On Thursday, September 3, the city of Buffalo will do something quietly radical: it will slow down. At Freedom Park, the slender green peninsula jutting into the Niagara River at the foot of Ferry Street, the weekly series Healing by the Water will unfold for its sixth season, drawing hundreds of neighbors, families, and first-time visitors to an amphitheater that faces the Canadian shore. Music begins at 5 p.m., with food vendors, community organizations, and a marketplace of local artisans surrounding the performance plaza. It is free, open to all, and deliberately unhurried.
But to call Healing by the Water a concert series is to miss the point. The event's formal description speaks of "an afternoon of restoration, reflection and community," of "a peaceful grounding experience centered around the natural healing power of water." That language is not marketing flourish. It is a deliberate acknowledgment of what this specific patch of ground carries in its soil, its air, and in the memory of the people who come to stand on it. Freedom Park — renamed from Broderick Park in November 2023 — sits on Unity Island, at the southern tip of land where the Black Rock Ferry once operated. For decades before the Civil War, that ferry served as a major terminus of the Underground Railroad, carrying enslaved people who had escaped the American South across the river to safety in Canada.
That history is the reason the event exists at all. The Healing by the Water series is hosted by the Friends of Freedom Park, the volunteer stewardship group that has spent more than a decade working to restore the park's recognition as a historical landmark of the Underground Railroad. Each summer the program has grown, and the Friends note it brings hundreds of visitors to the park each Thursday evening.
The growth is easy to understand. Freedom Park is one of the most beautiful vantage points in Buffalo. The amphitheater overlooks the Niagara River, with the Peace Bridge arcing overhead and the lights of Fort Erie visible across the water. On a warm summer evening, the sunset turns the river gold. People bring lawn chairs or use the amphitheater's built-in seating. Some arrive by car, though parking is limited; many walk from nearby streets. The vibe is relaxed, intergenerational, and deeply communal — families with children, elders in folding chairs, couples dancing in the grass. The food vendors offer a variety of items. The local artists and community groups set up tables and share resources.
But the healing that the series' name promises is not only about a pleasant evening by the water. It is tied to the site's particular weight. Broderick Park — as it was then known — was a significant departure point on the Underground Railroad. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, signed into law by President Millard Fillmore, a Buffalo resident, increased the flow of freedom seekers pushing north to the Canadian border. From this spot, the Black Rock Ferry carried them to liberty. The National Park Service added Freedom Park to its Network to Freedom program in 2010.
The park's physical landscape now tells that story. Crossing into the park, visitors pass "The Road to Freedom," a mural by Buffalo native Gino Morrow II, unveiled in 2022, that depicts Harriet Tubman leading enslaved people north along the Underground Railroad. The site also bears traces of the rowing club that gave the park its old name and the ferry landing that served as a point of departure.
The renaming of the park in 2023 was itself a victory for the Friends organization, which had long worked to better tell the story of the Black freedom movement that the name Broderick — honoring Michael Broderick, a founder of the West Side Rowing Club — did not convey. The Buffalo Common Council approved the renaming, and the park officially became Freedom Park in November 2023.
Healing by the Water runs every Thursday from July 9 through September 10, 2026, with a different band or DJ each week. The season opened with Tommy Fluker and the Unity Band. The series also includes the Beating of the Drum, described by the Friends as 'a honoring, a remembrance and performance to move the soul and honor the ancestors.' As the Friends note, "It is always a beautiful evening to be in Freedom Park with both the family you know and the family that you didn't even know you were a part of."
Beyond the music, each Thursday's gathering includes what the organizers call "community gathering groups" — local organizations that set up tables to share information and build connections. The result is something rarer than a concert: a recurring civic ritual in which the community gathers on sacred ground, acknowledges the past, and practices the art of collective rest.
Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper supports the Friends of Freedom Park and their work at the park. The event's emphasis on the natural healing power of water aligns with the organization's environmental stewardship.
For those who have never attended, the organizers offer practical advice: arrive early to find seating, bring a chair if you have one, and come hungry. "Feel free to use the seating available or bring your own chairs," the Friends note. "Limited parking is available in the park along with plenty of street parking on Niagara Street." The event is free, and the experience is deliberately low-frills — no VIP sections, no tickets, no barriers between audience and stage.
What makes Healing by the Water remarkable is how unremarkable it seems at first glance. A free concert in a park on a summer evening is not an unusual thing. But the intentionality behind it — the choice of location, the framing of the event around reflection and restoration, the acknowledgment that this particular stretch of shoreline carries profound historical and spiritual weight — transforms the ordinary into the ceremonial. Every Thursday, for a few hours, the city gathers at the water's edge to remember that freedom is both a historical achievement and a daily practice. The river keeps flowing. The music keeps playing. The healing continues.