I drove through the WORST parts of Buffalo, New York. This is what I saw.

Buffalo has some REALLY bad areas!

We begin this video tour in a completely different country - in Canada, our neighbor to the north. We’ll spend a minute or so showing you the drive into the Buffalo region, show you a little bit of downtown, and then take a drive into the worst area of Buffalo I could find.

The day was Wednesday, January 8, 2020 at about 11 am.

To get into Buffalo you have to cross at the US/Canadian border at Niagara Falls. There’s actually two Niagara Falls’’’’ - one on the Canadian side, and one on the US side. And Buffalo is over here, about 20 minutes away.

The Canadian side of Niagara Falls is very touristy, clean and offers a far better view of the falls. Here’s a 5 second look. It’s somewhat underwhelming, and in the wintertime, quite chilly.

Then you have the US side of Niagara Falls, called Niagara Falls, New York, which is pretty much a dump.

Here’s the scene on main street in Niagara Falls New York. And here’s what one block of Niagara Falls looks like.

People in Buffalo say they are embarrassed of the way Niagara Falls looks, and that they hope one day, it gets cleaned up, because it’s a shame that the first thing you see when you drive into the US from Canada at this location is….THIS.

We drove into Buffalo from this destitute dive, a drive which took about 21 minutes.

Here in Buffalo, the temperature was about 23 degrees, but it felt like zero. The wind was shopping and light snow fell throughout the day. I think it actually lightly flurries here just about every day due to the lake effect. blizzards regularly shut the city down completely.

But locals said this was nothing, and several asked very poingently why we were traveling to Buffalo in the middle of winter.

While observing the snowfall, I remembered I still carried the dim sum dumpling I had hidden deep in my pocket in Toronto.

Buffalo is a pretty cool place - the downtown area is old and somewhat basic, holding onto the rust belt stigma I had expected to see. The best part are the local neighborhoods, which are actually within walking distance from downtown. Among older homes are neighborhood bars and restaurants. It’s like a big city with a small town feel.

Since I was in Buffalo I asked where the best Buffalo wings were. I was sent to a small place called Gabriel’s Gate. The wings were so good, I forgot to take a picture until they were gone. (ding)

We also met people at a place called founding fathers. Theyre big trump supporters bell ding. Everyone was nice here. In fact, the neighborhood bars were full of friendly people, who were good spirited, even during a windy, gray middle of winter day.

Now, the ghetto part. Oh we found the hoods. No, Not here. These are abandoned projects just outside of downtown. The REALLY bad area is on Buffalo’s lower east side.

We criss crossed into the Buffalo neighborhoods of Emslie, Broadway Fillmore and Lovejoy. It’s a smallish city, Buffalo is, with a population that’s dwindled to 250,000 people. At its height, Buffalo’s population was nearly 600,000 people up until the late 50s. Buffalo’s main advantage was water. But after technology improve in the mid 1900s, people didn’t need water for transportation or power. So many people left the Buffalo area. More left when steel mills and car makers left.

Now, it’s one of the 20 most quickly deteriorating regions in the nation.

These neighborhoods are gritty, ugly, and dangerous. This part of town was home to poor immigrants originally, and now has become the part of Buffalo that truly looks as bad as you can imagine, with blocks containing more vacant lots than houses.

The reason we chose this neighborhood was the way it was described on an obscure forum called Cyburbia. In a thread devoted to Buffalo neighborhoods, we saw this and knew this was the neighborhood we’d visit.

Here it is in all its glory.

Music: Kevin MacLeod, Chris Zabriskie, TrackTribe, Wayne Jones, Asher Fulero.

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