Buffalo: It's Not What You Expect
About a moth ago I received an email from Hugo Lindgren, Editorial Director of New York Magazine (photo). He contacted me in regards to a story that he was writing about the economic future of upstate New York and the long-term political implications for New York City (case in point Joan – upstate?). What he was really looking for was someone that could show him around the Buffalo while discussing the ins and outs of various neighborhoods. I figured that this was a golden opportunity to show him the Buffalo that not many New Yorkers could even imagine.
Lucky for me Hugo was making a pit stop in Niagara Falls while en route to Buffalo. When we first met up one of the first things that he expressed to me was his disbelief at the condition of the American side of the falls (I wonder if NF is going to get some publicity in an upcoming issue?). So the tour was on and the first stop along our random route was Betty's for lunch. There was a fifteen minute wait for lunch - this was the first time I had ever been psyched to see a lunchtime wait at Betty's. The place was mobbed and Hugo was happy to see that this wonderful Buffalo eatery (in a stunning neighborhood) was so popular. We took the opportunity to walk up to Delaware Avenue.
As we walked and talked I pointed out the different features that make the city such a cool place to live (and visit). The Coit House, the future casket lofts, Midway, The Cloister, the Snooty Fox Lounge and Prespa, The Mansion, and everything in-between. I pointed out churches that were being converted to lofts and a run-down parks that now featured an artistic (and energy efficient) windmill - every place along the way had a quick story... and we had only left Betty's ten minutes earlier. It's amazing what you can accomplish with a ten-minute walk-and-talk in Buffalo.
The lunch at Betty's was phenomenal as usual (I found my new favorite chicken salad wrap) and Hugo loved both the food and the energy. During lunch we talked about the local music scene and how Buffalo is drawing so much talent. We discussed neighborhoods like Johnson and Days Park and the renaissances that occurred there (along with those responsible), we chatted about the rebirth of the public school system and the introduction of charter schools to the area... all of which led us to the issue of Buffalo's national image. Hugo was overwhelmed by what he had already seen in Buffalo - he likened Buffalo to places like Williamsburg in NYC (when things were just getting going). Buffalo is still known for being a former industrial, sports-trophy-starved, snow covered city - ask anyone around the country. Now that Hugo knew better, what was that going to do with his article that he was planning on writing? Things were changing that was for sure.
The rest of the day we continued to tour downtown - he saw the Erie Canal terminus, the activity at Pearl Street Brewery, the Cobblestone District (more on that soon), the grain mills (story today), the Naval Park, the Old First Ward and the Larkin District (blew him away), ...by the end of the day he was somewhat enamored with our city. We even stopped into Uncle Sam's (top photo), where he picked up a couple army shirts for $5 each (a steal). We drove down exchange and he saw 'The Spark' set by The Larkin Building and he saw the barges on Buffalo River... he even smelled the Cheerios from General Mills.
We ended the tour back in Allentown where he discovered Sammy's Everything Special and Sweet Tooth (two new locations). "Do you know that you can't find an ice cream store in New York", he told me. "Property is too expensive... they're all gone." I pointed out Sammy's and he said, "Do you know how much money someone would pay for that sign like the one hanging at Everything Special - in a place like 'Billyburg'? These looks are the new thing. They're paying big bucks to retain the look of places that can be found all over your city."
Hugo never told me 'exactly' what he had in mind for his article that he was writing on 'Upstate New York' though I can pretty much guess what it was going to be (and I'm sure that you can too). When he left he told me that he was not sure if the article that he had planned would ever see the light of day. I asked him if there was any way we might see a glowing review of our city instead and he shook his head and told me that it was doubtful. Hey, I'll take no story over the wrong story any day! Hopefully I will stay in touch with Hugo and we (Buffalonians) can tell the true story of modern day Buffalo. Until then we'll keep our city as the best-kept secret around. We'll just have to settle for a lack of fast-food-driven-culture that will hopefully never come knocking on our doors... and when it does let's just hope that no one answers.
This is really interesting......
I've been comparing Buffalo to Brooklyn for years now. As a matter of fact, I even occasionally use: Bflo=Brklyn West!
That said, the fact that Hugo was doubtful that a "glowing" article would ever be published, left me with a bad taste.
Why not?
It seems as a journalist, one should be open to what the real story is not just what the expected story is.
I'm NOT canceling my subscription, but I'm a bit offended by that attitude.
I have LOTS of frriends in NYC that keep up with Buffalo through BRO. I'm always surprised when they come to visit ( and they DO, regularly!) and they know more about what's going on here than I do!
Don't worry, Queenseyes.....BRO has scooped NYMag big time!
PS/ I'll just say once more, "Hugo, welcome to Buffalo and WESTERN NEW YORK!"
I LOVE Buffalo..I would love for the rest of the world to really see what is happening here and how great it truly is.
Q...if he ever comes back (and he should)--we'll give him the evening tour as well...count me in!
Before the guests of our programs on the Arts & Crafts Movement leave the area I give them a homework assignment. I tell them they have to tell at least 5 people about their experiences in Buffalo and the Western New York area. They are encouraged to spread the word about the art, architecture, history, diversity, beauty and friendliness of the City.
Walking tour brochures, Visitors Guides and other WNY tourism propaganda is available for them to take back to their communities. Some have even returned with organizations they are affiliated with back home so they too can share what they have discovered. We help get an itinerary ready with their specific interests in mind and show them around!
From the positive response I receive after the programs and from the filled registrations to the upcoming programs we are doing this fall that include the art and architecture in Buffalo, I say our previous guests are good students and fulfilling their homework task.
They do come to see “this country’s best kept secrets”.
Here's a hearty pat on the back to Newell for giving our guest such an impressive tour. And here's a big expletive deleted to Hugo, who is apparently so wedded to the story of economic decline and urban pathology that he will ignore all evidence to the contrary.
Wow,
A publication which admits it is not interested in printing the truth but only in what they wish to propagate as the truth.
This is such an easy story to write, I can't believe that the author doesn't have the courage or integrity to go against the current of mediocrity in the media. It sounds like he is going to offer the same story of hardship and decline told from the lowest common denominator perspective. Who knows, maybe he is looking for a job at WIVB or the Buffalo News, it sounds like he already has the mindset.
great article. Keeping this city a secret is just fine to me. That is why so many people enjoy it to the extent they do.
I commend Hugo for coming to Buffalo and discovering for himself the misperception of our city. Many others would not have taken the time and would not have cared if the story was 'off'. He's a really good guy and did say that he would stay in touch. I'm working on a few angles to present him that might fly... we'll see.
So the choices are an article that recycles all the negative stereotypes about Buffalo or no article at all. It's a shame that those are Hugo's choices. Isn't an article that talks about individuals who help their community to become better without waiting for the various local and state governments that are at least partially to blame for those problems an angle worth publication? Must it always be snow, Superbowl losses and chicken wings?
Buffalo: It's Not What You Expect
Too bad Hugo doesn't have the guts to go with that angle. Sounds like the story was already written before the tour. Opportunity lost...
New York Magazine can't have hipster doofuses in Billyburg thinking there is authentic alternative to their manufactured gentrified version of cutting edge life. After all, it's much more authentic to pretend you're a cutting edge hipster in a $4K per month loft.
/sarcasm
I guess I'm not enough of a hipster doofus... but why on earth would you want a sign like the one at Everything's Special? Nothing against that business, but does that sign (sponsored by a multi-national corporation) add much to a neighborhood? People have signs like that because they're too poor for anything else.
I'm vaguely offended by the attitude that "oh, how cute, the upstate provincials are so poor that they still actually use signs that we in oh-so-hip Billyburg have to manufacture..."
Maybe I'm missing something...
Jason, I think you need a brief hipster anthropology lesson.
Hipster tastes revolves around various degrees of "kitsch" and "irony". Hipsters embrace anything that can be seen as an anti-mainstream asthetic. Old bowling shoes, baseball jerseys from the 70s, oversized aviator glasses, beat up tacky 80s furniture, ect.
The rapid and sweeping gentrification of Manhattan and Brooklyn has wiped out scores of "real" neighborhoods tied together by ethnic character, families, and local businesses. In its place we get the 4k/month lofts and a certain yuppie monoculture defined by starbucks and kinkos on every corner.
In the newly emerging and established "hipster" neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Brooklyn (which is becoming quickly Manhattanized), artifacts from "the old hood" are cherished for their kitsch value... it reassures the hipsters that they still inhabiting a real place and not forking over their excessive rent (that mommy and daddy pay for anyway) to live in a yuppie-flavored urban disneyland, where corporate chain stores dominate the commercial streetscapes. I guess to sum it up in one phrase its, "keepin it real," or at least in their minds it is.
The point is that in some ways, Buffalo offers a much more "real" setting for artist types to thrive in. Starving artists can't survive too long in a place they have to pay over 1,000 a month for a tiny bedroom in an apartment with roomates.
New York magazine must reinforce the prevailing NYC-uber alles mentality instead of actually admitting there is life in a place they will continuously write off as dead. Hugo could have had a good story here, but he refuses to challenge the status quo. What a shame.
Newell, didn't you feel used or patronized by this disingenuous "journalist" during your tour? It appears Hugo only sought to placate or humor you by accepting your tour invitation. He really had no intention of sharing anything from it with NYM readers -- if, in fact, he really *was* enamored with Buffalo...
I have to take Hugo's side here. It's been years since I read New York regularly, but I'm sure it's much as it was when I did - a magazine for New York City residentis, with information about the hipper side of NYC life.
I doubt very much that an article about how great Buffalo is has any place in their content mix, unless perhaps if they have a quick-trips sort of travel section, as the NY Times does.
If I can draw a rough parallel between BRO and New York magazine, would you expect Newell to visit Williamsburg and come back to do a big post on how cool it was? I don't really think it would make sense.
And if Hugo was really looking for a story about how WNY was going down the tubes and would suck NYC after it, but found that in fact WNY was doing ok, it makes perfect sense not write a story. As nice as it would be if there world of media wasn't as it is, it's still true that a story of about something not happening isn't really much of a story.
I think instead of being so quick to bash someone with significant potential to influence a segment of the NYC public just because he isn't going to do something that doesn't make editorial sense for his publication we should be glad he came and had a good time.
Hugo, if you're reading this, please know that there are those of us here who are very glad you came and enjoyed yourself and hope you'll come back, whether you write a story about it now, in the future, or not at all.
Watch out, Gabe -- you know what it means when you get too anti-hipster:
http://catandgirl.com/view.php?loc=299
I maintain that if Philadelphia is the new Brooklyn (so deemed by the New York Times), then Buffalo is the new Philadelphia.
damn Jessica, lol, you outed me! :D
it's not easy being a self-loathing hipster :/
Gabe - so all that junk in my closets and basement make me a hipster? This is making my head hurt.
I did like cat and girl though.
paul, only if that junk consists of ultra-form-fitting 70s athletic gear :D
yeah if they admitted to life and culture in upstate they might start having morallity issues for screwing us over. Hence there is no way that story would run. If we are thought of as a no-face dying city, who cares if we take their cheap clean power and force them to have the two worst polluting coal plants in the state.
Buffalo is one of only a handful of US cities expected to continue to lose population in the next 10-20 years.
Does it help to send a powerful media guy away thinking that everything is terrific here?
Lower taxes. Reduce city services. Get rid of city unions and shred government payrolls. Let volunteer and charitable organizations step in. The state keeps bailing Buffalo out over and over again.
It's an orgy of failure and you're all basically caligula... or you're Nero - fiddling with art festivals while Rome is burning.
Art over commerce! Architecture over employers!
Business owners are evil!
The mantra goes on and on...
So, if I understand correctly, Hugo came to Buffalo searching for negatives for a predetermined story? Is that what is passing for journalism these days? Scary. (But should anyone be surprised!)
Pooky,
What other cities are on your list?
What are your suggestions? What should we focus on? Tax incentives for new businesses, terminate all union contracts and fire all city workers? Perhaps we should just tear the whole f..king city down and start over? Is that what you have in mind?
It's funny, my partner and I have been calling Blackrock the next Williamsburg for quite some time now. We have had artist friends stay with us from Manhatten, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Australia, etc. They are all blown away by what two artists can OWN in Buffalo. Especially the ones from NYC.
Pooky
Who on here advocates art or architecture over employers. Can't we have both. If anything buffalo's great architecture is the only thing driving its economic revival
Who on here has ever said business owners are evil...If anything BRO is a huge supporter of Buffalo business owners.
Why make up false arguments like that?
Tax incentives are a start, but it's high property taxes and employment taxes and city and state unions and energy costs that are WAY over the national average.
Basically - what bottom-line motivated, risk-taking entrepreneur who contemplates the reality that he or she might go out of business wants to pay for anything that they don't have to? Every dollar is important. It's the inability to think like THOSE folks that the region can't get it's head around. Buffalo is awash in restaurants, cultural/artistic outlets (subsidized?), government and quasi-government (gov't contract, gov't trickle-down jobs - say, services around government, utilities, universities and the like) jobs... So money (and jobs) always seem to "come from somewhere else" but don't require the population to challenge long-held biases against the profit-motive, against entrepreneurship, and all the rest that goes along with the trappings of money-motivated types. "Greedy" or "Yuppie" are the labels that seem to quickly spring to mind, and both have been cardinal sins in Buffalo.
Perhaps Buffalo is turning a corner.
For a solution, provide seminars on the following:
- Stop talking and start doing. Subtitle: How to quit complaining, wishing, or waiting and make something happen in your life.
- How to make your business ideas a reality
- The importance of long-term and daily goals and how to achieve them
I think to some degree, most Buffalo residents are content to live quite lives being entertained and going to festivals and cultural attractions etc. The paradox is that it might actually not be HARD ENOUGH to survive in Buffalo. And there's not a lot of incentive to bake the basic cake when there is already so much icing all around ...
Anyway, it is probably a great city for artists...
Tax incentives are a start, but it's high property taxes and employment taxes and city and state unions and energy costs that are WAY over the national average.
Basically - what bottom-line motivated, risk-taking entrepreneur who contemplates the reality that he or she might go out of business wants to pay for anything that they don't have to? Every dollar is important. It's the inability to think like THOSE folks that the region can't get it's head around. Buffalo is awash in restaurants, cultural/artistic outlets (subsidized?), government and quasi-government (gov't contract, gov't trickle-down jobs - say, services around government, utilities, universities and the like) jobs... So money (and jobs) always seem to "come from somewhere else" but don't require the population to challenge long-held biases against the profit-motive, against entrepreneurship, and all the rest that goes along with the trappings of money-motivated types. "Greedy" or "Yuppie" are the labels that seem to quickly spring to mind, and both have been cardinal sins in Buffalo.
Perhaps Buffalo is turning a corner.
For a solution, provide seminars on the following:
- Stop talking and start doing. Subtitle: How to quit complaining, wishing, or waiting and make something happen in your life.
- How to make your business ideas a reality
- The importance of long-term and daily goals and how to achieve them
I think to some degree, most Buffalo residents are content to live quite lives being entertained and going to festivals and cultural attractions etc. The paradox is that it might actually not be HARD ENOUGH to survive in Buffalo. And there's not a lot of incentive to bake the basic cake when there is already so much icing all around ...
Anyway, it is probably a great city for artists...