A good number of experienced and novice webmasters have devoted their energies to celebrating some aspect of Buffalo's history and culture. This column will present lesser-known websites that I've discovered during continual online exploration. As a local history writer and webmaster myself, my goal has been to know what is and is not online when it comes to our fair city, and now I'll be sharing my finds with you.

Like everyone else, I have my biases. I prefer personal, offbeat, noncommercial, and nonprofit sites and will mention a commercial site only if offers a unique, local public service separate from its money-making function. Take note, local dot.coms--if you want your site noticed, follow these simple instructions: buy an ad.

Stereotypical Buffalo subject matter--weather, sports, chicken wings--bores me, so I leave those sites to other reviewers. My goal is to bring attention to more original online material. Likewise, I stick to sites about the city itself, not its suburbs or other nearby locales.

Enough ground rules. Let's go surfing.

Because the Buffalo Gazette began life as the East Buffalo Gazette, this month's two featured websites focus on the history of Buffalo's East Side.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~jillaine/Buffalo/
Buffalo's East Side Working Group
The result of a collaborative effort amongst members of the NYERIE-BUFFALO-EASTSIDE mailing list, the site has a link giving instructions for subscribing to the list, and has pictures and short descriptions or just lists of East Side landmarks sorted into categories such as Businesses, Schools, Theaters, Churches, Hotels, and Saloons. Genealogists should note the "Surnames by Street," which lists family names found on East Side streets in the 1890 Buffalo City Directory.

http://www.geocities.com/richslon/eastbuf.html
East Buffalo, 1846-1976
This site offers a look back to when William Street was known as the "Wall Street of the East," for its large and profitable stockyard and meatpacking industry. Click on "Buffalo's Past" to find an essay by Iron Island activist Marge Thielman Hastreiter about the East Buffalo stockyards. The "Enter Gallery" link leads to business histories of Buffalo's Polish-American meatpackers.