Recapping last week, we talked about the Yahoo list of worst winter weather cities in this week's podcast of the Buffalo Rising Roundtable with WBFO News Director Mark Scott.
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Buffalo missed the list based on cities by size, not necessarily by weather. Still, Newell points out that we have had a few mild winters, and he talks about his enthusiasm for using his neighbor's snow blower - something he says he hasn't gotten a chance to do a lot in the past few years. After that, we may have gloated a bit about the reaction of the cities most affected by last week's storms, and how they looked to Buffalo for help. We do know our snow, and we deal with it quite well.
Next, we talked some more about the upcoming Powder Keg Festival. Plans are in place for an ice maze, tubing on the skyway exit ramp, and all sorts of events on this same weekend as the Labatt Blue Pond Hockey Tournament. Newell says there will also be carriage rides going between Pearl Street Brewery and the site of the hockey tourney at Erie Basin Marina, and he's highly advising Festival-goers to employ Metro Rail - it'll put you right into the action.
Mark looped back to our opening conversation about the size of Buffalo's population, bringing up what seems like a long-ago issue of expanding Buffalo's borders to annex outlying towns, villages and cities. It's food for thought, and maybe a good time to look at the possibilities again. We wonder what you think about it.
Grant Street. With the grand opening of Michelle Gigante's Shakti Yoga, we have yet another female entrepreneur (see Sweetness_7 Cafe) who has taken a chance on Grant and made an entrance in a big way. Looking at all Grant Street is and has become, I muse about what a Saturday might look like for me in a new life on the West Side of Buffalo. Suddenly, after years of being off of the map, Grant Street, forming a "T" with the newly revitalized Amherst Street, has become a one-stop-shopping area.
We end with some good ribbing centered around the Donn Esmonde article about Newell that appeared in last Sunday's Buffalo News. Newell may not know who Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is, as referenced by Esmonde, but a la Rebecca, he too makes changes for the better.
Image: Rotary Rink at Fountain Plaza - ECB
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With the exception of Guercio's, every Grant Street store which I ever frequented (including gas stations - I don't buy booze or use M&T) has died. One would need quite a florid imagination to think of Grant as "one stop shopping".
That said, there IS a new 'Halal" store at the corner of Bird (which was supposed to be renovated into high-class apartments, some years ago...)
Over the span of just a few blocks, there are several markets - many of which cater to different ethnic foods, a cafe, a florist, an art gallery, a bakery and gelateria, a yoga studio, a wine and liquor store (I hear it's currently being renovated), a hardware store, a home flooring business, a clothing boutique that's relocating to Grant Street will open this March, and many many others...I think that's enough for one stop shopping, no? Some of these businesses are new, while others have been on Grant for years. And that's not even factoring in Amherst Street.