
this Grubby little town, Black Rock was once a separate entity from Buffalo and there was a fierce competition for terminus of the Erie Canal. Each knew that this would bring a lot of commerce. Buffalo ultimately won and grew massively due to the canal. Eventually Black Rock was absorbed into the City...although it still has its own distinct character. It's a tough place that keeps growing like a weed. I always think of the William Kennedy Book Ironweed ..which was named because the people of Depression-Era Albany hung on like the ironweeds.
Lots of ethnicities came through here. This is what gives it some of its fascinating character...English, Native Americans, Germans, Poles, Irish, Italians, African Americans, Puerto Ricans and Hispanics and most recently South Asians and Middle Easterners. The people who came through were laborers and sailors eking out a living and as such the character has a bit of tough, low brow, toughness to it.
This plaque, which I've never seen before is on an old building near the old Friehgt house and it commemorates the Polish workers and the architect, Casimir Gzwoski, who helped build the interntional RR bridge that crosses from Canada. The railroads almost immediately made the canal obsolete. Even ow trains cross that bridge (I hear them from my living room) many many times a day, back and forth, to and from Canada.
This was apparently put up in 1973.