File:Historic plaque at Mohawk Ramp, Buffalo, New York - 20210908.jpg

English: A historic plaque is embedded into the Washington Street exterior wall of the Mohawk Parking Ramp in downtown Buffalo, New York, as seen in September 2021. An open-sided structure of reinforced concrete that was typical of parking ramp design of its era, the Mohawk Ramp is located at 477 Washington Street (corner East Mohawk Street) and is the first of three that were opened in the autumn of 1955 by Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps (the others were the Seneca Ramp, on what's now that site of Seneca One Tower, and the Eagle Ramp, the bones of which still live insider the shell of the Robert B. Adam Ramp, whose 2003 construction saw three additional levels and a new exterior façade added to the original structure). The ramp cost $1.5 million to build, had space for 611 vehicles, and at the time of its opening charged a rate of 35¢ for the first two hours of parking and 15¢ for each additional hour up to a daily maximum of $1, and offered monthly parking for $15. Though it may seem vaguely ridiculous by today's standards, city bigwigs of the day were apparently convinced that the ramp's opening would be viewed by posterity as a historic event: according to contemporaneous news coverage, the gala opening ceremonies saw Mayor Pankow touch down on the roof of the ramp in a helicopter to cut the ribbon, an antique car parade down Main Street, and breathless declarations that it was downtown Buffalo's "most important event since the removal of the horse-drawn streetcars". Yet that point of view is not as dismissible as it may seem at first blush: the Mohawk Ramp is notable as the oldest existing, and second-oldest overall, parking structure in Buffalo, and the first in the country to have been built under a then-innovative scheme that became known as the "Buffalo plan" when copied by other cities: Buffalo Civic Auto Ramps was founded by a consortium of downtown retail, banking, and business interests who financed the ramp's construction using city-backed bonds whose interest and principal were paid off over a span of 30 years by parking revenues, after which point ownership of the ramps reverted to the city.