Years before the Internet (so a friggin' long time ago!!), I saw a news segment on a Buffalo news station about a toy museum in the Western New York area. I wanted so badly to go there, but of course, it was years before I had my license and couldn't convince my parents to take me. Over ten years later, I suddenly had a flash back of watching this news segment, so I went to the net and researched this toy museum to see if it still exists. I found their website and found it was less than an hour away from my house!

Erin and I went to the Toy Town Museum, expecting that it would probably be super lame, but were surprised to find it was AMAZING!!! (My pictures found here) This museum is located in East Aurora, NY, which is also the birth place of Fisher-Price in the 1930's. The majority of their collection consists of vintage Fisher-Price toys, which is cool, but there's also many other toys and the robots and puppets from the Buffalo station, WKBW Channel 7 shows Rocketship 7 AND Commander Tom. My memories of these shows are super hazy even though I watched them every weekend until '91. I know they introduced me to Davey and Goliath, which I still watch to this day. I've been researching Rocketship 7, Commander Tom and the city of Buffalo in general and I can barely pull myself away from the research to write this entry!! 

Buffalo is a unique city because unlike many big cities, it's buildings have remained untouched after it's economic decline, rather than torn down. From 1900 to 1960, the city was economically booming, but after 1960, it basically went in a recession it's never been able to raise itself out of. So all the buildings built in the prosperous time still remain and have barely been touched since the 60's. Over the past year, I've explored many areas of Buffalo and felt as though I was in a time warp. It's really awesome!!

So, I've made it my new hobby to visit more of these areas in Buffalo and I found this website, Forgotten Buffalo, which has also become a great resource for this research. I plan to attend all of their Forgotten Buffalo Tours. I'm so excited!!

Man, I know this entry sounds so scattered, but it's just been such a chain reaction. Basically, everyone I know thinks Western New York is "sooo far away" because it's in a different country, but really, it's so close and even though the city looks as though it's falling apart, it holds so much history. I can't help but be completely fascinated by it all.

Don't get me wrong, I still love Welland, it's my home...but what's great about living in this area is that you're a short drive to places like Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc. I've made it my goal to take advantage of this as much as possible until I decide to move somewhere else.