architectural tours of buffalo ny

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Buffalo Architecture Tours

Tour Buffalo’s cultural and historic landmarks through the eyes of Henry-Russell Hitchcock, the dean of American architectural historians. These four themed tours were inspired by the museum’s photography exhibition Buffalo Architecture, 1816–1940 , which was organized by Hitchcock and Director Gordon Washburn in 1940. Use the Historypin website to take a virtual tour on your computer, or walk, bike, or drive along the route using a mobile device.

Cultural Buildings Tour

This tour highlights the sites of 21 cultural and residential buildings throughout Buffalo, including the Albright-Knox, the Richardson Olmsted Complex, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin D. Martin House Complex, Wilcox Mansion (home to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Site), and the Central Terminal.

By Car: 16.9 miles (1 hour, 10 minutes) Not recommended for walking or biking

Delaware Park Points of Interest Tour

This tour highlights ten sites in and around Delaware Park, including the Albright-Knox, the Richardson Olmsted Complex, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin D. Martin House Complex, and the Blocher Monument in Forest Lawn Cemetery. 

By Car: 6.4 miles (25 minutes) By Foot: 5.5 miles (1 hour, 50 minutes) By Bike: 6.1 miles (37 minutes)

Downtown Buildings Tour

This tour highlights the sites of 16 buildings in downtown Buffalo, including Daniel H. Burnham’s Ellicott Square Building, Louis Sullivan’s Prudential (Guaranty) Building, Hotel Buffalo (now Hotel Statler), St. Paul’s Cathedral, Buffalo Savings Bank (now M&T Bank), and City Hall.

By Car: 3.4 miles (27 minutes) By Foot: 1.8 miles (38 minutes) By Bike: 2.2 miles (30 minutes)

Industrial Buildings Tour

This tour highlights the sites of eight industrial buildings throughout Buffalo, including the Pierce-Arrow Plant, the site of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Administration Building (no longer extant), and various grain elevators.

By Car: 21.5 miles (50 minutes) Not recommended for walking or biking

Preservation Buffalo Niagara

Building on our past for your future!

Preservation Buffalo Niagara’s tour program offers unique and informative ways to enjoy the historical, cultural, and architectural treasures of the Buffalo-Niagara region. Our tours support the mission of PBN, the region’s only professionally staffed preservation organization.

THE TOUR SEASON IS CLOSED FOR THE SEASON

Visit our calendar for a list of upcoming tours! 

Guaranty Building Tour 

The Guaranty Building is one of Buffalo’s most beautiful buildings and an important site in architectural history. Join us for this interior and exterior tour of this Sullivan masterpiece. During this guided tour, you’ll learn about the history of the building, the architectural elements that make it so special, and why it serves as an important case for preservation.

The Interpretive Center in the Guaranty Building is open to the public

Monday-Thursday: 9am-5pm

Friday: 9am – 12:30pm

Richardson Olmsted Campus Tours (Closed for the Season)

We would like to thank the over 720 people who attended the 2023 Richardson Olmsted Tour Season. We offered over 43 public tours, in addition to specialty photography, landscape, and mental health tours.  We dived deep into the rich past of the Richardson Olmsted Campus on this two-hour guided tour of unoccupied buildings. Led by an expert docent, visitors will gain access to spaces untouched since the 1970s.

Visitors were immersed into the philosophies integrated into the Richardson by architect Henry Hobson Richardson, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, and mental health advocate Dr. Thomas Kirkbride.

During the tour, visitors experienced some of the site’s original structures as well as the healing landscape designed to serve as a therapeutic environment for patients.

EB Green Tour de Force

Travel through the streets of Buffalo and time to discover the indelible mark E. B. Green left on the city of Buffalo. See iconic as well as lesser-known buildings to appreciate the genius of the man whose career spanned over 70 years and produced over 200 buildings in Buffalo. This special bike tour is open to riders of all levels and includes 10-12 miles of moderately paced biking.

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Who Knew? Buffalo is an Architectural Mecca!

by janecanapini | Feb 8, 2020 | Architecture , Buffalo , United States

Louis Sullivan. Frank Lloyd Wright. Daniel Burnham. Minoru Yamasaki. If the names of these American architects don’t ring a bell, their buildings definitely might. Think of the Sullivan Centre in Chicago, Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, the pointed Flatiron Building in New York City or the World Trade Centre’s Twin Towers. What many people don’t know is that the same architects who designed these iconic structures also created buildings in Buffalo, New York, making this city one of America’s best when it comes to architecture. Luckily, you don’t have to be an expert in architecture to appreciate these buildings – you can join a Buffalo architecture tour like Henk and I did, and/or create your own independent tour from this list. You’ll see for yourself the best of Buffalo’s impressive architectural heritage.

Start Your Buffalo Architecture Tour Downtown

Our Buffalo architecture tour began with a Masters of American Architecture walking tour that started at the Lafayette Hotel, constructed in 1904 in the heart of Buffalo’s downtown. When completed, the Lafayette Hotel was considered to be one of the country’s “most perfectly appointed and magnificent hotels”, offering hot and cold running water in all bathrooms, and telephones in every room.

Another fact that makes this building so unique is that its architect was a woman , Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first woman to be accepted in the American Institute of Architects in the late 19th century.

FUN FACT: Bethune was married to a Canadian architect with whom she worked at the Buffalo firm of Bethune. Bethune and & Fuchs. By the time Bethune was 33, she had already designed 79 buildings – not too shabby for any architect, let alone a woman in the late 1800s!

Not Your Typical Old Post Office

At first glance, it’s easy to mistake the Old Post Office in Buffalo for a church, especially given its 244-foot Victorian Gothic tower. Despite its ornamental exterior, the building was designed by James Knox Taylor to move mail, and it was built with definite practicality in mind. (In fact it was here that the mail chute was first invented.)

One of Taylor’s practical design ideas was to bring in plenty of natural light to the central atrium where mail was sorted, so he made the roof out of glass.

To maximize the light within the corridors off the atrium, Taylor used glazed tiles for their reflective property and installed glass archways in the corridors to keep the natural light flowing throughout the passageways.

Once the tallest building in Buffalo (until 1912), today the Old Post Office is the site of the Erie Community College city campus and its central glassed-in atrium is now a popular meeting place for students.

FUN FACT: There are sculptures of animals and gargoyles all over the exterior of the Old Post Office building, including a Buffalo head and a granite eagle that alone took over 250 hours to carve.

The Largest Office Building in the World in 1896: Ellicott Square

Next stop on our Buffalo architecture tour was Ellicott Square, designed by master architect Daniel Burnham (the man who designed New York’s Flatiron building), who is almost as famous for one of his quotations as for his architectural legacy.

“‘Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone be a living thing, asserting itself with every-growing insistency.”

Burnham certainly lived by his own words when it came to designing Ellicott Square which was the largest office building in the world when it was completed in 1896, boasting almost 300,000 square feet of office space. In fact, it was said that in Ellicott Square, you could do two days worth of business in one, because of all the services the building held (banking, insurance, shopping, etc).

But it was the decorative details of Ellicott Square that impressed Henk and I more than its size, both inside and out. On the exterior, classical details are everywhere – from the mythological figures of Nike and Hermes adorning the main entrance, to the twin pairs of elaborately carved fluted columns, and the row of Medusa heads all along the roofline.

Inside, Ellicott Square is noteworthy for its central atrium which features an inlaid compass in the mosaic floor and decorative wrought iron railings running along the mezzanine surrounding it. (Unfortunately, the interior of Ellicott Square is not open to the public, but it is possible to enter the building and look around from inside the foyer.)

FUN FACT: There are over 23 million Italian tiles inlaid in the floor of the Ellicott atrium! There’s also a statue of Mark Twain, who apparently spent some time here.

A Triangular Wedding Cake on Pearl Street

The Dun Building in Buffalo has often been called unremarkable, or a ‘wedding cake’ of a design because of its confusing mix of styles stacked like 3 ‘layers’ on top of each other. Yet this building, at 10 stories tall, was one of Buffalo’s first high-rise, steel-framed buildings when it was erected in 1895. As such, it deserves its place in the city’s architectural history.

It may not be the best or the first of any particular architectural style, but the Dun is interesting because of its efficient use of a triangular-shaped lot: it was constructed like the flatiron building in New York City, coming to a point on one corner. (Apparently, this also helps with managing wind currents coming off of Lake Erie.) Of course, you don’t realize the building’s unique shape unless you walk around it and see how dramatically it comes to a point.

St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral on Pearl Church

Our next stop on our Buffalo architecture tour was a little farther along Pearl Street, where we stepped into St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, a National Historic Landmark and one of Buffalo’s finest 19th century churches. Built in 1851 by Ricard Upjohn, the church was almost blown to bits following a gas explosion in 1888, but its stone walls withstood the blast, and the interior was rebuilt using inspiration from 14th century church interiors.

With its stained glass windows and arched ceiling, St. Paul’s is a beautiful example of Gothic Revival architecture (and a welcome place to grab a seat and admire its interior details!)

Sullivan, the “Father of Skyscrapers” Makes His Mark

At the turn of the 20th century, Buffalo’s entrepreneurs and businessmen were keen to put their city (and themselves) on the map with construction projects that reflected the city’s thriving economy. So when oil magnate Hascal Taylor decided to build an office building at Pearl and Church streets, he sought out one of the most innovative architects of the time to design it: Louis Sullivan.

Louis Sullivan was redefining American architecture by designing revolutionary buildings that celebrated height, breaking away from exterior design based on traditional European styles. Sullivan was able to do this because of the development of steel as a cheap, versatile material that could be used as an interior skeleton to support the building’s weight. Sullivan took full advantage of this new construction material to think differently about a building’s structure and appearance, envisioning them as tall rectangular columns that seemed to be supporting the sky above. It was his vision of a building as a “proud and soaring thing” that earned Sullivan his nickname as ‘the Father of Skyscrapers’.

The Guaranty Trust Building In Buffalo was completed in 1896 and is still considered one of the most significant early skyscrapers in the United States. The 13-story structure consists of a base, piers and an attic and is clad in terra cotta which was quite decorative in its Art Deco carved details, despite Sullivan’s ‘form follows function’ credo and generally unfussy design aesthetic.

FUN FACT: The terra cotta pieces used in a recent restoration of the Guaranty Building were all made locally by a Buffalo company that makes garden pots.

Sullivan’s building never bore the name of its original financier, as Taylor died before the building was completed. Guaranty Trust took it over instead, followed by Prudential who refinanced the building two years after its construction, which is why both Guaranty and Prudential names appear on the building.

Buffalo’s M&T Bank Building: Look Familiar?

Fast forward seven decades or so from when the Guaranty Trust Building was completed, and you’ll find the M&T Bank Tower, a 21-story building that was designed by Minoru Yamasaki in 1966. If the style of this 21-story building definitely seems familiar, it’s because seven years later, Yamasaki designed two of America’s most famous skyscrapers: the World Trade Centre’s twin towers. Sadly, those buildings will live forever in American history for all the wrong reasons, so perhaps it was fortunate that Yamasaki did not live to see his towers fall.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo

No visit to explore Buffalo’s architecture is complete without seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings (in fact, it was our desire to visit the recently restored Darwin Martin House that had brought Henk and I to the city in the first place). What we learned during our visit is that Frank Lloyd Wright played a huge role in putting Buffalo on the ‘architectural map’ – and vice versa – as this is where Wright found both a client and a friend in local entrepreneur Darwin Martin. Martin’s patronage helped establish Wright’s reputation as a visionary architect, in both commercial and residential design.

The Innovative Larkin Building

In 1903, Martin proposed Frank Lloyd Wright as the architect for a new office building for the Larkin Soap Company, where Martin served as an executive. It was a huge commission that allowed Wright to incorporate innovative elements never before used in commercial buildings such as air conditioning, built-in desks, and a 78-foot tall central atrium with a skylit roof that allowed for natural light to illuminate all the interior floors.

FUN FACT: The Larkin Building was also where Frank Lloyd Wright first designed washroom stalls with off-the-floor partitions and toilets, in order to make the floors easier to clean.

Sadly, the Larkin Building did not survive the wrecking ball of the 1950s, and nothing remains of this building today.

However, there is another example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s commercial designs that has been rebuilt nearby: a filling station from 1927. Strangely, you won’t find this gas station on the corner of Michigan and Cherry where it was originally envisioned; instead, you’ll find it inside the Pierce Arrow Museum.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Filling Station, Re-Incarnated

Automobile history and architectural history come together in Buffalo’s Pierce Arrow Museum , a labour of love for owner and automobile collector Jim Sandoro, who along with his wife Mary Ann, have spent over 45 years amassing an impressive collection of automobile memorabilia, antique vehicles and artefacts.

It was during these years of research and sourcing vehicles that Sandoro learned that Frank Lloyd Wright had designed a filling station in 1927 for Buffalo that had never been built. Keen to learn more, Sandoro travelled to Scottsdale, Arizona (where Wright operated his Taliesin West architectural school ) to do more research, and it was here that Sandoro found Wright’s original drawings for the gas station.

Excited at the prospect of ‘building’ Frank Lloyd Wright’s original design, Sandoro paid $175,000 for the rights to construct the filling station inside his museum and began its construction in 2002. This is where you will find the copper-clad station today, complete with two 45-foot ‘totem’ towers and neon TYDOL sign above.

The filling station is unlike any gas station you’ve seen, with a futuristic design that is more Jetson that Roaring Twenties. However, there were some questionable elements when it comes to safety in Wright’s design: the waiting areas inside the structure were designed with working fireplaces, and the gas reservoir was located on the roof above them, also not far from those ‘lightning rod’ totems! I’m not sure I would have wanted to spend too much time here, especially in a thunderstorm.

But this departure from the norm makes this gas station as unmistakably Frank Lloyd Wright as the lamps which he designed and that Sandoro recreated in his replica.

Regardless of the safety issues, it is very cool to see an unrealized Wright design brought to life 90+ years after it was first imagined!

The Darwin Martin House: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Opus

Along with his commercial work for Darwin Martin’s Buffalo-based company, Frank Lloyd Wright designed two notable residential properties for Martin’s family here as well. The first was the principle residence for the Martin family, Darwin Martin House, which deserves an entire article to do justice to it .

Considered by many (including Wright himself) to be the finest example of Wright’s signature ‘Prairie-style’ home, the Darwin Martin house exemplifies a new vision in architecture, one that was original and distinctly American. Which might just be the most important legacy for any architect.

Graycliff Estate: Reining in Frank Lloyd Wright

When Darwin Martin gave Frank Lloyd Wright the go-ahead to design Graycliff , their country estate on a cliff overlooking Lake Erie, he did so under one condition: that Wright defer to the wishes of Darwin’s wife, Isabelle, when it came to the house’s design.

Isabelle was severely visually impaired, and found living in the Darwin Martin house in Buffalo very difficult: its low profile, large overhanging eaves and stained glass windows made it too dark a house for her liking. So when Wright was assigned to design the Graycliff house, Isabelle insisted on it being light-filled, open and airy. Wright was in no position to argue, being almost broke, so he did listen to his client, for once.

Which is why, when you visit GrayCliff, about 15 minutes’ drive south of Buffalo, you may find the house more ‘traditional’ than many of Wright’s other designs. What is consistent, however, is the way that Wright tried to take advantage of the physical location of the house, by using stone to mimic the grey cliff on which it was built, and keeping the focus on the amazing lake views.

FUN FACT: The limestone of the bluff on which Graycliff is built creates shapes like diamonds and hearts as it erodes. Wright incorporated these shapes in the house, designing diamond-shaped windows and using the heart-shaped rocks in the stone fireplace and elsewhere.

TIP: Graycliff is about a 15 minute drive south of Buffalo in the small town of Derby. The most convenient way to get there is by car but Uber is available as well .

Buffalo’s Architecture: Much More than Bricks and Mortar

Architecture geeks and design aficionados are probably well aware of Buffalo’s connection to the “Father of Skyscrapers” and chances are they can name the architect of the Twin Towers without having to Google it. But for Henk and I, it came as a surprise to learn just how many significant examples of American architecture are found in Buffalo. More importantly, with every building we discovered, we learned more about the city’s history, its economic ups and downs, some unusual claims to fame, and a glimpse into the daily lives of the people who lived and worked here.

Not bad for a bunch of bricks and mortar.

Special thanks to Visit Buffalo Niagara tourism who hosted Henk and I on our architecture tour of the city.

Jane Canapini is a member of the Travel Media Association of Canada and the North American Travel Journalists Association. She established GrownupTravels.com in 2014 to share information and tips based on personal experience so her readers could get the most out of their travels.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like these:

How about Kleinhans Music Hall, by Saarinen and son?

A great addition, Marcia. Its design is surprisingly ‘modern’ considering it was built in 1940 (a Saarinen characteristic of course) – and I understand the Hall is considered to be one of the most acoustically perfect concert venues in the world. Thanks for letting me know. We’ll have to visit it next time we get to Buffalo. (who knows, maybe when we are able to go to concerts again!)

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The Lipsey Architecture Center Buffalo

At the richardson olmsted campus, about the lipsey center, the lipsey architecture center buffalo explores excellence in architecture and city planning as demonstrated by buffalo’s outstanding architectural heritage..

Located in the Richardson Olmsted Campus, the LACB will provide orientation, prompt inspiration, and serve as a gathering place to launch new ideas related to architecture, landscape, and design. Through exhibitions, tours, programs, and outreach, the LACB engages the public in Buffalo’s architecture, landscape design, and urban planning, and its role in culture and design literacy.

The LACB fosters collaboration with organizations with the similar goal of activating Buffalo’s architecture, planning, and landscape. By providing a center to host exhibitions, events, and programs, the LACB actively collaborates with aligned groups in dialogue and shared programming.

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May through September 2024

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Architectural Digest Tours Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo

By The Unexpected Buffalo

Published on August 29, 2019 | Last Updated July 1, 2020

Being an integral hub of industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Buffalo benefitted from an influx of entrepreneurs, immigrants, innovators, designers, trailblazers, and, most evident today, architects, all looking to leave their mark in the City of Light. One such architect, drawn to Buffalo after befriending a prominent local businessman, was none other than Frank Lloyd Wright.

On the heels of other revered architects and designers like Louis Sullivan, H.H. Richardson and landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, Frank Lloyd Wright began his Buffalo portfolio with the construction of the Martin House, completed in 1905. But as Architectural Digest discovered in a recent feature , Wright’s legacy in Buffalo stretches even further.

Photo by Patrick Mahoney

“While Wisconsin and Arizona are the locations typically associated with Wright’s work, it’s in Buffalo, of all places, that architecture enthusiasts can find a plethora of his work,” Kristine Hansen writes for Architectural Digest.

Focused on sites open to the public, AD toured five of the seven Wright sites in and around Buffalo – the Martin House , Graycliff , the Filling Station at Buffalo Transportation Pierce Arrow Museum , Fontana Boathouse , and Blue Sky Mausoleum . But seeing is truly experiencing. We invite you to tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo for yourself.

Read the entire Architectural Digest feature here: This Smaller U.S. City is Filled With Frank Lloyd Wright Gems

Learn more about Wright in Buffalo here: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo

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Sidewalk Safari | Part-time Travel Blog

16 of the best reasons to love buffalo architecture.

The Best of Buffalo Architecture at a Glance

• The Curtiss Hotel
• The Richard Olmstead Campus
• The Mansions of Elmwood Village
• Buffalo’s Cool Doors
• Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House Complex
• Parkside Candy: An Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Parlour
• Buffalo's Art Deco City Hall
• Downtown Buffalo's Art Deco Fire Department
• Downtown Buffalo's Guaranty Building
• Buffalo's Ellicott Square Building
• Buffalo's Liberty Building
• The Dun Building: Buffalo's First High Rise
• Buffalo's County Courthouse
• Gold-Domed Buffalo Savings Bank 
• Shea's Buffalo Theatre
• Downtown Buffalo's Electric Tower

Buffalo Architecture in Detail

1. refreshed opulence at the newly opened curtiss hotel.

2. The Richard Olmstead Campus

3. The Mansions of Elmwood Village

4. Buffalo’s Cool Doors

5. Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House Complex

6. Parkside Candy: An Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Parlour

7. Buffalo's Art Deco City Hall

8. Downtown Buffalo's Art Deco Fire Department

9. Downtown Buffalo's Guaranty Building

10. Buffalo's Ellicott Square Building

11. Buffalo's Liberty Building

12. the dun building: buffalo's first high rise.

13. Buffalo's County Courthouse

14. Gold-Domed Buffalo Savings Bank 

15. Shea's Buffalo Theatre

16. Downtown Buffalo's Electric Tower

Map of a Self-Guided Tour of Buffalo's Historic Architecture with a Focus on Downtown

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2017 Tourism Volunteer of the Year Award given by Visit Buffalo Niagara 2015 - The Collectors Weekly: Collectors Weekly Hall of Fame Saluting Great Collections   (Online Dec. 2015) 2014 - Community Contribution Award given by Graycliff Conservancy 2012 - The Friends of Architecture Award given by The American Institute of Architects Buffalo/WNY Chapter. 2010 - The Owen B. Augspurger award, which recognizes local historians devoted to the preservation of Erie County's heritage ,  given by the Buffalo History Museum. 2006 and 2007 - First Place in the Buffalo Spree "Best of Buffalo: Website" category. 2002 - Award given by the mayor of Buffalo, Anthony Masiello, and the Buffalo Preservation Board "for creating countless web sites for historic properties ... educating the person who logs on about the history of both the building and its architecture." -------- Through an agreement with the SUNY Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning in 2016, this website will remain online in perpetuity. Special thanks to Dean Robert Shibley for enabling this agreement.  Thanks also to my wife, Nancy, and to Dennis Galucki and Alison Fleischmann for their support and encouragement.

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Guaranty Building Tour

October 1, 2022 @ 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm.

Preservation Buffalo Niagara is the exclusive provider of tours of the Guaranty Building.

Originally built in 1896, this Adler & Sullivan-designed structure is a highlight of Buffalo’s downtown architecture. Come see the beautiful terra cotta tiles on the exterior, the incredible mosaic work on the interior, and learn the history of this building, including what makes it a great preservation story.

Pre-registration is required.

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Beat the heat: Buffalo Boat Tours offers family fun on the water

BUFFALO, NY — Buffalo Boat Tours offers families three cruises along the Buffalo River — from parties on the Big Kahuna Tiki Boat to learning more about Buffalo there is something for everyone.

7 News Reporter Jaurdyn Johnson got to experience all of the fun on Tuesday with Rich Hilliman, co-owner of Buffalo Boat Tours.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jaurdyn Johnson (@jaurdyn)

"The tiki boat is $32 for an hour and a half. We have a full liquor bar, beer, wine, whatever you want and a full bathroom on board as well. The history tours are $32 as well. That's an hour and a half narrated tour up the Buffalo River and back, we have a few other products that we offer like wine in the wind on the Spirit of Buffalo and a lot of different special events," said Hilliman.

Hilliman told Jaurdyn Johnson, that getting out on the water just makes everyone happier on the wall.

"Water is a great place to be. We're not often thought of as a waterfront city, but once you get out here and realize what we have, it's really a special thing and what makes it special for me is when people get off the boat and realize just, just how fun it is to be out there and get away from the land stuff," said Hilliman.

Hilliman says to book fast, because the sooner summer comes, the fewer options he has open.

Find boat reservations here.

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• UB Architect's Design Chosen for 5/14 Memorial
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UB architect's design chosen for 5/14 memorial

"Seeing Us" features 10 interconnected pillars with victims' and survivors' names on them. Designed by Jin Young Song and Douglass Alligood

Published May 21, 2024

Design holds significant power to inspire hope, healing, and remembrance. UB architect Jin Young Song, alongside partner Douglass Alligood, hopes their memorial concept "Seeing Us" will provide this for Buffalo. The design was chosen by the 5/14 Memorial Commission to honor the victims of the racially motivated mass shooting on May 14, 2022, at a Tops grocery store, which resulted in the deaths of 10 Black individuals and injuries to three others.

"Seeing Us" features 10 interconnected pillars with victims' and survivors' names, varying in arc and height, faced with stone. A support building serves as an education and community hub with an elevated memorial walk on its roof. This design aims to create a ritualistic space for collective memory and societal protection against hate.

The 5/14 Memorial Commission, after narrowing down 20 entries to three finalists, chose "Seeing Us" with input from the victims' families. The memorial, designed to be a timeless and accessible space, focuses on simplicity and clarity to amplify its message within the urban landscape.

Read more about the memorial here.