Buffalo’s Delaware Park

Always, when I live some place, I have to find my route for my walks. A creature of habit, I don’t do different ones, but rather map a route that I can follow without thought. This lets me look at the changes and people around me. The location of Medaille College, tucked into a tiny corner of Buffalo bounded by a large cemetery, highways, and parks, has given me several great places to walk. In fact I have been intrigued by the wonderful park system of the city and the area along the Niagara River.

Delaware Park, with its 1.8 mile loop, is just across the street. But even before I went to explore, I could tell from some of the arrangements of the streets with green boulevards in this part of the city, that it might have been designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. I saw echos of the Back Bay District of Boston in the street design, but Delaware Park itself has elements of Central Park in NYC, also designed by Olmsted.

Olmsted came to Buffalo in 1868 to design a park which became a park system, making Buffalo one of the first American cities to have a park and parkway system. Delaware Park has about 350 acres that form a “country park” landscape. It has has a rolling open meadow dotted with trees, reminding me of the meadow in Central Park. And as someone from the open skies of the Midwest, it seems right to have it so.

The Park, and Medaille College, are also described to me as sitting at a cultural divide in the city. I have yet to explore the neighborhoods across that cultural divide because I continue to just go back to my 1.8 mile loop followed by a stop at a local coffee shop. And I also will need to explore the other part of the park around the lake, and walk through the large cemetery on the other edge of campus. But for now I am enjoying the many types of people and activities that I encounter on my walk. This wonderful piece of nature is a haven for the many citizens of the city, especially in this time of COVID where only nature is open.