The park system of Buffalo contains about 900 acres of handsome land, which has been laid out by Frederick L. Olmsted, the eminent landscape artist, and its natural beauty wonderfully added to. It lies close to the finer residence portion of the city, and is readily reached from all sections. Land for new parks on the south side of the city and along the lake has recently been bought, making splendid additions to the park system.
The school system of Buffalo ranks deservedly high. We have over fifty grammar schools, one high school, another large school building used for the overflow and a new high school projected. We have a State Normal School, Kindergartens, dozens of parochial and private schools, and we have taken steps to establish manual training schools.
We have medical colleges of high standing, business colleges of national reputation, some splendid public libraries, several of the finest theaters in the country, and handsome churches without number. No city has more right than has Buffalo to be called the city of churches. We have about 150 of them.
The social atmosphere of Buffalo is delightful, and visitors to this city always carry away with them very pleasant memories of our social life.
In short, there is in Buffalo every refinement of civilization of the highest type. The busy man of affairs who seeks, at the same time, investment for his capital and charming social advantages for his family, can find in Buffalo all that he desires.
A CITY OF HOMES.
And there is still another phase of this subject that should be touched upon. Buffalo is a city of homes for the humble as well as the rich. It is a city full of the sweet content that belongs to the home-builder. Building and loan associations, of which we have a great number, have materially helped to bring about this result. But it is a fact that these associations thrive only in soil suited to them. They are the outgrowth of sterling worth, sobriety and manly ambition. Where they thrive we find good workmen of conservative instincts, who are averse to taking part in labor troubles. This is believed to be the chief reason why Buffalo has always enjoyed a singular freedom from strikes. Be the cause what it may, it is a fact that strikes are of a rare occurrence here; and when they have occurred they have been quickly settled. The firebrands of labor agitations have had very little encouragement here.
It is the more easy for workmen to own their own homes in Buffalo from the fact that land values here are remarkably low. We stretch over a large section of territory and have plenty of room for our people.
A first-class electric street car service gives easy and swift access to the suburbs; while the New York Central Railroad runs trains every hour each way on a Belt Line encircling the city and tapping residence portions all around the fifteen-mile circuit.
Nowhere is there a more conservative, prosperous and contented community of workingmen than in Buffalo, and this is a fact that builds up a bulwark of safety for industrial enterprises and investment of capital.