Category: Buffalo Neighborhoods

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

AM&A’s ad, 1979.

The cry seems louder this year than it ever has — buy local this Christmas. With Covid protocols putting so many small businesses teetering on the brink of extinction, Western New Yorkers are putting extra effort into making sure the holiday money they spend stays here with Buffalonians.

Forty-one years ago, the Thanksgiving Day ads in the Courier-Express tell a slightly different story for Black Friday 1979 — one where most of our retail choices were made in stores that were locally owned and operated.

If you had kids in mind or kids in tow for Black Friday shopping in 1979, you might have stopped by Hengerer’s downtown location or the Boulevard Mall, both of which promoted their visits from Santa in the Thanksgiving Day paper. Child World, with locations at Main and Transit and the Summit Park Mall, might also have been a good stop.

Among the stores with ads on Black Friday were Ulbrich’s Books, the Pop Shoppe touting 26 different pop flavors in stubby glass bottles, Attea Brothers on Clinton Street, Pitt Petri and Poise ‘N Ivy. Buffalo’s three area Champion Factory Outlet stores also had an ad. What was then a bargain label for Western New York kids is now a much trendy sought-after pricey brand name.

Hills and Sattler’s ran relatively small ads, and Twin Fair touted its layaway plan. Sears’ ad was very small — just letting possible Black Friday shoppers know the big store at Main & Jefferson would be open to accommodate them. Brand Names and Century catalog stores both ran several ads showing off hot products like Mr. Coffee’s latest brewer.

The gift of music was on the mind of advertisers in 1979, with big ads from AM&A’s, Twin Fair, and Naum’s Catalog Showroom. Record Theatre, calling itself “the world’s largest record store,” promised to stay open 84 straight hours for holiday shopping.

Buffalo’s big department stores were well-represented, too, including The Sample, Hengerer’s AM&A’s, Kleinhans, Jenss and L.L. Berger.

Both Krasner’s and Scott-Del started in the Southgate Plaza. DonLevy’s Backroom was a New England chain store with late 1970s locations across the street from Southgate Plaza and in the Clarence Mall at Main and Transit. Morrison’s was a longtime downtown ladies apparel store that branched into suburban locations before closing in 1983.

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

It was one of the more notorious moments in Buffalo Sabres history, 24 years ago this week.

On Nov. 16, 1996, shortly after the Sabres and the Boston Bruins finished their morning skate in preparation for their game that evening, the 20-ton Jumbotron scoreboard hanging over the playing surface crashed at center ice without apparent cause or explanation as crews did routine maintenance.

The manufacturer, Daktronics, had just given the 23-foot-tall unit a clean bill of health in a tune-up a week before. No one was injured in the thunderous crash which shook the arena as well as those who worked there.

“If it was meant to fall, it happened at the right time,” Sabres President Larry Quinn told reporters.

The eight-sided scoreboard cost $4 million and was the centerpiece of the new $127.5 million facility which had just replaced the 56-year-old Memorial Auditorium as the home of the National Hockey League team.

“The 40,000-pound scoreboard laid in a heap of parts and wires on the ice surface,” reported the Associated Press in newspapers around the world. The front page of The News read “Jumbletron.”

Marine Midland Arena

The arena had only opened weeks before the crash at the start of the Sabres’ 1996-97 season. Since being opened as Marine Midland Arena, the name of the building has changed a handful of times reflected the changes in the banking industry in Buffalo. In 2000, the building was renamed HSBC Arena as the area branches were rebranded.

Ten years later, in 2010, HSBC sold off local branches and the naming rights to the arena to First Niagara Bank, and the building was called First Niagara Center until 2016, when First Niagara was bought out by KeyBank.

After replacing the scoreboard shortly after it crashed, the audio/visual in-game presentation system was again upgraded during the 2007-08 season.

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

Fort Makowski

More than four decades removed from the time he left office, there aren’t many Buffalonians who can claim to be a better representation of what it means to be a Buffalonian than Stan Makowski.

Buffalo’s mayor from 1974-77, Makowski was a World War II vet and a lifelong member of the Grain Millers’ Union. He lost half a finger in an accident at a grain mill, but it didn’t stop him from representing Tippie’s Social & Athletic Club in statewide bowling tournaments – even as mayor.

The pride of Buffalo’s Valley neighborhood, just about everyone loved Stan Makowski. Outside of being remembered as a good guy, he is remembered as the mayor during the Blizzard of ’77 and for an ill-fated public works project that became the talk of the country for a few weeks in 1976.

The opening paragraph in a New York Times story about the brick enclosure being built around Niagara Square summed up the saga surrounding what’s remembered as “Fort Makowski.”

Mayor Stanley Makowski

“A six-foot brick wall being erected around the square in front of City Hall here in a $575,000 public works beautification project is being torn down next week because the public finds it too ugly,” reported The Times.

The official name was “Niagara Square Beautification Project,” but almost immediately, it seemed as work got underway in August 1976 that “beauty” was not the first thought of most folks.

“When are they going to learn, what we need in this city is simplicity, taste and restraint,” said Virginia Tillou, one of Buffalo’s great artists, arbiters of taste and Allentown Association leader.

Opponents said the dark bricks walled up around the McKinley monument not only clashed with surrounding architecture, but also would become “a haven for muggers and rapists.”

Designer Robert O’Hara’s idea was to wall off the outside world so that downtown folks could take a peaceful breather on a patio surrounded by planters and greenery near the fountain at the center of the square.

Tillou said it would be like “some local artist painting over a Rembrandt” to make it look better.

Opposition also came from those who questioned whether the federal funds being used in the project – originally earmarked for fixing the McKinley monument fountain – were being misdirected.

At a time when Buffalo’s massive hemorrhaging of good jobs had only just begun, Makowski buoyed the project by underlining the thousand-plus desperately-needed trades jobs that were created as the structure was being built.

But as newspapers around the country poked fun at Buffalo, our giant brick wall and our mayor, a nine-member panel organized by Makowski agreed that the wall should come down. Work began almost immediately.

As Makowski watched the structure come down, he told reporters, “It proves you can fight city hall and win.”

In the end, “Fort Makowski” wasn’t a total loss.

Eventually, most of the bricks were used in a project sprucing up sidewalks and pathways in the Allentown and Day’s Park areas, where the construction materials brought no aesthetic protests, only smiles and appreciation.

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

A famous slime dog from Seneca Texas Hots.

Whether you call it a slime dog, scum dog or “some kind” of a canoe, the “Texas hot” is a Western New York institution and one of those tastes you just can’t find outside of the 716.

Generally, it’s a skinless Sahlen’s hot dog that is griddled, often within sight of the spot where the ordering is done. The insider will order “two dogs up,” because anyone in the mood for a slime dog is almost certainly in the mood for (at least) two. The dog comes on a steamed roll with mustard, silver onions and a zesty, overflowing trough of “special sauce.”

The sauce is what makes or breaks a scummer, with many Buffalonians swearing by the secret recipe of their favorite Texas hot stand, and many places offering their ever-so-modified versions of the sauce for sale, ladled fresh into unlabeled paper takeout containers.

Of course, any good Buffalonian who has ever stopped in Rochester has tried the city’s most Buffalo-like regional dish, “the garbage plate,” which traditionally includes hot dogs covered with a sauce that is close to what you might expect on a Buffalo Texas hot – but not quite. The same can be said for Greek dogs in Erie, Pa., and Michigans in New York’s North Country.

As painful as it might be, Buffalonians – and anyone else who enjoys a hot dog with spicy hamburger meat sauce – have to acknowledge a downstate ancestry to one of our region’s iconic specialties.

Buffalo’s first “Texas hot wiener lunch” was billed as “famous Coney Island sausage” next door to Loew’s Theater at Mohawk Street between Main and Washington in 1921.

An advertisement for a “Texas Hot Weiner Lunch” in 1921.

Fifty-seven years later in 1978, the then Century Theater was torn down and took that same restaurant – then “The Quality Texas Wiener Restaurant” – down with it.

The restaurant, best known as “Texas Red Hots” for most of the 57 years that it was run by the Pappas family, was generally acknowledged as the maker of Buffalo’s best slime dog. The sauce was concocted by Greek immigrant brothers John and James Pappas – who obviously gave a nod to Coney Island in the ads that ran in the Buffalo Commercial in 1921 shortly after their lunch counter opened.

Heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey and sparkling pianist Liberace were among the millions who ate a red hot from the Pappas family’s downtown location.

Since that first Texas hot was served 99 years ago, dozens – if not hundreds – of small stands and restaurants have made the slime dog their main fare. Two of Buffalo’s most successful and best remembered restaurant chains started as hot dog joints – Deco Restaurants and Your Host Restaurants.

These days, the most celebrated Texas hot joints have been around for decades and have loyal followers. Seneca Texas Hots on Seneca Street in Buffalo just over the West Seneca border is known affectionately in South Buffalo as “Slime on the Line.”

I once spoke with Rod Roddy about his time working in Buffalo at WKBW in the 1960s. Before I could ask any questions, the famous “Price Is Right” “Come on down” announcer of the ’80s and ’90s asked me “if Seneca Hots was still there near where the buses turn around. Best hot dog I’ve ever had.”

A 1981 advertisement for Seneca Texas Hots.

Louie’s is another Western New York slime dog institution, with stores on Bailey Avenue and around the city for decades.

The headlines these days seem to go to the Sahlen’s hot dog that’s char-boiled and served with the spicy relish sauce, pickle, mustard, onion and sweet relish the way that another Greek immigrant, Ted Liaros, started serving them under the Peace Bridge in 1927. For some, that might be the definitive Buffalo-style hot dog.

But doesn’t it suit Buffalo’s personality perfectly to be the home of two distinct and beloved hot dog styles? I’ll take one of each.

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

Buffalo voters – both men and women for the first time – line up to vote at Amherst and Parkside (top) and Hertel and North Park (bottom).

Journalism is often thought of as the first draft of history but on Election Day 100 years ago, The News slightly missed the mark.

First, more Buffalonians and more Americans headed to the polls than ever before – in large measure because it was the first Election Day where recently enfranchised women could cast their votes for president.

In Buffalo and around the country, the use of the rapidly developing medium of radio to deliver instantaneous results of the race between Warren G. Harding and James Cox the evening of that election ushered in the modern radio era.

Both of these events made it into the lead story on the front page of The Buffalo Evening News on that historic night, but leading the election story was the giant screen that was erected in front of the old News headquarters building, which stood on Main Street in what is now the footprint of the Seneca One tower.

The screen, readers were promised, would flash “the best election results first,” between moving pictures starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – which would also be projected on the screen. The News arranged with the International Railway Company to have the streetcars stay off of Main Street that evening, so people could watch the results on the screen without having to dodge trolleys all night.

Election Day 1920 was a rainy day in Buffalo, but “men and women voters by the thousands stuck determinedly by their posts waiting for their turn.”

As was the case for most of the first half of the 20th century, in 1920, Buffalonians voted in portable sheds, which only fit two or three people at a time, placed on street corners all around the city.

Eight years earlier, in 1912, it was only men lined up around Buffalo to vote for President.

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

The Main/Kenmore streetcar turnaround, future site of the University Plaza.

Main Street at Kenmore Avenue was the end of the line for Buffalo’s Main Street streetcars until 1941, when the land was sold to the developers of University Plaza. The streetcar era ended in Buffalo in 1950 when the last streetcar lines were converted to bus routes.

Buffalo’s International Railway Corporation streetcars rode every inch of Main Street in the city, from where Main Street began at the DL&W Terminal along at the Buffalo Harbor out to the Amherst town line.

The Main Street trolleys would turn around in a loop on the north side of Main just before Bailey. Passengers could also catch streetcars bound for Williamsville at the loop as well as downtown bound cars, until the Buffalo-Williamsville line stopped operating in 1930.

In 1941, the IRC sold the property where the loop was located, and Buffalo’s first shopping plaza – University Plaza – was built and opened on the spot, featuring an A&P grocery store, Endicott Johnson shoes, W.T. Grant’s and Federal Meats.

Adam, Meldrum & Anderson opened the store’s first branch location in University Plaza in 1947. This photo shows the store shortly before it closed in 1985.

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo

The Sample Shop in 1939.

Over the last handful of years, Hertel Avenue might have finally been redefined as the home of cosmopolitan and trendy boutiques, food and drink.

But from the time the neighborhoods surrounding Hertel were being built and the 60 years that followed, North Buffalo’s main drag was dominated and defined by The Sample Shop.

The Sample on Hertel in 1990.

Anne Bunis started The Sample Shop in the front parlor of her Hertel Avenue ground floor flat in 1929, selling sample dresses from large New York City designers. Soon after, her husband, Louis, had the idea to have “living mannequins” in the front window. What had been static displays had become fashion shows for passersby on Hertel.

That one house grew into a string of five houses within a decade, all combined into a single 61-foot block tile frontage along Hertel Avenue. What started as a business with just Anne Bunis as buyer, shopkeeper and seamstress, had grown to 61 employees.

Louis and Anne Bunis inside The Sample in the 1980s.

In 1947, most of the houses were torn down and the larger, long familiar Sample store was built – although pieces of the old homes remained a familiar sight deep in the bowels of the store.

As The Sample celebrated 60 years in 1989, 88-year-old Anne Bunis watched her company open a store in the Walden Galleria – although the end of The Sample (and local retailing in general) was clearly in sight.

The 11-store chain dwindled to three, and those remaining Sample stores were ordered closed by a bankruptcy judge in 1990.

In 1993, the flagship store on Hertel Avenue was razed to make room for a senior apartment complex.

As noted in a 1990 editorial, the loss of the Sample on Hertel was as big a blow to the neighborhood as the loss of Sattler’s was to Broadway-Fillmore. News Columnist Donn Esmonde wrote about The Sample in the store’s final days, when it had “70% off” signs plastered in all the windows in 1991.

“What happened? Tastes diversified. The Sample wasn’t big enough to offer something for everyone. Specialization meant the Sample was no longer a one-stop destination. Branches opened in the malls, but rent was high and the stores were small,” wrote Esmonde.

“The big place on Hertel sat in the middle of a residential neighborhood, both serving it and defining it. The clothes were unpretentious yet refined. For a long time, it worked.

“In the end, it was another victim of the ’80s illusion of never-ending prosperity. Maybe, as time went on, it didn’t do enough things for enough people. Which doesn’t mean that it didn’t use to, or that it stopped trying.

“The world changed and, like so many other local retail outlets, the Sample lost its way. And this week, the people to whom it meant the most will leave it for the last time.”