A Facebook friend dropped this historical treasure on me last week. It is a promotional video for the Buffalo ‘Evening’ News from about 1960. It is loaded with historic film footage around Buffalo and of the News’ operations. There are few industries which have gone through the drastic changes that the news paper business has over the last half century and especially over the last decade. The contrast from then to now makes this footage very powerful. The video touts an impressive list of Buffalo Evening News accomplishments through their advocacy including a new downtown library, creation of the McKinley Monument, the establishment of the County Hospital and the fixing of bumpy roads among others. Interestingly the News also took responsibility for convincing the state to extend the Thruway into downtown but also claimed to be an early siren for the growing new problem of suburban sprawl which it called suburbanitis.
The video shows the huge number of people it took to churn out a paper in the heyday of print news. The old News offices near the foot of Main (now the windswept moonscape of the plaza fronting HSBC Tower) were packed with reporters, copy editors, typists, and other of the myriad staff sitting literally elbow to elbow. The most interesting part of the film is where they show the laborious multi step process of making the curved printing plates. Back then they printed 8 daily editions on gigantic presses that ran almost continuously. A tour through the News today reveals a relatively small automated press machine and no one need sit elbow to elbow as News staff dwindles year by year leaving much of its modernist building empty.