Author: Jeff Z. Klein
I used to think Buffalo knew how to handle winter. I was even proud of it, and boasted of it to my friends from other cities.
But these last couple of winters have proven just the opposite. Buffalo can’t handle the cold and the snow.
In the last few weeks, while Buffalo’s sidewalks and bus stops remained clogged with uncleared snow, we learned that the city government in Syracuse clears sidewalks. Rochester too.
We learned of the Quebec City bylaw that prohibits property owners from shoveling snow into the streets or onto sidewalks, and that pedestrian walkways there are clear and busy all winter long.
When Buffalo’s roadways remained uncleared for days and even weeks as residents wondered where the plows were, we learned that residents of Rochester and Syracuse can track those cities’ snowplows in real time.
Only this month has the city government even suggested that it should clear sidewalks and bus stops — but alas, the resolution was made by the City of Buffalo Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board. Whoop-de-doo.
But it isn’t only Buffalo’s torpid municipal government that fails the winter test — it’s Buffalonians themselves.
Several Western New York restaurants and bars claim to have heated patios for outdoor wintertime dining — just like in New York City, Toronto, Boston, Denver, Milwaukee. Good for pandemic dining, and good for just plain old sitting-outside-in-the-winter eating and drinking, like you’re at a ski resort. A real Buffalo way to celebrate the winter, right?
But actually going to those WNY restaurants, you found those patios unused and untended to, or entirely enclosed in plastic and not outdoors at all. Ask a waiter? “Nope, our patio is closed. Too cold.”
In all of WNY, just about the only restaurant or bar that’s been reliably open for outdoor dining through these last two winters: the Place, with its fine heated verandah and fire pits. Otherwise, fuhgeddaboudit.
Sure, Buffalo’s got beautiful snowfalls. But go out running on a winter’s morning amid the snowflakes in Delaware Park, and you’ll likely find yourself all alone.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many hardy souls here — the people who hit the trails in their snowmobiles, or slide out to their fishing huts on the frozen harbor ice, or frolic on the rink at Canalside. Those Buffalonians have a touch of Quebec in them … they know how to enjoy themselves when the temperature drops well below freezing.
But all too many Buffalonians cower indoors during these months, like Floridians when the thermometer hits 40. And this area’s restaurants cower with them … as does, perhaps most disgracefully of all, the city government, which can’t be bothered to provide the most basic snow removal services to its citizens.
Buffalo, a winter city? Ha! if only …
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Jeff Z. Klein is a former journalist with The New York Times. His play “Buffalo Porno” is running at the Alleyway Theatre until March 20 as part of the annual Buffalo Quickies program.