Erie Basin Marina, the municipal harbor you see here in Buffalo, New York, was excavated between 1848 and 1852. Primarily for residential usage, the marina contains a large array of boat docks, gardens, and a public observatory overlooking the city and waterfront. Its harbor discharges into the Niagara River and Lake Erie.
The marina sits immediately south of the Black Rock Canal and north of Buffalo's Inner Harbor and Naval Park area, where it is joined by a promenade walkway. A long breakwall constructed and maintained by the United States Army Corps of Engineers protects the harbor. From above the harbor was even designed to resemble an American buffalo.
Before the marina existed this was the Erie Basin, one of two connections from Buffalo's Outer Harbor to the Erie Canal in the 19th and early 20th-centuries. Excavation here occurred between 1848 and 1852, and the basin was then protected by a seawall of stones, wood and gravel. The basin's entrance became the site of Buffalo's first waterfront grain elevator, constructed by Joseph Dart, and later railroad tracks for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad were put in place in the same location for loading ships.
Picture the harbor opening beyond the breakwall toward the Niagara River and Lake Erie, shaped from above like a buffalo.