Our inferiority complex as a downtrodden, Rust Belt city suffered a major blow over the past four days -- and recovery may be difficult.

More than 2,500 highly educated "opinion makers" arrived for Wednesday's opening of the National Preservation Conference, and left this weekend as newly minted ambassadors for Buffalo Niagara's glorious past and its revitalization.

To borrow a line from Sally Fields' 1985 Oscar acceptance speech: They liked you, Buffalo. They really liked you.

Get used to it.

This is not the same city it was 10 years ago. Developers who once soured on the economics of developing old buildings are now doing so with such regularity that the unusual has become commonplace. Converted loft spaces have returned housing to downtown after decades of inactivity.

Look around. Erie Canal Harbor. The Statler. The former Lafayette Hotel. Pierce-Arrow/Buffalo Transportation Museum. The Richardson Olmsted Complex. Buffalo River Fest Park.

The revitalization of key projects and some downtown areas and neighborhoods, rather than empty talk, is on the march.

"We have been a victim of our own self-doubt for so many years because of the challenges we've had economically that we forget we are capable of doing great things," said Doug Swift, a developer and president of Roycroft Campus Corp.

If it's lost on Buffalonians, it wasn't on Trust officials or conference-goers.

Did Buffalo pass the audition?

"If this was an audition, Buffalo now has a starring role," said Valecia Crisafulli, the Trust's vice president of partnerships.

"It's the most wonderful city I've been to in a long time," said Dieter Meyer, a Leesburg, Va., architect. "There's great architecture there, but there's really cool neighborhoods, like the Elmwood neighborhood and Allentown."

"The conference was one of the best, and I've been to a dozen of them," said Andrew Potts, a historic preservation attorney in Washington, D.C.

Then he added this: "The historic building resources in the Buffalo region are just incomparable in the United States."

"Incomparable." For years now, frontline publications across the country have been singing Buffalo's praises as a top-tier destination for architecture, history and art.

"Buffalo has a kind of power, the power of the authentic place," architecture critic Paul Goldberger of the New Yorker has said.

Do we really believe it?

Anthony Armstrong, a program officer of Local Initiatives Support Corp. who led several tours, was touched by the positive reception.

"Being from here, it took me years -- decades -- to overcome this notion that we were somehow lacking. So having that reflected back to you, en masse, was really powerful," Armstrong said.

The conference validated decades-long efforts to save structures such as Shea's Performing Arts Center and the Guaranty Building, gazed upon with such rapt attention this week.

And it reinforced how important preservation is for Buffalo and the region's future.

"I hope it wakes up a lot of our political leaders so they know how important it is to preserve buildings, and not tear them down and make parking lots," said Rocco Termini, who has done six loft conversions since 2003 and is transforming the former Lafayette Hotel.

"Preservation should be one of our philosophical North Stars we ought to be following, because it works to our advantage in so many ways," said developer Howard Zemsky.

But preservation isn't only about preserving iconic buildings. It's also about revitalizing neighborhoods, and in limited but significant ways, activists are doing that with the involvement of young people teeming with ideas about reshaping their city.

"We talk about how we used to be -- 'we used to be a great steel center,' 'we used to have 600,000 people,'" said Mark Goldman, a historian who spearheaded the revival of Chippewa Street in the early 1990s.

"We should junk the words 'used to be,' kick them out of our vocabulary, because we are something fabulous."

Washington Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles, formerly of The Buffalo News, showed a 1997 cartoon of Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House at a conference event, which read, "Build it and they will come."

Toles closed his remarks by saying, "And we did, and you're here."

There were 2,541 people, the largest attendance at the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in 10 years. The idea that began early in the last decade with Ed Healy of Visit Buffalo Niagara grew to involve hundreds of volunteers, significant philanthropic support and the active involvement of preservation organizations, the Convention and Visitors Bureau, civic groups, the City of Buffalo and the Canadian consulate. Robert Skerker and Catherine Schweitzer led the organization effort.

The extraordinary hospitality the Buffalo area showed was mentioned again and again by conference visitors.

"Everybody was overwhelmed by the great welcome that the citizens of Buffalo gave, and it wasn't just the local preservationists who did that," Crisafulli said. "It was taxi drivers who were well-versed in the history of the city, the wait staff who were so welcoming. Every touch was so well-executed here."

Said Kris Christensen, a lecturer at the University of Colorado in Denver: "This is probably my 10th conference, and you really have rolled the red carpet out for us. I even got a ride from a police officer last night, and that would never happen in my own city."

Not only is Buffalo doing things right, conference-goers told us, they want to follow our example.

"You definitely have something to show other cities in how to make a commitment to the past and use it in a modern context to make a city work," said John Larson, an architectural historian and preservationist in Winston-Salem, N.C.

"It was very impressive to see the quality of the work done. This helped provide examples ... of what can be done," said Barbara Powers of Columbus, Ohio, after touring reconstructed Buffalo Public Schools.

Buffalo, of course, has enormous problems, from its shameful third-place poverty ranking to failing public schools, segregated housing and functional illiteracy.

Combating those issues doesn't mean having to ignore the city's strengths, Goldman said.

"We are both poor and a city with unbelievable assets. To neglect those while we're trying to deal with larger, global issues of poverty would be a mistake," he said.

Preservation battles still flare, but the level of awareness about the importance of Buffalo's past for its future is now undeniable. That's a change from when Lauren Belfer, author of "City of Light," grew up here in the 1960s and '70s.

Belfer is excited by what's happening now, but recalled how saddened she was when elm tree-lined Humboldt Parkway was paved over to build the Kensington Expressway in the 1960s.

"People viewed that as empty space. Want to build a highway? The park is empty space. Build a highway there. To me, that symbolizes the disrespect we once held for the greatness of our city," Belfer said.

msommer@buffnews.com null