Buffalo in the ’70s: Go-Go Girls (just another Friday on Chippewa)

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Cops on the Chippewa beat today are looking for rowdy young people and underage drinking. It was a different world on Chippewa Street in 1977, when Franklin Station officers David Schweitzer and Larry Rammuno were walking the prostitute-filled streets of what was then Buffalo’s red-light district.

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The officers are standing in front of what was then — and is now — the Calumet Building. Today, Go Go Girls and the Chippewa Army & Navy Store have been replaced by Bacchus Wine Bar and Mighty Taco. Behind the officers, just out of frame, was the infamous Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant — now the site of Soho.

Across the street, other infamous gin mills and dance joints like House O’ Quinn and Cosy Bar are visible. These were rough places for real characters — a far cry from the sanitary Michelob Ultra atmosphere of Chippewa today.