Author: Jackie Treehorn

Last night, the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was captured alive. After an emotional week, the capture of the remaining suspect was one of those cathartic moments that a country shares on television, on social media, in bars and restaurants and in stadiums. Except, of course, if you were at First Niagara. The Sabres were hosting the New York Rangers and playing for their playoff lives. There were a significant amount of Rangers fans in the arena and, perhaps because of that, there was actually energy in the arena. The Sabres played a solid first period until the final…

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Heavy construction equipment has rolled onto the Webster Block in front of the First Niagara Center, where construction crews are set to begin work on Terry Pegula’s $175 million multipurpose facility, HARBORcenter. Fences line the parcel while a portion of Lower Main Street has been closed off to accommodate the massive project. Sabres Director of Communications Mike Gilbert told WKBW: “We got all of the approvals last week and we hit the ground running. By April you will see cranes in the air here. I think people that don’t come down here on a regular basis, when they do and they see it they’re…

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If staying in the custom furniture manufacturing business for 146 years wasn’t enough, the Kittinger Furniture Company’s recent recognition by a national organization has certainly earned them additional bragging rights. The Buffalo business has been selected as the winner of the 2012 BEST: Made in America award by MADE: in America, a not-for-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. that honors and showcases the nation’s top manufacturing businesses. “We at Kittinger Furniture are honored and grateful to receive the 2012 BEST: Made in America award,” said Ray Bialkowski, president of Kittinger Furniture Company, Inc. “As a Buffalo-based business since 1866, Kittinger demonstrates…

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If you’re looking for an alternative to the standard summer vacation, there’s an option that’s a little more active than laying around on the beach and it will get you out of the city to do some outdoor exploring. The 14th annual Cycling the Erie Canal bicycle tour (see brochure – PDF) will be taking place from July 8-15, taking riders 400 miles from Buffalo to Albany and offering plenty of historic substance and beautiful scenery along the way. The tour follows the Erie Canal corridor, which is one of only 49 designated National Heritage Corridors in the United States. You’ll…

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Get ready to put on your best vintage dress or suit and grab your dancing shoes, because Deco-Fest 2012 has arrived. The Buffalo Central Terminal will host this annual restoration fundraiser on June 16 with plenty of swing, blues, big band and rockabilly music from bands near and far that will keep guests out on the dance floor all night long. The event is designed to take you back to the era of the Central Terminal’s origin and imagine what it was like to experience the art-deco building in 1929, when it first opened to the public. After an evening of…

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Thanks to a generous grant awarded to Keep Western New York Beautiful by the John R. Oishei Foundation, Buffalo will be a thousand trees greener by autumn of this year. The grant, totaling $50,000, will be used by the Re-Tree WNY program to purchase and plant 1,000 trees along streets and in parks throughout the city. Re-Tree WNY made it their goal to replace 30,000 of the trees that were lost in the October storm of 2006. Currently, they need 6,000 more trees to reach their five-year target. “The volunteers of Re-Tree WNY will be getting a great boost in 2012 because…

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When you’re racing down Delaware Avenue to make it to work on time every weekday morning, the magnificent mansions lining this route probably get overlooked in the rush. Even if these beautiful structures do make it onto your radar, simply giving them a glance from the exterior certainly doesn’t do them justice.On Thursday, June 21, the Theodore Roosevelt Site and Preservation Buffalo Niagara’s Buffalo Tours will be hosting a Twilight Tour of Mansions to offer members of the community a chance to find out what these historic homes hold within their walls. Aside from their obvious architectural beauty, the mansions…

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Chris and Matthew Siano are bringing new life to the corner of Grant and Potomac. The brothers’ HES Properties II LLC purchased 368 Grant Street in late-February for $32,500 and will renovate the currently vacant building. When finished early next year, 2,000 sq.ft. of commercial space will be available on the first floor and four apartments, each approximately 750 sq.ft., will fill the upper levels.Chris Siano moved to Buffalo in 1997 and pursued his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Architecture at UB. For the last nine years he has worked as the Instructional Support Technician for Sculpture in the UB…

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Roswell Park Cancer Institute’s Clinical Sciences Center (CSC) is moving closer to construction. The 11-story building, designed by FxFOWLE Architects of New York City, will contain approximately 142,000 square-feet of clinical and medical office space. It will be built adjacent to the Roswell Park Main Hospital at the northwest corner of Carlton Street and Michigan Avenue in the burgeoning Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.The CSC will be physically connected and functionally integrated with the existing hospital and research complex. According to the project description, it was designed to complement the setting of the iconic Main Hospital building and at the same…

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The focus of the classical guitar world will turn toward the city of Buffalo as the fifth biennial JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition, hosted by WNED and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, unfolds next week. This prestigious musical event will take place from June 6-9, featuring eight top international guitarists who will be representing the nations of Croatia, Hungary, Canada, Jordan, Thailand, Turkey, Serbia, Germany and the United States. The eight semi-finalists competing at this year’s event are Petrit Ceku of Zagreb, Croatia; Andra’s Csa’ki of Budapest, Hungary; Mark Edwards of Baltimore, Maryland; Tariq Harb, a dual citizen of Jordan and…

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