Sports, Broadcast and Music Entities Create Buffalo Niagara Hall of Fame Project

October 27, 2015 · No Comments

BUFFALO, N.Y. – As they said in the movies, “If you build it, they will come.”

The Buffalo Niagara Hall of Fame, a collaboration by the Buffalo Broadcasters Association, the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame, the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame and Fandemoneum has created a plan for an exciting, interactive entertainment experience where guests can gain insight into the rich historic legacy created by the men and women who have provided decades of sports, music and broadcasting that impacts all our lives daily. The organization is now entering the fund raising phase for the facility.

Therese Forton-Barnes, Dave Gillen, Ted Johnson and Anthony Casuccio

The Buffalo Niagara Hall of Fame has a four-fold objective:

• To give our community a world-class tourist destination, focused on Buffalo’s rich heritage in sports, music, broadcasting and entertainment.
• To be a year-round destination with educational value bringing school buses, senior tours, families, fans and tourists from across the region, country and Canada.
• To create a facility where each organizations Hall of Fame honorees would be featured in entertaining, educational and interactive state-of-the art displays.
• To house interactive exhibits, engaging galleries, a theater, a research area, educational and conference and event space within a proposed 20,000-50,000 sq. ft. facility.

The organization has created a preliminary design after intensive work with Hadley Exhibits of Buffalo. Hadley is internationally known for its work on projects for the 9/11 Memorial, Smithsonian, National Baseball Hall of Fame and The JFK Memorial Library. They have been producing high-quality exhibits for 60 years. The firm offers a complete range of service including design, detailing, engineering, fabrication, instillation and project management with state of the art technology.

“It’s going to be an exciting, interactive experience where visitors could spend 3-4 hours to see everything,” said Therese Forton-Barnes, the group’s spokesperson and President of the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame. “It will be a year-round facility with changing interactive exhibits that will include today’s history in the making. It will be a perfect facility for meetings and events”.

The Buffalo Niagara Hall of Fame is in discussions on a location for existing space in downtown Buffalo, but is also exploring other locations. The key elements in any configuration are:

• Sufficient and flexible space for interactive exhibits and presentations.
• Educational space for learners of all ages,
• Storage space for existing and growing collections,
• High visibility, high traffic area with easy access for visitors, especially out of town visitors
• Accommodation for year-round activity

The BNHOF is looking for partners to assist in development including funding, programming and volunteering and has created a Kickstarter campaign so the community can participate to raise capital for startup costs:

“We also have had many conversations with local foundations and businesses to raise money to build the Hall and there is real interest and excitement” Ms. Forton-Barnes said.

Phil Beuth the former President of WKBW-TV and Good Morning America has already committed $25,000 to the project. “Buffalo and Western New York have a tremendously rich Broadcasting history and I’m committed to the project. I challenge other community leaders and supporters to make this worthwhile project a reality” Mr. Beuth said.

“One of the things I love most about this project is the collaboration of the three hall of fames. We all are very passionate about our entities and we share common goals. We all believe the history of sports, music, and broadcasting is so important to WNY that this facility will be a celebration of ‘Buffalo’, and showcase our fabulous city off to the rest of the world. Our passion for BUFFALO and for music, sports, and broadcasting will be infectious and will give us all more reasons to be proud of our community” Forton-Barnes said.
“We have the collections for the music, sports and entertainment fields. We have the people in our collaborating organizations who are experts. Our organizations have made the commitment to make this happen and we are ready to enter the next phase, so let’s build it!” said Forton-Barnes.

For more information visit www.bnhof.org

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