BRM Q&A with Donn Esmonde
Donn Esmonde moved to Buffalo in January of 1982, after accepting the job as sports feature writer/columnist at The News. "It was bitter cold and the snow was piled high all over the place. 
I stayed because I discovered a sense of community that seemed non-existent in the Long Island suburb where I was raised. It seemed like one person here could make a difference, whereas down there you were just another ant on the world’s biggest anthill. And I also stayed because The News has been kind enough to allow me to switch jobs as my interests changed per cause or project. Fighting to resurrect history at Erie Canal Harbor became, for years, like a part time job," Esmonde said, adding, "Besides, the world doesn’t need another bad electric guitar player!"
Q: 
Best thing to happen in Buffalo in past 20 years?
A: The conversion of long-vacant downtown buildings into lofts and apartments; the resurrection of our history at Erie Canal Harbor (OK, that's two things, but I'm trying to accentuate the positive!).
Q: Worst thing to happen in Buffalo in past 20 years?
A: Continued job losses and outward migration.
Q: Would you rather have the power to fly or the power to make yourself invisible?
A: My friends and I always pondered this question back in elementary school. Flying appealed to me back then, given an addiction to 'Superman' reruns on TV. Now, as a journalist, the power of invisibility -- to hear the private conversations behind closed doors and in back rooms -- is an easy choice.
Q: You're on death row ordering your final meal, what Buffalo restaurant and meal do you pick?
A: Fat Bob's for the ribs -- the guilty pleasure of a man living in a house full of vegetarians!
Q: What was the last thing you Googled?
A: Information on the historic tour at Forest Lawn Cemetery. My dad's remains were recently placed there, and I think Mom would enjoy the tour.


Q: Which animal most matches your personality?
A: Cat. Independent, laid-back (although less so as I get older, oddly) and averse to a herd mentality.
Q: Hot, Medium or Mild?
A: Medium. The digestive system rebelled against the hot stuff years ago.
Q: Favorite Buffalo event?
A: As much as I love the Taste of Buffalo, a slight proprietary interest tips the scales to the annual National Wingfest on Labor Day weekend. I planted the seed for the festival in my column, and entrepreneur Drew Cerza has done a fabulous job nurturing it into a mighty, internationally recognized event.
Q: What's the most frustrating part of Buffalo?
A: The self-interest, pettiness and narrow vision of too many of the politicians and so-called civic leaders who hold power.
Q: Favorite Buffalo sports figure of all time?
A: Gil Perreault, the rare athlete-as-artist. The image of him winding around the net and taking the puck up the ice, as opposing defensemen retreated in fear, is imprinted on my memory bank. Runner-up: Thurman Thomas, the complete running back.
Q: What's your favorite spot in the city?
A: Erie Canal Harbor. A decade-long, grassroots effort forced state and local officials to resurrect our history and to create a great public, waterfront space. It was a long, hard fight, but one -- as the results show -- that we can enjoy and be proud of.
Q: What should Buffalo's motto be?
A: City of Untapped Potential.
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BuffaloBloviator
Mr. Esmonde,
A belated welcome to Buffalo.
I like you and your column however I have a beef about last week's unkind remarks about my cul-de-sac.
I live on a lovely and usually quiet street with a half dozen or so like-minded yet diverse neighbors.
We all moved in rather recently and I think that we were each attracted to the laid back not-to-fussy character of our cul-de-sac. We all enjoy doing home repairs and like most streets, we have our show-offs, but we aren't so fussy that we have to be neurotic if somebody leaves a few things on the front yard for a while. None of us take it kindly when one of our neighbors are picked on. Especially by a guitar player who ate a big breakfast.
Hence, our street is probably an easy target for any fuss-budget looking for low hanging fruit to write and complain about. That is why I find it horrifying that you choose to pick on the Brown's for having a messy place. When taken in context, at least the Browns have finally removed their scaffolding. Heck, there is a trailer park in the lot between the Browns and Bashar's house and funny you never complained about the trailer trash that just moved in there, right across from the Statler.
Bashar's place and my place have a few boarded windows. And the Dulski's take the cake for a huge home improvement mess. (Every block has a show-off.) My hats off to the New Era's for cleaning up their place this summer, but they had their turn.
Next time you have a column to fill, let's take a look at your street ...and when we get to the rock you live under, we'll send one of the photographers.
Howard Goldman 153 Delaware Avenue
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reflip
I didn't realize Esmonde is from LI. Which town?
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sbrof
I always liked his articles, especially the Buffalo Joe ones that bring forward our blind cynicism and self defeatism in the face of something good.
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crisa
Before those two do anything else, The Guy We Married and The Wife aught to confer before posting.
Is that The Guy We Married standing under that tree in what is certainly not a "quiet street" in a "cul-de-sac" at 153?
Donn Esmonde: We appreciate you.
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RaChaCha
Hello. I'm happy to be here with you today. My name is RaChaCha, and I'm an Esmonde-holic. Thank you, I do feel better getting that out in the open - no, don't pass the box of tissues. It all started so innocently...I was in western New York, oh a decade or so ago, and there was the Buffalo News by the door of a convenience store (why they put it where the kids could grab it I don't know). Well, I grabbed a copy and there was Esmonde's column. To make a long story short, one thing led to another, and now I get agita any day when I can't find a copy of the Buffalo News - it seems to be a fear of missing the latest from Esmonde.
The mix is addictive: everything Esmonde writes resonates with me. He's not afraid to speak out on real issues of concern to folks who care about their community. My favorite columns are those in which he loudly proclaims that one emperor or another wears no clothes, and those in which he takes a stick to public figures who so richly deserve it, and those in which he champions progressive activists who struggle - often against seemingly insurmountable odds - to do right for their community. My initiation to involvment in Buffalo was due to one of those columns, and getting drawn into the activist campaign he wrote about.
Reading Esmonde's column is such a rush, because there's nothing like it in the anemic fishwrapper that limps off the presses daily here in Smugtown, USA.
Now, if you all will excuse me, I just realized I need to run out and forage for a copy of today's Buffalo News, before the pushers...er...vendors that I frequent have sold out their daily supply. Such is my life - but I'm glad to know there are others like me...
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GDC
I've always liked reading Donn's articals too. Always Real and what we all think about but don't talk about.
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TownLine
wow, that top picture looks like it should be a bronze statue....
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vivian
His articles remind me of overcooked pablum. Everytime I read them I want to puke.
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Irishprgrl3
Donn we freakin love you man!
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JohnnyWalker
"that top picture looks like it should be a bronze statue.... "
...., and the bottom picture looks like it should be stuck in a bucket of oats.
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RonR
Just curious as to why Donn and Rod Watson never open up their editorials to comments on the Buffalo News site.
Rod does the typical hit and run post all of the time. Donn does sometimes as well. I think they would do a lot for the conversation if they opened up their posts to comments.
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B-LoLawStu
I have mixed feelings on Esmonde... Half the time I couldn't agree with him more and the other half I think he's dead wrong.
However, with that said, I respect the man for taking strong stands on issues and for not being afraid to stand up and take a position that might not be the most popular.
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Brette
Now, now twin sista! It can't be that bad, so I just sent a copy of his City Hall column to your mailbox for your perusal.
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Abbottroad
Every on-line comment I have read, by individuals who had been in city hall in the last 3 weeks, said he was full of it..
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Abbottroad
Every on-line comment I have read, by individuals who had been in city hall in the last 3 weeks, said he was full of it..
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DFWM
I do not doubt that at times Mr. Esmonde tries to be well intentioned in his comments. However I have three significant issues with his column:
1. All too often Mr. Esmonde begins his column in the third person. Oy.. Whenever he does, I immediately stop reading the ensuing rant about nothing that matters.
2. Mr. Esmonde is fatally guilt of perpetuating the classic Buffalo inferiority complex. How many time have we heard his endless comments like "poor Buffalo" or the "pauper city" or "the city that hope forgot". Mr. Esmonde contributes far more to our negative image (self or otherwise) than any decades of self-loathing ever could. And to do this under the guise of his love for Buffalo makes it all the more damning. Many of us are not as poor and as hopeless as he would like to make outsiders think.
3. Is it me, or is he like nine out of ten other Long Islanders I know that are either in perpetual therapy, not on enough anti-depressants, or both? I mean really, I swear he is the biggest buzz kill of all time.
Don, you really do need to get over yourself. You are from Long Island, which forever precludes you from passing constant critical judgment on any place, especially Buffalo. To negatively portray Buffalo and its citizens they way you routinely do just because you lack any creative journalism skills to take another, more enlightened path to get your point across speaks volumes about you and your talent.
P.S. I am 100 % for casino gambling in Buffalo and I will celebrate the day the Seneca Nation ultimately prevails. Put THAT in your peace pipe and smoke it, Don.
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tomwaters
Great interview! I've been reading Donn Esmonde for going on two years now and it's a nice insight to see how his mind works off the printed page.
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sambo
Esmonde is a Long Island tool, his column is self serving. Who the &#$&*# picks Fat Bob's as their favorite Buffalo restaurant?
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Downtownjunkie
I love Fat Bobs!
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doc
Don Esmonde is a verbose mal-content who pimps his column as a vehicle for thinly-veiled anger. I usually feel bad about my city when I finish reading his articles.
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BuffaloBloviator
Department Of Corrections, Omissions, And Magnifications:
It has been brought to my attention that my comment at the top of this post has been mistaken by members of our local family of professional journalists as a sincere attack on Donn Esmonde. It wasn’t. I love Donn. Donn is the best!
Donn wrote a column last week in which he criticized City Hall for not keeping the building cleaner. The column was huge. I thought everybody heard about it because Mayor Brown even had a press conference about it and announced that same afternoon that he was dedicating $20,000 to clean up City Hall. Talk radio discussed it. I think it was on the evening news too. I happened to like the column.
I also happen to own 153 Delaware Avenue. I am restoring it as a personal project. It is the last original Delaware Avenue home near Niagara Square. It also happens to be situated smack dab in the center of the largest downtown Buffalo building boom of our generation. It couldn’t look more out of place but that’s what I love most about it. As a running shtick I always refer to my neighbors at Niagara Square as members of my cul-de-sac. I talk to each of them that way in person too whenever I run into them. Some of them now call me neighbor back. When Bashar Issa sees me he pre-empts my greeting with a big arm waving “Hey neighbor!”
I actually complain to my neighbors about the junk on their lawns, their noise, and their endless “home improvements” as if we were a fussy residential street in Kenmore. We all laugh about it, especially the Dulski’s. It’s actually a blast being able to kid around with my big important neighbors.
I knew that Donn would roll with it because he wrote his City Hall column and would take my humor in context. He also knows me well enough to know I’m nuts.
For those friends of mine that thought I was trying to pick on Donn, and you know who you are, take some advice from Jackie Jocko and “Get with it!”
Howard
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Siafu
I agree with the Bloviator. Esmonde is a tired windbag who needs to be a little more creative when it comes to telling a story. It's easy to be Captain Obvious in a city with such glaring inefficiencies and problems, the hard part is coming up with solutions. I applaud Bloviator for investing his money in that property, and if he wants to leave the kids toys on the front lawn all summer then that's his prerogative. Lighten up Donn.
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