I just saw that buffalopundit wrote about the rememberbuffalo project.

Remember Buffalo Project
November 14th, 2005

Paul Visco is a computer whiz who designed the elmwoodstrip.com blog/journal interface from scratch.

His most recent project is something called "Remember Buffalo". Using google maps, it enables people to select locations and enter personal memories that correspond with a certain location on the map. Try it out.

Quoted from: BuffaloPundit

I cannot wait until it begins to grow. Soon we will be adding the primary doc section and we will collectmore primary docs than they have at the historical society. There are lots of (e:matthew) and (e:jim)'s photos in there too!

I upgraded the memory interface It is pretty effective now. Once I collect some more memories I will throw in a search engine. As soon as I decide on a final server solution I will also begin the primary doc upload section.

Please add some memories.

I will be working on the primay doc section next but for now, the interface to add memories has been upgraded with the following features.

1. You can visit the memories on your wap enabled cell phone using the beta mobile interface at rememberbuffalo.org/wap
2. The genre select list now shows you how many other memories have been assigned to specific genres.
3. submit reports the total number of memories that have been submitted.
4. The submit page displays 10 random memories from the total pool each time you visit.
3. The code is there to search by genre although I am not releasing the intertface for it until there are more memories. Currently, we are around 20.
4. All memories must include at least a location, a title, one genre, the year(s) it occurred and a memory.
5. Memories have been limited to Buffalo proper with boundaries of the Niagara River on the westside, Tifft Farm area to the south, Kenmore Avenue to the North and Bailey Avenue to the East. These boundaries might change over time but for now I would like to focus on the city itself.

Now I know my "homeland" was once called Delawanda

(e:lilho) and I headed down to the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society to do some research for the Remember Buffalo Project.

While we were there we found this pic of (e:joshua) and (e:jason)'s house across from spot at Cleveland and Elmwood. We also found some pics of the old trolley tracks on elmwood.



Here is a park at elmwood and Ferry along with the trolley tracks.



Here is the a shot of elmwood and North.



It is incredible what research consist of at the historical society. I cannot believe that their data is not digitized and searable on computers. You actually hold and look at original images in folder using special white gloves. You can request image photocopies for $0.25 but are not alowed to take pictures in the library which is ridiculous in my opinion. If you want to use their material you need to pay $25 per image for a six month lease to use the image. And that is the price for a non-profit project. How anti-preservation is that. If the place ever burns down or the material degrades there will be no external copies.

Hopefully using the remember buffalo primary document upload interface we will be able to collect thousands of primary documents of our own. Which I will then donate to a historical preservation group which promises free access and public domain for the contents.

Afterwards, I met with Doug Lambert from Randforce about collaborating on the project. He seems like a really creative, driven guy that will be fun to work with.