A good idea for this part of town since its so close to Buff State and the Albright Knox art gallery. I don’t see too much heated debate coming from this project even though I think a lot of people will want to see those houses that are used as stores go. I will not. Although it gave Elmwood its unique flavor, I’d rather see that part of Elmwood look a little more contemporary instead of cheap-looking store facades. The new hotel will have underground parking and space for retail, keeping Elmwood’s charachter while evolving into a more contempoary shopping strip, perhaps with a little extra tourist revenue coming in now. There was a bit of uncertainty of the strength of the retail on Elmwood, but with this hotel and the new three story building going next to Mythos, it looks as if Elmwood will be strong for a while

**photo courtesy of “Westcoastperspective”

A great Buffalonian to say the least. His committment to the City of Buffalo through thick and thin was unparalled and is reflected in newer generation of Rich’s. He was regarded as one of the pioneers of the frozen food indusrty, and his family says they are committed to keeping the company’s HQ’s in Buffalo, just as his dad would want.
Just thought I’d pass that along.

So this valentine’s day I was inspired, who is the ideal woman for any good Buffalo-man?
I’ve decided that it has to be WB49’s Sarah Bishop.

Not only is she beautiful, but can talk about anything Buffalo related all through the night (specifically from 10-10:30pm)
…now THAT is a woman.

PS-I’m single.

Yes my friends, the ol’ “Tops never stops” jingle is back and boy isn’t that super!?!? I think Buffalo is home of the oldest and corniest jingles in America…the Tops one isn’t that bad but a lot of the sausage makers, and Perry’s Ice Cream come to mind when I think of just the most incredibly corny jingles ever heard since 1940…which further proves the threory that Buffalo LOVES its past, and is afraid of its future.

…yes this is a small and meaningless post. Why? Because my mono is back with full force, I sleep 15 hours a day and fall asleep standing up by vending machines. Regardless, I’ll try to keep updating-we will have NO setbacks this year for posting. NONE. So off to study for an exam I know nothing about…should be fun.

Why are you shaking your head? Are you suggesting the Main Place Mall is not where you obtain your retail goods? Or where you pass the time with your friends? Chances are that is what you are suggesting, and for that I say-I feel your pain. I remember as a kid back in the late 90’s when I returned to the glory land (aka Buffalo) for Christmas. My aunt who recently moved back to the city from San Francisco with her husband, decided to take me and my cousin (who lived in Japan at the time) downtown for a day of shopping! This was three years removed from the tragic loss of AM&A’s accross the street which was pretty much a declaration stating

“Buffalo retail is dead. Kthnxbye.”
It was an okay mall, it had some stores, nothing that really stood out for sure (my cousin and I had no urge to come back). All I remember was buying a Buffalo Bills pencil with a little football player eraser on top-which i used with pride in suburban Maryland through the middle school years.
Seven years later I returned to the glory land on a permanent basis and decided to visit the mall again for old times sake. Oh the tragedy it was. Its not like my memory of MPM was very vivid but I do remember shopping at stores upstaits, but there is no such thing in the current days we live in. The food court was busy since it was lunch hour but the rest of the mall?

dead.

dead.

dead.
oh the horror.
It was sad. Two stores that looked like the kinds you would see in a real mall (Foot Locker and Kids Foot Locker), and I don’t count Waldenbooks because I think it is the worst excuse in the world for a bookstore in the era of epic, beautiful, Barnes & Nobles and Borders. I came out with my head shaking, wondering “Why? Why?” Instead of using this as a reason to hate on Buffalo, I looked into it and came accross a interesting “BuffaloRising” article

So it turns out the owner, Paul Hotung is just a typical out-of-town guy who comes into Buffalo to buy properties to use as tax write-offs while letting the buildings rot. In a 2000 Buffalo Business Journal article, Hotung stated that he wanted to focus more on bringing in telecommunications companies into Main Place. He also said he did not discourage retail business but the actual retailers have another story…

After clicking the link I see that there was once a “Jim Kelly’s City Sports Grill” Are you serious!?!? I would have loved to go to that. And over 50 tennants? Only six years ago? How times change.

But it does bring up an interesting situation. The Main Place Mall, despite the rumors, did pretty well in terms of profit per square foot. It had interesting retail options, something downtown lacks greatly. In fact, there really aren’t any retail options downtown. Although its great the Hotung is able to bring in telecommunications companies, the fact is that Main Place/Liberty has a 50% vacancy rate. Which means plenty of space for retail. Nowadays, streetside shopping is all the rage, but I know plenty of Buffalonians who enjoy shopping at the Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto.
Sure Main Place Mall was never a great success, but it provided some really good retail options to the 50,000 people who work downtown and to the occasional urban dweller (people like me). Its too bad its owner has a vision that I, nor many people, see.

Sorry about that but I got really excited when I read this…

“A key part of the project is replacement of the ground-level portion of the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority’s Allen-Hospital Metro Rail station.
While the underground tracks and platforms will not be affected by the street extension, a new above-ground station will need to be designed and built.
‘We’re really excited about the possibilities for the new station as a mixed-use building, a building that will be great for us and the community,’ said NFTA Executive Director Lawrence Meckler. ‘I’d expect this is something we’ll make decisions on in the next year as the planning process moves forward.’”

…Stop the presses! A new metro station!?!?! I never thought I’d hear such a sentence spoken in Buffalo…ever. And I’m absolutley positive it wont be hideous like all the other above ground stations they have. Now only if they could go to UB North Campus and the Airport.

This is a post I’ve intened on making a loooong time ago…
It was a beautiful September night in downtown Buffalo, not a creature was stirring, except for a mouse or two…and three of my friends. Waiting at “Theatre” station for our metro home a man came up to us with some purple cases in his hand and told us a story about a man known simply as “K.Dot”. After stories about “K.Dot” and his greatness, I was told that the mixtape that this man made out of his Marine Drive “studio” was being sold for $5. Since I’ve already lost approximately $30 to homeless men in the city over the last year, I decided that it was an okay investment since I’m actually getting something in return. So I bought it and listened to it when I got home. I was pleasantly suprised.
Track one is “League of My Own”, it has a really nice beat and his rhymes aren’t too bad-with Buffalo references thrown in there (I’m a sucker for those). This is by far the best track on the mixtape.
2. “Ain’t Gone Stop” I’ll ignore the gramatical error there…a decent track-this beat has been used in a slightly famous song but I can’t remember which one…the lyrics are pretty cliche in this one.
3. “Money On My Mind” Another famous beat he uses…lyrics are pretty cliche again but the beat saves this track
4. “By Any Means” Can’t stand this track.
5. “Ladies” Belongs in every club in Buffalo…its nice…and his verses are pretty damn clever in this track
6. “Like This” another famous beat used on this track…not bad but doesn’t stand out too much…the beat makes it pretty good though
7. “Hear Me Out” Meh…not much here
8. “Dangerous” hate. this song.
9. “Get Live” Terrible beat…okay flow
10.”Young Souljahs” Pretty nice beat, in fact its a real nice beat, deeper than any other track here, he says in this track “I’m feelin a little conceited here” before he flows…but I think he was looking for a synonym for “sentimental”…oh well.
11.”What U Think” Another famous beat (used in the movie “Hitch”)…voice doesn’t match the beat at all…but its not too bad.
12.”Go K.” Eh…not that great, flow is off, beat is mediocre.
13.”Recognize” Terrible beat.
14.”K.W.T.A.” Nice “Bonus Track” the beat is really nice but the flow is pretty off.

Basically, my friend and I decided he just rapped into a recording device and the dude from Marine Drive put beats over it, making him sound worse than he actually is. Well, I paid $5 for a cultural experience I guess. But overall its not that bad, in fact, it was a pleasant suprise, but we won’t see him on BET or MTV Jams anytime soon.

Bush says “Human/Animal hybrids > Buffalo”

The highly touted, heavily anticipated new Federal Courthouse on Niagara Square-despite allegedly being a top priority for US Courthouses-was not funded at all in President Bush’s budget…gee, thanks.
Now that this project has been delayed another year, you get the sense its just not going to happen, or perhaps like other Buffalo projects, it will be compromised into a cheaper and less exciting building. Not to get political, but maybe if we weren’t so tied up in a war with seemingly no end we might get some federal funding that we deserve.
So yeah, a little fed up with that.

City funded restaurant’s fourth reincarnation is an arts center…

Breckenridge, Empire Brewery, YaYa’s…the city has finally given up on making that spot a successful restaurant spot and will now tie it in more to the art aspect of the theatre district by making it an arts center, using some of the organizations already nearby including CEPA who is in the neighboring Market Arcade…not a bad idea but I think that once cars are back on Main Street, a restaurant would be a better idea.

For the first time in my life, businesses are LEAVING the suburbs and moving INTO downtown. This is a cause for celebration, right? A time for the people who live in the Buffalo area to be happy that their downtown, the city that is the reason for their suburb’s existence-is filling vacant office space, right? Absolutley not. Cheektowaga, Clarence, West Seneca are complaining about how the Empire Zone benefits are killing them while giving Buffalo an unfair advantage. First of all, the Empire Zone was not created to do this-it was created to draw in new businesses from outside the county, but downtown Buffalo is a place to work and it lost too many jobs to the suburbs to count. Living in a DC suburb for a while, I saw what was once a sleeper town (North Bethesda) turn itself into a city with a huge performance arts center in the middle of a quaint residential area, a humongous conference center and hotel where there was once trees and parking. Towns like Clarence are places for families to live and shop, and for their kids to go to school. There will always be suburban businesses, but Clarence will do just fine without the businesses they lost. Buffalo, however (no matter how optimistic you are) is struggling mightily, and needs new businesses and new life. In this Buffalo News article, most of these companies came to the city because they wanted to be here, because they needed the extra space, or they wanted to be in an urban setting because it reflected their business-the tax credits were only icing on the cake.
Buffalo lost a lot of its life to the suburbs, and still does to this day (albeit at a much slower rate). Buffalo is the reason why Amherest, Clarence, West Seneca, Cheektowaga, and Orchard Park exist and function the way they do. Cities were meant to be the place where the companies function, suburbs were meant for houses, schools, and later on-shopping malls. The suburbs have reaped plenty of benefits from the City of Buffalo, its only fair that Buffalo get a little of its life back.

Okay, so this is definitley not your usual album review. No, Rick Jeanneret has not taken up singing (thank God) but the Sabres have released fifty of his greatest calls from “Rene Robert wins it in overtime” to “Call a cop! Hasek just robbed him blind!” and forty-eight clips inbetween.
Before this CD came out, the only way to get these calls was to search long and hard online for some clips. Most of the ones I have came from “The Sabres’ Edge”, a great site that stopped existing four years ago. You can also find some here…

The CD covers the entire history of the team pretty well although there are a few calls I thought should have been there (specifically the Stu Barnes overtime winner vs. Pitt in gm6 of the 00-01 playoffs). Other than that, the album is prefect for any Sabres fan. It is $10 at the Sabres store (it used to be at Media Play locations but we all know what happend with them). And with the way the Sabres are playing this year, they might have to make an updated version for next season.