The Erie Canal Harbor in Buffalo received a “facelift” and is celebrating its new rebirth. With a current price tag over $50 million and counting, it’s not hard to understand why some detractors, today, still question the expenditure — the same as others did when DeWitt Clinton asked the state for $7 million to build his 363-mile ditch.
The original western terminus of the historic waterway has been redeveloped to include a new pedestrian bridge over the canal and re-watered Commercial Slip, infused with the history of the canal. Among other attractions, visitors can view old Lloyd Street foundations for the Steamship Hotel, dating back to the canal’s early years when it served as the Gateway to the West. This is the site where reluctant city fathers prophesied that the “ancient” rocks buried there from the 1800s were so old they would surely explode if they were to once again see daylight!
In addition to the stone ruins, there is an impressive boardwalk, an interpretive timeline and a controversial three-story “ghosted facade” with nine images that show key events in the canal’s history. There is also 600 feet of floating docks. The initial facelift is just part of a planned $400 million development to provide 500,000 square feet of mixed use, hotel, office, retail space (that at one time included a proposed Bass Pro anchor store) and restaurants.
Visitors to Buffalo’s Erie Canal Harbor today can see a restored site about the size of a football field, including a new wooden Erie Canal Whipple truss foot bridge that connects the new boardwalk Central Wharf to the cobblestone “Commercial Street.” The Whipple truss, patented in 1847, was developed by Squire Whipple, who made a stronger version of previous truss bridges. It was also known as a “double-intersection truss,” because the diagonal tension members cross two panels, while those on earlier versions crossed only one. Another refinement, the Triple Whipple, was built with the thought that if two are better than one, three must be stronger yet.
The Whipple Bridge built for Buffalo employs the iconic “bowstring” truss that resembles a taunt string under a bow frame. Along with its Erie Canal uses, the Whipple truss gained immediate popularity with railroads, as it was stronger and more rigid than other bridges. It was less common for highway use, but a few wrought-iron examples survive.
Here in Lockport, a Whipple truss bridge, known as Hitchen’s Bridge, crossed the canal at State Road near Hinman. It was named for the family that once lived in the stone mansion built near the canal. Hitchen’s Bridge was removed during the Barge Canal expansion in the early 1900s.
The new Erie Canal site in Buffalo includes a restored Commercial Slip, located in the same spot that once served as the historic nexus for Erie Canal and Great Lakes travel. A small version of the original waterway is completed with a man-made waterfall used to circulate the standing water within the newly rewatered Erie Canal Slip. The slip is available to recreational boaters from Lake Erie and the Niagara River who wish to tie-up and visit the neighboring Naval Park and other new attractions. Boaters who enter the slip today quickly get a better sense of the spatial limitations of the historic Clinton’s Ditch as they attempt to maneuver their modern power-craft in a canal made to accommodate mule-drawn vessels.
Doug Farley is the director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center and his column runs every Saturday. The Discovery Center is closed for the season and will reopen May, 1.
Canal Discovery w/ Doug Farley
Related Photos
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Doug Farley is director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center.
CANAL DISCOVERY: Facelift for Buffalo’s Inner Harbor
- Canal Discovery w/ Doug Farley
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Charles Dickens’ NY travelogue
The British had a great deal of interest in America and its early Yankee culture, and that interest certainly extended to stories about the Erie Canal.
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Canal a route for mass migration
In the 19th century, the Erie Canal carried hundreds of thousands of European immigrants into the heartland of America.
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Canal line boat a rare specimen
The era of heavy commerce on the original Erie Canal began before 1825 and continued onward through the 20th century and the Barge Canal conversion.
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Facelift for Buffalo’s Inner Harbor
The Erie Canal Harbor in Buffalo received a “facelift” and is celebrating its new rebirth.
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Fighting along the Erie Canal
Some of the most interesting stories of the Erie Canal tell of the hand-to-hand combat that took place along the canal.
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Story of ‘Fat Man in a Berth’
“I awoke in the night with a dreadful feeling of suffocation. Cold perspiration stood on my forehead, and I could hardly draw my breath; there was a weight-like lead on my stomach and chest."
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Child labor on the canal
Life on the Erie Canal represented a way of life, all its own. Its unique culture included its own vocabulary, its own laws, its own dangers and its own beauty. In the view of some, it was a hard, demanding life, and no doubt it was for many of the 50,000 or more folks whose livelihoods depended on it during the canal’s peak years
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Railroads along the canal — part one
Very different, yet still very similar, the Erie Canal and the American railroads carved their own path through history.
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Garrity, Cook — Part 2
We have learned much about life on the Erie Canal from one of its best friends, Richard Garrity of the Tonawandas.
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CANAL DISCOVERY: Garrity, cook — part two
We have learned much about life on the Erie Canal from one of its best friends, Richard Garrity of the Tonawandas. His remembrances of growing up on the canal help us to picture the scene in our minds eye. The following narrative about cooking on the canal is graciously attributed to Garrity and is continued from last week’s edition of Discovery.
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