Author: Lou Bordonaro A recent experience attending a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting for a variance application to construct a building got me thinking about the purpose of variances. The project had already secured two variances to build on an oddly shaped lot where a building once stood, but it required an additional variance. The variance was ultimately approved; however, a common refrain was that the Green Code was meaningless if variances are permitted. Is this true? I found looking for an answer to whether variances were bad was as clear as getting an answer to the question if gentrification…
Author: BRo Guest Authors
BRo Guest Authors
It’s not unusual for authors to come and go. Guest authors range from collegiate interns to writers who will be contributing for a short stint of time. Guest authors might also have a series in mind. Authors are encouraged to submit their ideas to BRO (Buffalo Rising Online), upon which time we will work with the writer towards a productive end.
Author: Dan Regan Things are going to stay unseasonably springlike Saturday night. BOX Gallery at Hostel Buffalo Niagara on Main St. will be hosting the opening reception for nature.pdf, new work by Rochester artist SALUT aka Bradd Young, the night features a musical accompaniment by local duos UVB77 and Low Prospects. An Albright-Knox Cobblestone Common muralist and a member of the UUU Art Collective in Rochester, SALUT is turning the BOX into his whimsical, abstract, and at times, unsettling digital garden. An homage to the artist’s own artistic process, the show will include paintings and sculptures, taking inspiration from…
Author: Christine H. Boldt They called me, “The Queen City of the Great Lakes,” and why not? The Erie Canal had been completed across New York State in 1825 ending at my very doorstep. By the time of my incorporation, in 1832, river boats routinely shipped goods from New York City, up the Hudson River to Albany, where they turned west, and then churned along the Canal to reach me. Tools, dishes, and foreign delicacies arrived in a third of the time it had taken to go by land. It is true, that young upstart the railroad had imitated the…
Author: Bills in Buffalo (BiB) Dear Governor Hochul, County Executive Poloncarz, and Pegulas: We all want to keep the Bills in Buffalo, but we also want to build a strong community so that the team will be here for another 50 years (and beyond). The way we do this is by all of the community players working as a team. We need to create an Entertainment District that runs from KeyBank Center to the newly proposed stadium and convention center location (at Perry). This would be a game changer for the Bills and for the entire region. Additional team members…
Author: Dianne Bennett Charlie Clough, perhaps the best-known artist living in Western New York, is a self-described hermit crab who has found his shell on the early 1900s Roycroft Campus (specifically, the print shop) in East Aurora. The Ashford Hollow Foundation, founded by Larry Griffis and operated out of old icehouse buildings on Essex Street in Buffalo in the 1970s, was another shell for Clough: “At Ashford Hollow, I was a hermit crab and it was a shell. I used their structure as a context, as I do here—a national historical landmark. Is there a fire going on? I’m the…
Author: Joseph Van Remmen In July of 2021, the Buffalo Historical Museum (BHM) issued a document titled Buffalo’s Name Origin: Theories Summarized and Ranked. I was happy and excited to see that a theory that I had promoted in Buffalo Rising last January was among the origin stories/theories recognized by the BHM. To me, it seemed only right that the BHM should publish on the subject since the BHM has been interested in the topic since its inception. In fact Millard Fillmore the first President back when it was known as the Buffalo Historical Society (BHS) communicated his interest in…
Author: Orian Painter With the festivities of Halloween behind us, Buffalo has officially entered the month of Thanksgiving, also known as the month of pie! Foibles Coffee and Pie, located at 172 Rhode Island Street on Buffalo’s West Side, serves coffee and pie by day. They are known for their inventive latte flavors such as the oatchata latte, taro latte, and the sweet potato latte – a riff on the ubiquitous pumpkin spice latte. Their pies are equally inventive and seasonal as their drinks, with recent fall flavors like scary cherry, apple cinnamon swirl, and London fog custard. However, by…
Author: Joanne Sundell Nadia Bolz-Weber, acclaimed avant-garde Lutheran pastor, will start a dialog on November 13, 2021 at 7:30 p.m. at Trinity Church, 371 Delaware Avenue. For those unfamiliar, Bolz-Weber neither appears as, nor communicates in, a conventional “clerical” manner. This provocative clergywoman, arms scrolled with tattoo ink, engages listeners by providing Christianity’s best message. Western New Yorkers will have a unique opportunity to hear Nadia Bolz-Weber, who speaks to populations that need to know that there is something they can do to influence outcomes in this era of seemingly perpetual crises. The talk is part of Trinity’s “Fresh Voices”…
Authors: Outer Harbor Coalition members and inter-faith groups Buffalo’s Common Council recently approved a special use permit for a $13 million amphitheater on the Outer Harbor that nobody wants. A state economic development agency, the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC), is planning to re-landscape a naturalizing area on the landward side of Terminal B to be a music amphitheater for up to 8,000 ticket holders—essentially Canalside moved to the Outer Harbor. Noise, night lighting, traffic jams, overflow parking on adjacent meadows, and massive spraying to keep the bugs down are all involved in this project that developers say will…
Author: Andrew Zebrun III Halloween is here again – that dark, spooky time of the year where everyone gets a big fright, with a side of good cheer. Or maybe a serving or two of beer, or wine, spirits… Or a ghoul; for those who over imbibe often act the fool. Whether out in search of a good party, or some sugary treats, just about everyone is looking to blow off a little steam as we approach the holiday season, starting with the spookiest night of the year. Thinking back, about Halloween in Western New York, many will think of…