If you thought that the Jenny Shop would be a shot in the dark, you may want to rethink your stance. According to Jen Hemmingway the shelves have been almost wiped out of merchandise. Today she spent a good portion of her sales’ pitch apologizing to her customers for the lack of merchandise. The funny thing is… before I stopped in I actually had trepidation that the result might be different. After all, you never know what the retail climate is like when there hasn’t been much of a retail climate in a number of years. After stopping by Chop…
Author: Great Lakes United
A couple of days ago I attended the Building UB 2020 Forum designed to gather input as to how the three distinct campuses should grow. When the Amherst campus was being discussed I found that the campus vision is two-fold. First off, many of the outdated brick structures could potentially see major glass elements incorporated into the existing design. I thought that was a pretty good idea. After all, as long as these buildings already serve a function, why not make them attractive and enjoyable for the staff and the students? I also heard (yet again) that there are plans…
Within minutes of Steel’s post pleading to move the UB Law School downtown, law student, Anna Falicov, sent me a resolution drafted from her fellow students. The resolution demands that the university start looking into moving the Law School downtown. Ironic? No. When the students are tired of being land-locked on a former swamp, it’s only a matter of time before there is a call to action. With the recent reports that the Law School is facing tough competition, and the ranking is being affected, there could be no better time than now to reevaluate the school’s future. From Anna…
I don’t think Allentown could have scored any better than it recently did with the addition of Rick Cycle Shop (see relocation story). Every time I go by the corner of Franklin and Allen there are bikers congregating both inside and outside. The activity has totally transformed that end of the block into a very fun urban place to be. When we stopped in on Saturday we could barely maneuver around the place because all of the commotion. Granted they are still unpacking some boxes, but because of the dramatic increase in activity, they may never get the chance to…
This past Saturday we discovered a relatively new gallery on Main Street. The gallery is located in one of my favorite buildings on the street. Unfortunately the building, known as the Red Jacket, has never managed to attract any stable tenants. Back in ’05 the building management launched a deal designed to attract start-up businesses. The short-lived deal never really got off the ground, but around the same time the building became home of Cosmopolitan Art Gallery – a somewhat under-the-radar sort of place that primarily opens whenever they feel like it. The main guy behind the gallery, William E.…
Over the weekend I headed down to the foot of Ferry to see how the Earth Day cleanup was going along the Niagara River. When I arrived to Broderick Park I discovered that Riverkeeper had beat me to the cleanup. The area was clean and there was a blue sign left behind that read, “Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper – Clean Up Site”. So instead of documenting the cleanup I decided to observe the layout of Broderick Park. Like many of Buffalo’s other public waterfront properties, Broderick Park suffers greatly from the incredible number of parking spaces that take up valuable waterfront…
If you were buzzing around the city yesterday, chances are that you saw one of many Earth Day crews out cleaning up our urban neighborhoods. I ran into Councilman David Rivera (photo – far right) and one of the three teams from Buffalo State College cleaning up Grant Street. The workers were tackling the West Side of the street first before backtracking along the East Side. As I biked along I was dumbfounded at the difference the team had already made. Before Earth Day, Grant Street was a real mess. Now that it is a lot cleaner there needs to…
Has anyone else seen this unusual (and most likely illegal) form of advertising that appeared on Delaware Avenue? It’s on the crosswalk of Allen, and you can’t miss it if you’re walking from one side to the other. I did a double take on my bike yesterday and had to hop off and take a photo. The guerilla advertising looks to be made up of some sort of vinyl flooring that has been cut out to form letters and shapes. The words read, “House of Hades – Kill Media Or They Kill You”. Even though this was apparently done on…
This week many of the city surveillance cameras were installed on the lamp posts up and down Elmwood Avenue. These things are easy to spot during the day, and they’re even easier to spot at night. The cameras look like an appendage of the Sony dancing robots, complete with blinking blue light to notify troublemakers of their existence. When I stopped to take a photo of one, I was stopped by Luanne diBernardo (photo) who seemed to be very keen on the whole idea. “I had to change a tire when it was dark last night,” she told me. “I…
According to workers at the Elmwood Bank of America location, the newly built branch should open at the end of the month. We’ve been keeping an eye on the construction (it’s not hard to do since we’re fans of the coffee at Mythos) and have been very pleased with the look and feel of the building. The faux second floor (adaptable for future use if desired) really finished off the place nicely. I’m not going to start the tinted vs. clear glass debate… but I’m sure that some viewers out there might have an opinion. If you look closely at…