A pretty good one can be found here.

if your activities of today left some kind of ghostly trace somewhere? The crisp corners of the brickwork seem as though they may have little tolerance for biological membranous activity ...

There's lots of ghosting in this photo, but the one that fascinates me is the train/streetcar crossing the back intersection -- it's AWESOME! I can imagine it still moving through the city, invisible to all but ghosts and certain "sensitive" types. It's like seeing traces of a parallel dimension. If it were a Twilight Zone episode, we'd see people boarding it and a conductor taking tickets.

These mansard-roof skyscrapers of the late 1800s were an interesting response to the architects' dilemma of what a tall building should look like, given that there was very little in the way of precedent. Fortunately guys like Burnham and Sullivan came along and put an end to these nightmares. Not many of these mansard-roof jobs are still around these days.

If the front of the hotel is indeed facing east then the sun, quite remarkably, is shining from the northeast. Check the shadows of the awnings and the people on the street. Last time I checked Buffalo was in the Northern hemisphere.

West Eagle doesn't quite run straight east-west, but it's pretty close. And it's not early morning here. The sun's quite high. All of which surely suggests that this is in fact early afternoon, and the hotel faces west, not east. Which would explain why there are no awnings on the left of the building. That's the north side.

Looks like The Shining meets Rosemary's Baby. Creepy ... especially those top floors.

Look at that amazing ironwork at the front door.

Can anybody identify what the object is that looks like it's hanging from the power lines in the upper right corner of the photo?

[It's lighting for a sign. - Dave]

The front of the building faced east. If we could see the rear, it might have had awnings as well. It would have faced the setting sun over Lake Erie and would have provided fairly harsh light in both summer and winter.

[Actually, the front faces west-northwest. - Dave]

Buildings like this with dozens of awnings fascinate me. Anyone know which direction this building faced? I'd imagine that would make a difference in why one only one side of the building has the awnings at various stages of deployment.

Gorgeous streetlamps as well, and I love all the men in similar boater hats.

But it's no Hotel Netherland.