North and South Buffalo. The East and West Sides. But how many neighborhoods can you name that don’t fit any of those descriptions?
From the biggest geographical sections, to the dozens of micro-neighborhoods and hundreds of great intersections, each little bit of Buffalo has it’s own unique story, and many of those stories are right here.
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New York Telephone called it a sign of our area’s great progress in one sentence, and then in the next sentence said it’s happening everywhere around the country.
It was this week 55 years ago that Ma Bell began getting telephone users ready to ditch phone numbers like TRiangle 9820 and PArkside 1344, in favor of new versions like TA2-9820 and TF3-1344.
By the end of the 1960s, letters completely gave way to numbers in phone numbers around the country and in Buffalo.
It doesn’t seem like 1990 is that far away to many Buffalonians — until you tell them in 1990 you could have sat at the counter of a Your Host Restaurant and ordered a meatloaf, coffee, and fries.
Then, all the sudden 1990 — only 25 years ago — seems like a lifetime ago.
As appeared in The Buffalo News– Buffalo Stories archives
The grill sergeants take charge
A CUSTOMER walks into the downtown Your Host wearing a satiny emerald Boston Celtics jacket and a hungry expression.
“Mary,” he says, “I need something to eat.”
It’s a couple minutes past noon, the start of the lunch-time rush.
“So, what will you have?” Mary Kuntz asks over hamburgers sizzling and french fries hissing.
“Meat loaf and fries,” the Celtics fan says.
“You got it,” says Mary, 58, a short-order cook for more than 30 years.
During the lunch hour at this restaurant at 767 Main St., Mary and her fellow short-order cook, Don Schroeder, take orders as well as cook them.
It’s difficult for many of us to believe, but as of right now, parts of the 1990s were 25 years ago.
While the very beginning of the decade was filled for hope for Western New York, and seeds which were planted then are now the strongly rooted foundations of Buffalo’s resurgence, the 1990s were still a decade of growing pains. The direction, however, was usually the right one.
Outlook is upbeat after bruising 80s
“The ’80s was the great paradox,” said Common Council Majority Leader James W. Pitts. “It was a time when the city perhaps began on the road to recovery, while at the time traveling backwards.”
From the Buffalo news, January 1, 1990. Buffalo Stories archives
Fifty-five years ago, the Phoenix Brewery, which had been on Emslie Street since the end of Prohibition, closed, with the loss of about 30 jobs.
Phoenix Beer and Ale would continue to be bottled at the Pratt Street plant of the Iroquois Brewery. Both Phoenix and Iroquois were owned by International Breweries Inc.
The closed plant was built in 1867 and was the long time home of the East Buffalo Brewing Company.
“Old Phoenix Brewery closes in transfer of operations”
By Bob Watson | October 21, 1959
“Emslie St. plant is offered for sale as Iroquois absorbs part of its staff.”
Buffalo, NY – The Rev. Henry Orszulak grew up in the St. John Kanty parish on Buffalo’s Polish East Side in the 1960’s and was excited to get his hands on three reel-to-reel tapes from the church’s 75th anniversary year in 1967.
The sounds of St. John Kanty celebrating 75 years being digitized. Recorded by a parishioner 47 years ago on reel-to-reel tape, a Mass and Christmas concert are copied for future generations (Buffalo Stories Photo)
Despite being nearly half-a-century old, two of the three St. John Kanty tapes sounded great. The recordings of Mass and the Christmas carols actually sound as good as they did in 1967. The concert, however, didn’t fare as well. Despite trying to play the tape back on several professional and consumer model reel-to-reel machines, significant bleedthrough and ghosting have permanently ruined the tape. It makes audio that remains difficult to listen to– although I did post a portion of it here anyway. It’s still beautiful to listen to if you can fight through the backwards organ music and singing over significant parts of it.
These descriptions were taped inside of the boxes.
We’re searching out the history of the chicken wing in this, the 50th anniversary year of Buffalo’s most famous eponymous bar food.
Looking under “Pizza” in the yellow pages of Buffalo’s 1969 Telephone Directory, only one restaurant — the Anchor Bar — lists “chicken wings” as a menu option in its ad. That isn’t to say that others weren’t selling wings — in fact, several listings do mention “chicken” — but the Anchor Bar was alone in hawking “chicken wings” as such.
Ten years later, in the 1979 phone book, 54 different pizza restaurants list wings as a menu option.
Though there are other versions of where wings came from, the legend goes that the modern “Buffalo chicken wing” was invented at Buffalo’s Anchor Bar in 1964. The fact that the Anchor Bar is the sole promoter of the chicken wing on the pages of the phone book four years later may bolster that claim. But not so fast, might a chicken wing conspiracy theorist say.
With that same 1969 phone book in hand, one could point out that in the “Restaurant” section, while the Anchor Bar’s ad makes mention of music and Italian specialties, there is no mention of chicken wings. When you flip a few pages forward, you find the only mention of wings in the restaurant section: a small listing for “Wings & Things,” John Young’s Jefferson Avenue restaurant, which also claims a role in creating the icon of gastro-pop culture.
Add another four years, and by 1972, the wing world has exploded in popularity to the point where News Food Editor Janice Okun offered up a discussion of wing history, preparation and recipes for homemade wings and blue cheese dressing.
This 1972 shot is the first of many photos showing The Anchor Bar’s Dominic Bellissimo and chicken wings appearing in The Buffalo News through the years. (Buffalo Stories archives)
Through the years, dozens of reporters have written hundreds of stories about chicken wings: summarizing the history of the wing, eating wings during Super Bowls, mailing wings to ex-pats, organizing festivals dedicated to wings.
What follows is the first in-depth Buffalo newspaper story on the chicken wing, written eight years after that night in 1964 when Teressa Bellissimo made culinary history.
“Not much to eat on chicken wing but what there is, is ‘choice’ ”
“Elegant, they’re not.
“Neat, they are certainly not.
“But delicious, they are. We’re talking about chicken wings, a popular Western New York snack food served in generous portions. Halved, cooked, spiced, heaped and dipped into tasty dressing.
“If the fad keeps growing, the little morsels may surpass King Pizza Pie in popularity. Several local pizzerias, in fact, now include chicken wings in their menus.”
Politicians and paisanos of a past era filled Chef’s on the day in 1979 when News reporter Anthony Cardinale stopped by with a notebook to absorb some of the feeling of a landmark. Thirty-five years later, Chef’s is still going strong.
Buffalo Stories archives
“Around the table at Chef’s”
“ ‘My restaurant’s success is in his memory,’ Lou Billittier says when he’s asked about the chef after whom his restaurant is named.
“ ‘The chef was Attillo Silvestrini, and we still use his recipes,’ Lou says. ‘He trained me when I first started working here in 1941. I was 12.’
“ ‘He had a temper, but it was a mellow temper. If you didn’t do things right, you got the spatula! I was a dishwasher, bus boy, waiter, manager, part owner. …’”
BUFFALO, NY – “I love to be a part of busting open any preconceived notion.”
Devon Karn thinks when she and her husband Kevin open their home for the 16th Annual Parkside Tour of Homes (Sunday, May 18, 2014) that a handful of assumptions about the neighborhood and its homes could fly out the stained glass art window.
Over the last 15 years, hundreds of Parkside homes have opened their doors to tens of thousands of people from all over the globe for the annual Parkside Tour of Homes. This year’s self guided tour of ten homes shows the wide array of architecture in the neighborhood, from a modest, half-furnished bungalow to glimpse of the work Frank Lloyd Wright considered his finest. (Photo by Steve Cichon/Buffalo Stories LLC Archives)
“Parkside is known for the big, beautiful, sprawling majestic homes,” says Karn, “but interspersed among them are smaller, slightly more accessible homes that are like ours– a comfortable bungalow.”
The young couple hasn’t even lived at their Parkside address two years yet– there’s a long to-do list, but she says there’s no shame in showing off a home that’s a work in progress. In fact, from her perspective, that’s a bit of the charm. “It doesn’t have some of the grandeur of some of the Victorian homes, but we do have some of the interesting details– the leaded glass, the woodwork, the central fireplace– they all make for very comfortable homes.”
Comfortable and lived in homes of all shapes, sizes and styles, just like the people of Parkside.
“I wanted to put our little, comfortable, humble bungalow on the tour, to offer that no-holds-barred, open door approach that exemplifies the Parkside attitude,” says Karn. “The people in this neighborhood are the most open, most inviting– It’s one of the most participatory neighborhoods in the City of Buffalo. It’s not an exclusive neighborhood. It’s so open, so welcoming. Come as you are. The fact that we will have our not quite-perfect, yet still intriguing space on the tour is a testament to the community.”
And while her little sliver of the Frederick Law Olmsted designed neighborhood offers one perspective, Karn loves the tapestry woven by all the parts blended together. “Part of the beauty of this Home Tour,” says Karn, “is the variety people get to see.”
The variety will be underlined for tour goers who walk the half-a-block from Devon’s humble bungalow to the imposing Arts & Crafts American Four Square home of Ken Wells and his wife, Phyllis.
Once the home of a Congressman and later to a family of 11, the beautiful brick, original woodwork, wrap-around porch and historical past occupants offer a bit more grandeur, but it’s still simply a family home.
“In the spring, summer and fall we live on our front porch,” says Wells. “The backyard is our oasis. It is the main gathering place for parties and just hanging out.”
Showing off is part of the fun, and it’s why Pat Lalonde is back on the tour again this year.
Five years ago her home was featured, but one new project she knows will be the envy of many people who live in older homes. “For the first time in the 30 years I’ve lived here, I now have a first floor half-bath,” says Lalonde, who also has a new screened-in back porch and new room configurations to show.
The cleverly configured bathroom might inspire folks to finally build the powder room of their dreams, but Lalonde admits: Putting her home on the tour again is as much for her as the hundreds of people who’ll be coming through.
“I had a blast the first time,” says Lalonde. “People were so nice; they said so many wonderful things about my house. I was thinking my house isn’t all that special– there’s no Arts & Crafts style or the natural woodwork… But all the great comments made me realize that my house really does have some really interesting features.”
The event is the biggest annual fundraiser for the non-profit Parkside Community Association. They hope you’ll stop by May 18, and find out why so many people are passionate about the homes that are like none other, as well as the community of people that is like none other.
For more information, including buying tickets, visit the 2014 Home Tour page on the Parkside Community Association website.
The rules of the road haven’t changed since 1949. Thomas Dickerman, 13, of Auburn Ave, Buffalo, demonstrates the right way and the wrong way to operate a bicycle in the City of Buffalo 65 years ago, as appeared in The News on May 5, 1949.
The safety tips were offered as Police Commissioner McMahon urged Buffalo parents to stress Bicycle Safety Week to their children.
Some safety do’s and don’ts for Buffalo bicyclists
By Steve Cichon
