New York Discovers Buffalo

A friend sent me a link to an article in the New York Times by a writer extolling the virtues of newly hip Buffalo. Buffalo has long been a national joke since the big snow storm that rendered the city immobile, but now it has recovered and its HIP. Hip, that is, in the sense that it has bars that approximate the hipness of Brooklyn and neighborhood business districts that revolve around the college scene. There are new arrivals from foreign lands seeking to claim their stake in the American dream. Ziplining at abandoned grain elevators. And of course there's the Buffalo contribution to the pantheon of regional foods, Buffalo wings. Its Buffalo as a Disney amusement park.

The writer also visits a few of the tourist attractions, an overpriced hotel, a market full of said new arrivals and then proclaims the city to now be a great place to visit. The map of the writer's trip shows a rather limited geographical range that belies the fact that they missed much of the city. No BBQ joints, no Polish restaurants, no Broadway Market, no Albright Knox Gallery, no Kleinhans Music Hall. I am sure that many Buffalonians are thrilled to have been discovered by New York, and eagerly await the arrival of the invasion of hipsters seeking to find the "new" Buffalo.

Buffalo is, and has always been, a great American city. The first city lit by alternating current (thanks Tesla), a transhipment point of the fruits of the land, gritty hardworking steel and auto producer. I tend to find New Yorkers to be a tad bit condescending when they suddenly discover something that appeals to their refined tastes. Buffalo, like many industrial cities, certainly has had its share of ups and downs. The fact that it boasts an incredible wealth of architectural gems has more to do with it being bypassed by progress than by design. The city foolishly tore down some of its greatest structures to provide parking spaces, and continues to piss away its architectural heritage in the name of progress. Preservationists are confronted with municipal malfeasance on a daily basis.

There is of course the developers who rescue abandoned industrial buildings and warehouses to create loft spaces only the well healed can afford. Meanwhile whole portions of the city succumb to rot and disinvestment. You can still buy an affordable house in the city in a neighborhood that bears no resemblance to the happy places the article's author visited. Like many American cities, Buffalo is attracting people seeking the urban experience and willing to pay for it. How much the long suffering residents of established neighborhoods are benefiting from this influx is questionable.

I would have liked to see the author visit the Central Station, and ask why the fuck it hasn't been rescued and developed. I would have liked to see them visit the Fruit Belt and see how the non-collegiate full time residents live and struggle. Maybe sample some food at the Broadway Market or have a beer in a Kaisertown gin mill. Have a pierogi or a beef on weck, maybe a grilled hot dog at Ted's. Buffalo cannot be honestly judged by somebody from New York seeking hipness, and missing those things that make the city unique.

Robbie

I don't have a lot of close friends. A few from high school and college, and some from different jobs. Most of those involve communication on the internet and are rarely face-to-face. Moving to the South side of the city was a form of unintended isolation from a lot of the people I knew when I lived north. The railroad was another form of social isolation due to the fact I spent the bulk of my life at work. Since retirement I've managed to meet people through a local arts group, but still feel like an outsider. I'm starting to feel like a bit of an old fuddy duddy. My best social interactions are with people who, like me, worked for the railroad. Imagine that.

Robbie is one of those long time friends who has drifted in and out of my life. We met in college and roomed together for a short time. I had been wandering from various shared off campus living arrangements on the northside when my wife (then girlfriend) and I landed in an apartment with Robby and Chuck. Their apartment on Brompton faced the Salvation Army headquarters which provided us with morning entertainment via the band that played outdoors almost every day. Robby knew about my food allergies and would constantly tease me by threatening to cook things with the offending foods and watch me turn colors. Chuck would walk around with only a bathrobe and randomly expose himself at breakfast. Never a dull moment.

Mary and I moved into an apartment that didn't include any other entertaining clowns, but not too far from Robby. One memorable evening I asked Robby to help me move a cable spool up the back steps to our third floor apartment. Now this should have been a relatively simple task for two able bodied young men, but Robby just flopped around and constantly fell down. He essentially became a back stop to keep the spool from rolling back down the stairs. When we had agonizingly accomplished the mission I asked him what the fuck his problem was. It seems he had taken muscle relaxers before he came over. I sent him home and the next day he called me to say he was sore and covered in bruises and wanted to know what had happened.

Robbie got a job at the railroad, and I would drive him on occasion when he had car problems. When I lost my film animation job Robby was the one who suggested I apply to the railroad. I was hired, so I can thank and curse Robby for altering the course of my life. We would eventually live within a block of each other and I hung out a lot with him and his girlfriend Sarah. She introduced me to a short lived romantic flame, Holly from Hegewisch, a tough chick southsider who looked at romance like it was leprosy. Sarah would later inexplicably marry Chuck and eventually moved to California. Robby went on to get married as well and our relationship sort of dissipated.

So, many years later I find out that Robby and the charming Sarah live a few blocks from our southside home. Sarah divorced Chuck, I think she married someone else and divorced him, then moved back to Chicago to work at a southside hospital. Robby was in the middle of an acrimonious divorce and had moved in with Sarah in her tiny one bedroom apartment. We had come full circle. Instead of driving Robby to work I drove him to medical appointments. The railroad had pretty much left him crippled and neither of them owned a car. I'd stop by on occasion to chat about old times and old friends. They were amazingly still in contact with a lot of people we knew in college. I helped Robby pack up the belongings at his old house as the marathon divorce approached the finish line. I picked up their mail when they went out of town, and answered emergency calls when Robby would fall and get injured.

When the divorce came through they decided to fulfill a dream and move to Arizona. I am not sure how they ever managed to pull it off because they were still packing when the movers showed up. Of course the movers forgot a box and I had to drive out to some remote suburb near the edge of the known universe to drop it off. We still keep in touch by phone when Robby doesn't lose it or forget to turn it on. I still consider him one of my best friends, because through thick and thin, he's the best damn cable spool back stop I've ever known.

The Terror of Father Baker

By all accounts Father Baker was a decent and compassionate human being. In 1882, Baker grew his "City of Charity" to address the ever-changing social concerns of the time.  The Our Lady of Victory Infant Home served as a safe haven for unwed mothers from across the country, as well as for thousands of abandoned babies who were cared for and placed for adoption. OLV Hospital, which started as a maternity hospital, evolved to serve the comprehensive medical needs of the general community. The Working Boys' Home taught countless young men valuable trades and laid the foundation for their independence and success as adults.

But to countless children living in the Buffalo metropolitan area Father Baker's name was synonymous with dread and fear. Childhood misbehavior was met with the threat of being sent to Father Baker's. Talk to anyone of a certain age who grew up in the area and the chances are their parents had the Father Baker threat in their arsenal. I know my parents did. It was the nuclear option when threats of "wait until you get home" failed to extinguish intemperate behavior.

While I think it was better than having the crap wailed out of you, it was a nasty bit of psychological warfare to inflict on kids who were just being kids. My brother and I usually got the full Baker when we were acting up in the back of the car. "We're taking you to Father Baker's" was usually enough to scare us straight. Now you think after being threatened with it enough times even the peanut brain of a child would eventually figure out it was an idle threat. Therefore it was in the parents best interest to use it judiciously lest it lose its potency.

On one memorable car trip I guess my brother and I were pushing the boundaries of unreasonable behavior. My father, having reached the limit of his tolerance and succumbing to the famous Daruszka temper, pulled the car over and ordered us out. I'm not sure if our Mother was game to this extreme action but out of the car we went and told to wait there for the people from Father Baker's to come pick us up. Then my Father started to drive away. At this point our peanut child brains figured out that this was serious shit and our immediate reaction was to cry and wail. The car stopped, we were let back in, and the journey continued with two contrite and quiet children in the back seat.

Father Baker was the holy terror weapon that warped countless children, laying the foundation for further mental issues of abandonment and fear when we became adults. He's there in our subconscious waiting to snap us up to throw us in his orphan prison.