Hypocrisy
Sunday, June 7th, 2009Recently, the following letter appeared in the Buffalo News’ “Everybody’s Column”:
“As a graduate of Lafayette High School, I must comment on The News story discussing Board of Education plans for closing it, and the editorial urging action “without worrying about . . . history.”
Buffalo didn’t worry about history when the Larkin Building was torn down. Albright-Knox didn’t worry when it sold priceless art treasures. The Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. isn’t worrying, subsuming one of two great nexuses of American immigration (the other is Ellis Island), and burying the Canal District under a Bass Pro-inspired project.
Lafayette is Buffalo’s oldest public high school still in its original (nationally historic) building, the educational font for hundreds of local and nationally known professionals: Judge Joseph Mattina, architect Gordon Bunshaft, The News’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Bruce Shanks and many others.
It has been renovated and refurbished, with energy-efficient windows and a new library and cupola. Its Steinway piano was rebuilt, and its carillon reactivated; both with funds from the city’s most active public school alumni association. We raised more than $30,000 at the 100th Anniversary celebration, attended by graduates from the years 1931 through 2001.
The board should keep Lafayette open, and encourage West Side families to view it as the great community asset that it is, and to send their children there.
Angela Bongiovanni Coniglio
Amherst”
My first inclination was to write my own damn letter to the Buffalo News, but I realized that I would not be able to use the language nessecary to convey my true feelings about Angela’s comments.
Read the signature– ANGELA LIVES IN FUCKING AMHERST. Angela, like so many other scared folk, left the City of Buffalo screaming for the suburbs, and now has the audacity to suggest that “West Side Families” should send their kids to Lafayette. Now, in Angela’s defense, maybe she doesn’t have kids. Maybe she can’t have kids for all I know. Maybe she moved to Amherst because she inherited a house. I don’t know. What I do know is Angela has no right getting up on her soapbox criticizing the city for considering closing Lafayette High School.
Personally, I agree with Angela– closing Lafayette would be a huge mistake. As a resident of the West Side, I see Lafayette as tradition, an institution, and as an architecture buff, I agree, it’s a beautiful building. Kids are bussed in from all over the city to attend Lafayette, and from what I can tell, the staff there are trying to fight the good fight. But this woman sits in her home in the suburbs and suggests that West Side families should send their kids there in hopes of… what? Changing the demographic of the student body? Making it more like it was when she attended classes? If she does have children (and again, I don’t know the answer to that), where do they go to school?
I’m sure Angela has Buffalo’s and Lafayette High School’s best interest at heart. But she ran. She’s part of the problem.
I bought something on Craigslist recently. The woman I spoke to was very nice. She lived in Amherst. She even offered to deliver the item.
“Where do you live?” she asked.
“In the city, on the West Side,” I replied.
Silence. Then, “Maybe you should come pick it up.”
The City of Buffalo is in the state that it is because people left. People got scared and ran away. And people are too scared to even set foot within it’s boundaries.
Angela, thank you for being an active alumnus and donating to the building’s renovation, but if you are so concerned about Lafayette High School, move back to the West Side. Buy one of those nice homes in the Elmwood Village. Become part of the community, instead of sending letters to the Buffalo News.
Welcome to Buffalo
Saturday, June 14th, 2008So, I ran into someone I can only describe as a person who once drank at the same bar as I did, at least as frequently as I did. I wouldn’t even call this person a casual acquaintance. Truth be told, I struggle to remember her name. We were just people who on several occasions in the mid 90’s had drunken conversations due to nothing more than proximity. After the usual how’ve you beens, she informed me that she’s moving to Austin, Texas because she’s finally accepted that Buffalo is a dying city. I told her she’d miss it here, and she replied, no, she won’t. I then suggested that some of us fine Buffalonians think the problem is not that people are leaving because Buffalo is dying, rather Buffalo is dying because people are leaving. Chicken, egg. Egg, chicken.
Naturally I’ve been mulling over this nonsense ever since. I sit here, in a town I’ve hardly ever left, adamantly standing my ground in the second poorest city in the nation, drinking the Kool-Aid that Others Like Me are happy to poor. Buffalo NY is one of the worst managed, heavily taxed, hopelessly decaying cities in the country. Opportunities are slim (hence the paradox above), so the brain drain continues. Aside from very small pockets of prosperity, neighborhoods are collapsing in on themselves– literally. HUD grants are funneled not into the communities that need it, but into building luxury loft apartments which, while admittedly will help revitalize downtown, are just lining the pockets of their investors. The public school system is deplorable, in many cases horribly outdated, woefully understaffed and underfunded. The mayor is inaccessible and either blind to the plight or ridiculously naive.
And I love it here. Like some glutton for punishment, I stay.
I love it for the usual reasons. The architecture. The change of seasons (yes, I hate winter, but without winter, you never have that incredible first spring day of the year, the first day you can drive with the windows rolled down listening to the Housemartins). The Sabres. The people. The history. But I love it for less obvious, less Buffalo Chamber of Commerce approved reasons. I love that you can walk into any restaurant, order a meal, and know you’re taking some home with you because the portions are freaking ridiculous. I love that on the worst day, barring roadwork or a sporting event, you might sit in traffic for five minutes, tops. I love that I can walk out my front door and in five minutes be on one of the most vibrant city streets in the country, with nearly every type of food and drink, live band, and a few renown museums to choose from. I love that in winter months, you never know when the lake might decide the city needs to shut down for a few days and everyone needs to stay home and drink whiskey.
Most of all, I love the mindset– the cynicism, the inherent waiting for the other shoe to fall. I love the sense that we’re all kind of screwed, and therefore we’re in this together. You don’t get that in NYC or Toronto, or Boston. You don’t have that unspoken understanding that we’ve been dealt a lousy hand, but we’re better for making the most of it.
The easy thing is to leave. And as a parent, it might come to that someday– if not for me, certainly for my son. But right now, I want to be part of the solution, not contributing to the problem. If I can make a living and provide for my family, I want to stay. What will make that easier for me, and for people like me, is for Buffalo to realize that there isn’t going to be a panacea. Nothing will suddenly turn Buffalo back into the prosperous boom town that it was when people actually needed the Erie canal and had no choice but to go through this city. We need lower expectations. Buffalo needs to invest in its people. New York State needs to rethink the taxes and regulations that stop businesses from investing here. City Hall needs to apply some common sense to addressing the poverty and crime in the lower west and east sides (see http://pushbuffalo.org to see what at least one organization is doing to kill two birds with one stone– address the abandoned houses on the west side and make home ownership possible for people who wouldn’t otherwise even dare to dream it). Lastly, we need to play to our strengths and stop allowing the destruction of our architecture and heritage, because believe it or not, if you allow a building to stand, people will come to see it. And stay in a hotel. And eat. And spend money.
And for Christ’s sake, the last thing we need is another casino.
More if you’re interested:
http://www.buffalohistoryworks.com/
http://www.wrightnowinbuffalo.com/
