Armand and his wife, Eleanor began collecting art in the 1960s. By that time, Armand was a successful grocery store owner and he would soon grow his business into a corporation. He began his career at the age of 16 when he became manager of his father's grocery store in Niagara Falls. He opened his first store in 1951 after serving in the military. He and a partner would go on to found Niagara Frontier Services, the predecessor&nbsp;to Tops Markets, which is the largest chain of supermarkets in Western New York. Armand became CEO and president of Tops Markets and retired around 2007 when&nbsp;it was sold to a Dutch firm.&nbsp;

The Castellani Museum of Art was built in 1990

Armand J. Castellani and his wife, Eleanor.

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Constructed in 1990, the Castellani Art Museum is located on the campus of Niagara University and houses more than 5,600 works of mostly modern and contemporary art. It is named after its founder Armand J. Castellani, who contributed funds for its construction and also donated most of his art collection. The building was designed by architect Thomas Moscati. The art collection consists of prints, paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures that date primarily from the mid-19th century to today. Artists of note represented here include Picasso, Bierstadt, Dali, and Motherwell. Another part of the collection is a large collection of historical prints depicting  Niagara Falls since the 17th century. In addition to the art, the museum offers group tours and a variety of educational programs for children.

Castellani Art Museum

This tour features multiple art museums and galleries and an aerospace museum to highlight the creativity of science, concluding with a stop at the childhood home of the Great American author, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Creativity Crawl through Niagara Falls

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The museum has been located in several places, including the HSBC Arena in Buffalo before finding its current home in the former&nbsp;Niagara Falls International Airport terminal in 2013.

Located in Niagara Falls, New York, the Niagara Aerospace Museum opened in 1998. The museum explores the history of the area's role in aerospace history. On display are vintage and replica aircraft. The museum also has a library that serves a repository for historical documents and records, and an extensive film archives that has been digitized. Highlights of the museum collection include a P-39 Airacobra that saw combat over Russia during WWII (it is not on display), the first commercial licensed helicopter, and a Curtiss JN-4 (Jenny). 

Niagara Aerospace Museum

Of the 148 hand carved carousels left, 71 of these were made by one of Herschell's companies. Herschell also pioneered the kiddieland concept, building rides specifically for children. The Kiddieland Testing Park Exhibit, located outside of the museum building, features working kiddie rides that are&nbsp;in operation during the summer.&nbsp;The factory remained in operation until 1970.

The Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum is one of the few places left in the country where hand-carved carousels were produced. It is located in the factory once owned by Allan Herschell, who opened the business (after previously co-owning a couple of other carousel companies) in 1915. At its peak, North Tonawanda had five carousel makers and Herschell's was the best and most prolific, producing 3,000 carousels in all. The company specialized in portable carousels that were used by traveling carnival operators. Today, the museum operates a 1916 carousel and a smaller aluminum kiddie carousel built in the 1940s. The museum offers guided tours, education programs, a summer lecture series, and woodcarving classes. It also contains a working music roll maker, 1,600 rolls, and a large collection of carved animals. The museum building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum

The Burchfield Penney Art Center is an art museum located on the east side of Buffalo State College. It was founded in 1966 and focuses on art created by artists from or with ties to western New York. The museum houses the largest collection of American artist Charles E. Burchfield who is well known for his watercolor paintings on nature. Burchfield was a good friend of artist Edward Hopper, who said that Burchfield's work "is most decidedly founded, not on art, but on life, and the life that he knows and loves best." The museum offers various programming, including literary readings, lectures, symposia, and workshops. In 2009, the New York Times included Buffalo and the museum as one of the years “Top 44 Places in the World  to Visit.”

Burchfield Penney Art Center

The museum's history dates back to 1862&nbsp;when the Buffalo Fine Arts&nbsp;Academy was founded, making it one of the oldest organizations of its kind in the country.&nbsp;Wealthy Buffalo industrialist John J. Albright personally funded the construction of the building for the academy, which was supposed to be the venue for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition but construction was not finished until 1905. In 1962, another wealthy Buffalo philanthropist Seymour Knox Jr. donated funds to build an expansion and his name was added to the official name.&nbsp;

Built in 1905, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery is one of the leading art museums in the country. It houses a superb collection of contemporary and modern art (6,500 pieces in all) comprised of paintings, sculptures, photographs, graphic, digital, and other types of artwork. Notable artists include Gaugin, Warhol, Picasso, Matisse, Miró, and Pollock. The museum offers various educational programs for people of all ages and also houses a special collections and archives. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places 1971.

Albright–Knox Art Gallery

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in
St. Paul, Minnesota and spent much of his early life there, but he also lived
for a time in Buffalo. The family moved to Buffalo when Scott’s father became a
soap salesman for Proctor &amp; Gamble. The family lived at a few addresses in
Buffalo and briefly moved to Syracuse before moving back to Buffalo.&nbsp;

One of the Fitzgerald family’s
Buffalo residences is now part of the Allentown Historic District. The home at
29 Irving Place was the Fitzgerald residence from 1903 to approximately 1905.
The Irving Place house is a short distance from the Proctor &amp; Gamble
offices.&nbsp;One of the may stories told of Fitzgerald during his childhood years in Buffalo is that he and friends would perform plays in the Irving Place House.The Fitzgeralds lived at Irving Place for roughly two years. During that time, the future writer was enrolled at Holy Angel's Academy and later at Nardin Academy. In March of 1908 his father lost his job at Proctor &amp; Gamble and later that year, the family moved back to St. Paul.

Though acclaimed author F. Scott Fitzgerald is most associated with St. Paul, Minnesota, where he spent most of his early life, and Manhattan, where much of fiction took place, the writer lived for a time as a child in Buffalo. Fitzgerald’s father was employed by Proctor & Gamble in Buffalo, and their one-time residence at 29 Irving Place was a short distance away from the company. The house is now part of the Allentown Historic District.

Creativity Crawl through Niagara Falls

Castellani Art Museum

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information