Botanical Gardens
(Tri-dome) Victorian Conservatory
The Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens are botanical gardens located at 2655 South Park Avenue, Buffalo, New York, USA in South Park. These gardens are the product of landscaping architect Frederick Law Olmsted, glass-house architects Lord & Burnham, and botanist and plant-explorer John F. Cowell.
The idea of the Gardens first began in 1868 when the Buffalo Parks Commission
started meeting with landscape architect Fredrick Law Olmsted, Sr., and
Partners. In the late 1880s, they asked Olmsted to design a new park for South
Buffalo; the eventual design included two new parks: Cazenovia Park and South
Park, which was created in 1894-1900 from 156 acres (63 ha) of farm land.
South Park eventually became today's botanical gardens. In Olmsted's design, its
conservatory would showcase tropical plant species, while the rest of the park
was designed to feature hardy species including an arboretum, pinetum, shrub
garden, and a bog garden. Formal gardens around the conservatory led visitors
into informal park along walking paths. South Park also was to include a large
pond for boating, a ring road for horse carriages, and a meadow. However, the
proposed walking paths, boat house, and bandstand were never completed.
The conservatory's tri-domed glass, wood and steel building was designed by the
premier conservatory designers of the time: Lord & Burnham. Construction methods
were based upon the famous Crystal Palace and Kew Gardens Palm House in England.
When built in 1897-1899, it was one of the largest public greenhouses in the
country (at a cost of $130,000). Today there are fewer than a dozen large
Victorian conservatories in America. This is one of only two with a tri-dome
design (the New York Botanical Garden is the other).
The first director Professor John F. Cowell oversaw the growing of plants for
the park and personally located and obtained unusual tree specimens. He spent
decades exploring the Americas and the Caribbean, sending back seeds and small
plants for the conservatory. Shortly after it opened, thousands of visitors to
the 1901 Pan-Am Exhibition visited South Park's conservatory and gardens, which
thus quickly gathered national renown.
Text from Wikipedia
nearby Catholic church
