDSON HOTEL.