City - Buffalo NY - Signs of the Times 1900 Ceramic Tile

Colorized photo from 1900 Original title: Main St. Photographer: Detroit Publishing Location: 336 Main St, Buffalo, NY Streets change so much over the years, if you were standing in this spot today, there wouldn't be one thing you would recognize except, interestingly enough, the street car line, because that they kept. This spot is roughly around 336 Main St in Buffalo, NY. On the right is the Iroquois Hotel, opened August 3rd 1889, then later rebuilt in 1901. It was finally demolished in 1940, as many of the other buildings were too. The building that replaced this hotel was the Bond Clothing Co Building. You'll note that it says Fire Proof on the roof, that's because this hotel replaced another one that was on this spot that burned down. They used a granite substructure, and fire proof tiles on the roof, it was built very solidly. It was also a complete hotel in that it had a small clothing store, and a barbershop, along with anything you might need if you were staying there. On the left is the Lyceum Theater, from what you can see here, it was a good place to hang signs. They love their signs. So much so that there are actually four different sign stores on this one block. Or one single store with a lot of different signs. Also if you look around you'll see quite a few hands pointing at something, one of them is actually a large 3d hand, pointing to something across the street. Oh and that symbol of a globe on the back of the theater is what they used to advertise the Pan-American Exposition of 1901. Licensed to be used as the symbol and nothing else. But, like all copyright breaches, people used it for everything anyway, and made an entire array of products using their own version. I also wonder what museums were like in the past. I bet it was pretty neat. And note the people catcher on the street car. Not all of them had one however, you would have to go out of your way to choose the one that won't simply run you over.