The Best of Buffalo is its wonderful music and theater and it IS the City of Good Neighbors. The Worst of Buffalo is its inability to make decisions that will grow the city.
BoredomMD.com – Best and Worst of Buffalo for 2018
Best
- Buffalo Niagara Blues Festival at Silo City – incredible and wonderful this year! Kudos to the organizers. Reverend Raven, Keesha Pratt, John Nemeth, Joshua Paxton, Tom Hambridge, David Bromberg Quintet –virtually every performer was outstanding.
- Canalside Concerts – Kenny Wayne Shepherd was amazing. And, others were very good including Arrested Development, Fitz and the Tantrums. Two worst were Umphrey McGee and Father John Misty, especially Lucy Dacus pre-show.
- Thunder of Niagara Air Show at the Niagara Falls Airport- terrific – entertainment for everyone. The Thunderbirds will be at the Rochester Air Show on August 24-25, 2019. Not in Buffalo for several more years.
- Trimania in April in the Tri-Main Building featured open galleries, live music and performances. Not to be missed. Usually is every other year.
- Lantern Festival at the Waterfront. Fun.
- Linwood Gardens Peony Festival. Definitely worth going to.
- Safari Niagara in Canada. 36 minutes away (from East Aurora) and is a terrific outdoor zoo. Check out their Brew at the Zoo. Yes, not in Buffalo but nearby.
- City of Good Neighbors- If someone is sick or hurt, there is a fundraiser for them. This is unlike any city of the 12 we have lived in across the country. Very special…along with little traffic and low cost of living and lots of affordable entertainment, make it a great city.
Worst
- Buffalo’s inability to make a decision. We call it excitement, followed by indecision, followed by death. How many times do we have to explore what to do with the Outer Harbor with post- it notes- we WANT PUBLIC access, not residential or commercial buildings.
How many times to we have to discuss what to do with Route 198 –older Buffalonians want a park, newer ones want to have a highway to avoid congestion like other major cities. We vote for the latter having lived in those other cities that are congestion nightmares. Think of 190S this summer…being permanent.
2. The architecture of the new Explore and More Museum– what idiot designed it to be that close to the Skyway?
3. The decision in 2016 to spend $6 million on a consulting firm to provide an environmental assessment and detailed cost analysis of different options (which has not been completed )to cover ¾ of a mile of Route 33 (from Best Street to Ferry Street) to create a park to bring the community back together. In 2012 LaBella Associates study indicated that the cost if executed would be $574 million. The $6 million should have been spent on jobs in lower income communities.
- Tops Supermarket executives giving themselves bonuses of $3.6 million while reducing the benefits its workers will receive in retirement. This is after management piled on debt to pay themselves $350 million in dividends.
Tops says is going to make up some of the lost benefits with a new 401K plan funded with $12 million in seed money and another $17 million in company contributions. However, we all know that those who work in supermarkets do not make a lot of money and many cannot afford to even contribute to a 401K regardless of the match. Tops claims that they got into debt because of a unionized workforce, changing customer taste (Tops needs to evolve to reflect this changes), rival’s pricing power (Tops has one of the highest produce prices in the area) and online retail giants such as Amazon (who sells little competitive grocery products)
- City of Buffalo’s plan to increase parking rates downtown from $1 an hour to $2 an hour and to eliminate the FREE parking after 5pm by extending it to 10pm including Saturdays. This will supposedly make on-street parking accessible to more people- right- it is another of the city’s ways to get more money. It is clear that based on history, the city cares little about downtown development ( vs. Canalside and Outer Harbor). If the city really cared about public parking, they would offer a map with rates on the city’s website. This would include lots near the train which is free when it is above ground.
What IT WILL DO is negatively impact retail businesses downtown including theater, dining, movies, bars. Already the lot across from Shea’s is $30 to park (private ownership).
Since you only have two hours on a meter, that means you will be getting a ticket if you go to a movie or theater or event downtown. Plus, if not a lot or kiosk, you’ll have to have rolls of quarters in your car. Buffalo should be encouraging people to come downtown, not create MORE barriers. And, the vibrancy of downtown Buffalo has a LOT to be desired- Niagara Square – dead, Main Street- almost dead, Chippewa – on survival. That leaves the only vibrant area as Elmwood Avenue—now with increased parking rates, discouraging more customers.
Voice your Viewpoint – Kevin Heifer, Parking Commissioner, phone 851-5182
Solutions by other cities- https://pipta.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Parking-Problems-and-Creative-Solutions.pdf
- Business community and diversity of industry, dreadful. We need different kinds of industry that pay $50,000 to $100,000. We are the mecca of low paying jobs – customer service, retail, hospitality. With rising housing costs, we need higher paying jobs.
