JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

  Buffalo Times, December 18, 1921. To compensate for not being able to visit Buffalo anytime soon (thanks Omicron!), I'm settling for flipping through the pages of the city's newspapers during the holiday season a century ago.  OK, that's not the entire truth. Awhile back, I spent a few days down a rabbit hole leafing through the Sunday editions of the great selection of early 20th century Buffalo papers found on Newspapers.com. There was a plan to begin a regular series of posts on Sunday papers of the era, focusing on a century ago, but the time wasn't there. File this idea under "projects for 2022." Still, material like this awkward shot of Santa hovering over a sleeping girl didn't deserve to be left in the can this holiday season. Illustration by Dan Smith, Buffalo Times, December 18, 1921.  A children's kingdom of toys and fairy tales, with characters ranging from classic comic strip character Krazy Kat to dolls that are inappropriate to own a c...

Book plates are little devices created especially for you; embodying your individual tastes or coat of arms. One pasted inside the front of your book not only ornaments the volume, but to the borrower with a defective memory, is a constant reminder of your ownership. - artist C. Valentine Kirby, 1911.  Sometimes, when browsing used books, you'll find a decoratively illustrated imprint or sticker indicating whose library the title once belonged too. It tells you a little about its former owner, who either cared enough to individually mark their books with illustrations that reflected their personal style, such as a sense of humour or a flair for the romantic, a tribute to family history, or betray an inflated ego. Inspired by an exhibit in Salem, Massachusetts, The Buffalo Sunday News placed a spotlight on book plates in its October 29, 1911 edition, focusing on the work and thoughts of artist  Clarence Valentine Kirby (1875-1947). In the years following this piece, Kirby ser...

This is the first of a series collecting odds and ends from the Christmas and New Year's holiday season 100 years ago. Ads, editorials, recipes, and anything else that caught my eye will be featured between now and January 1. Though not quite the dumpster fire 2020 has been, 1920 was still a turbulent time - the effects of the First World War, the upheavals of 1919, and the Spanish flu were still affecting North Americans. What you'll find in many of the items I'll feature is a sense of hope for the new year, that maybe things might be settling into a new sense of normal or are (finally) pointing toward a brighter future.  First up, a selection of ads from a sector that was doing far better in 1920 than 2020: department stores. Their Christmas Eve/Christmas Day ads generally avoided last-minute sales in favour of uplifting messages, wishes for peace on Earth, or cozy domestic scenes.   Border Cities Star, December 24, 1920. We'll start in Windsor, where Smith's th...

Found in front of a salon ("Karma") on Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo, April 18, 2010 - JB

American supermarkets tend to fascinate those I introduce them do. Whether it's a stock-up on cans of spray cheese or searching for sodas, most travelling companions are transfixed by the selection of products. When was the last time you saw a full shelf devoted to ferret care products in your Loblaws, Dominion or Sobeys? Remember: nobody likes to see a ferret cry after a shampooing. Photo taken in Wegmans, Amherst, NY, March 29, 2008 

While driving near Buffalo Central Terminal a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon this odd ice cream stand. Given the general state of the neighbourhood, it was hard to say if Gran Gran's was closed for the season or if Granny had discovered business was better elsewhere. The other passengers in the car were slightly freaked out by the girl on the sign. Is it her expression of devilish delight? Her strange eyes? her off-kilter pigtails? Her obliviousness to the giant cone about to fall onto her head? Photos taken in Buffalo, March 29, 2008 

Previously: City Hall After leaving City Hall we wandered around downtown for a few minutes, noticing the utter lack of life and ominous black smoke belched by a building close to where we parked. After lunch at a diner further up Main Street, we initially intended to check out the Darwin D. Martin complex designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Unlike City Hall, there appeared to be a lineup and we suspected we might not make one of the last tours. We headed to the Buffalo Central Terminal . Located east of downtown,the station was opened by the New York Central Railway in 1929 and remained in use as a passenger station until Amtrak pulled out in 1979. Two decades of neglect and stripping of artifacts by various owners followed until the site was turned over to the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation in 1997. Since then, Volunteers have gradually restored the site. There's a long, long way to go, though the work to date gives a sense of how neglected the site was. We s...