Note: This exhibit at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center closes Sunday. A half-century after his passing and the opening of his eponymous art center, Buffalo is still working to fully understand her most famous artist. At the same time, we work to make his legacy as an environmentalist relevant to a new generation beset on all sides with the effects of environmental degradation even more horrible than those Charles Burchfield depicted in his earliest work. That side of Burchfield was deeply explored in last year’s Blistering Vision exhibit at the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, curated by Tullis Johnson. Did you see it? Now,…
Author: RaChaCha
Movement is this fall’s watchword at Women’s and Children’s Hospital – both old and new. Recently, as neighbors of the “old” complex gathered for a “what’s next” update from the designated development team, there were signs of change everywhere – literally. It was moving week for the hospital – the final Wednesday evening of the hospital’s operation – and temporary signs were posted all around with information and directions for moving day on Friday. The development team started the discussion this way, telling the overflow crowd in the “old” hospital’s auditorium: In a week there’s going to be a vacant…
Note: this is the seventh in a series. The recent New York Times story about the Scajaquada Expressway has this to say about our cultural district: The Albright-Knox Art Gallery and the Buffalo History Museum are less than half a mile apart, on opposite sides of the Scajaquada. Looking across the expanse of pavement and speeding traffic, however, the distance seems insurmountable. As it happens, the smallest segment of the Scajaquada corridor, from Elmwood Avenue to Lincoln Parkway, is perhaps the largest in significance, because it passes through the heart of Buffalo’s cultural district. Design considerations for remaking the expressway…
A review of The New Urban Crisis begins, “Richard Florida…wants you to know that he got almost everything about cities wrong.” The same review goes on to say, Today, even Florida recognizes that he was wrong. The rise of the creative class in places like New York, London, and San Francisco created economic growth only for the already rich, displacing the poor and working classes. The problems that once plagued inner cities have moved to the suburbs. Needless to say, this change of course by one of the most sought-after urbanism gurus of the last decade has gotten people talking…
Who was Buffalo’s first preservationist? No, not someone from a Mark Sommer article or Donn Esmonde column or even a post on here. Preservation in Buffalo goes back much further. But is there one answer, or, like other things in Buffalo’s notoriously fractured and factional preservation scene, if you got five preservationists in a room – something easier said than done, as I witnessed first hand at an event earlier this year – you might get six opinions? A reasonable and perhaps consensus answer to the question would seem to be: Bill Shelgren. If you’ve read the book, Beautiful Buffalo,…
The last place I’d look for the Scajaquada Expressway – which, as I pointed out here, wasn’t designed so much as it was engineered – would be the New York Times Style section. Yet there it is this weekend, a pre-Halloween feature of steel and concrete horror. The use of “swooshy” in the title captures the essence of the postwar Jetsons fantasy of zipping about everywhere unimpeded, hermetically sealed from neighborhood, landscape, and urban grit, with tail fins and rocket-nozzle taillights propelling us Tom Swiftly upon our appointed rounds. Along with the article, the photographer perfectly captured Exhibit A of…
When ridesharing became legal in Upstate New York this past summer, many Western New Yorkers were relieved to finally have access to the popular transportation option available in cities across the U.S. But many public transit advocates still wonder what this new reality means for the future of expanded and improved public transit in our community. Do ridesharing services like Lyft and Uber fill an important niche, or do they detract from the environmental and economic justice goals of local transit? Are ridesharing and public transit inherently at odds, or is there the possibility for synergism and coordination between the…
Yesterday afternoon, after the body of missing K-9 Officer Craig Lehner was finally located near the foot of Ontario Street, Mayor Brown issued a statement that ended, Law enforcement personnel put their lives on the line to protect our communities every day, and today is a heartbreaking reminder of what that service can cost. And after a five-day effort to locate Officer Lehner gripped the entire city, we also got a reminder of what that service can mean. To the seemingly hundreds of colleagues who wouldn’t rest until he was rescued or recovered, and to the city and region that…
Can you renew a church with food? It certainly doesn’t hurt. As you may remember from Sunday School, when Jesus said to his disciple Simon, “feed my sheep,” it could be taken two ways. In my experience, the best churches seem to take both meanings seriously. I’ve joked with Presbyterian friends about their denomination’s love of pot-lucks and church dinners, but at First Presbyterian they really do seem to be serious about feeding their flock. Similarly, the Orthodox Church in Lovejoy that was the site of Sunday’s Buffalo Mass Mob shares a meal with the community every single week after…
Note: this is the sixth in a series. A famous anecdote of Olmsted’s selection of the site of Buffalo’s principal park is related in Dr. Frank Kowsky’s indispensable book on Olmsted in Western New York. On a tour of potential park sites, when Olmsted glimpsed what is now The Meadow in Delaware Park he said, “Here is your park almost ready-made.” Despite Olmsted’s reputation as a designer of landscapes, he also had a reputation for leaving alone what already worked. That may explain why Olmsted, other than using Scajaquada Creek to create a lake in Delaware Park, largely left the…