The plan started out by us making plans to get married in Buffalo and spending some time with Becky's family. Her father had started the art store on Elmwood Avenue and had recently moved it to Hertel Avenue... Koenig Art Supply. He had was also recovering from a heart attack and his health was not real good so we wanted to spend some time in Buffalo with him. We got an apartment on the West Side on Putnam Street between Richmond and Grant. We were only paying $65 a month. Then I got a job at Better Wire Products on Niagara Street doing shipping and receiving. I stayed there for the first two years we were in Buffalo.
We got married in June 1980 and a year later we took three weeks off to go out West for our belated honeymoon trip. We spent two weeks in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks then we went to San Francisco for a week. When we got back I got laid off from Better Wire. I collected unemployment and was doing some garden and landscaping work off the books for a friend.
Jim, Becky's father, mostly did the outside sales for the art store and her brother Dave was working there. They needed help so I started working there too in the fall when my unemployment was running out. Becky had a waitress job and we got by. It was fairly easy to live in Buffalo. We liked living here and decided to stay in town a little longer. It was really convenient that everything we needed was close by and we never had to drive very far for anything.
Everything in Buffalo seemed to be about 10 minutes away or less. Most of the things we wanted to do, the restaurants, music clubs and bars, art galleries, family and friends were all close by and usually within those ten minutes. It seemed like nothing was ever more than 20 minutes away. That was so very much different from Philadelphia where everything not in your immediate neighborhood was an hour or more away. Sometimes a lot more. This was great city living and we were close to everything.
So we were happy in Buffalo and decided to continue living here. Then we had our first child and soon bought a home. Then a second child. Then we got them both in a great public magnet school.
There are lots of great music venues in Buffalo. Now certainly not as many as Philadelphia but they are much easier to get to, to park nearby and not as crowded. Over the years there have been many places to see good touring bands throughout the city and within ten to fifteen minutes. Certainly by twenty minutes.
I've always heard people asking me about the weather in Buffalo and I always start with how great the summer weather is every year. And then I tell them how efficient the city is in snow removal and in just dealing with a regular Buffalo winter. I also need to explain to them about the south of the city snow belt and how most of the time when they see something on the national news about multiple feet of snow in WNY they are not talking about the city... most of the time. Up until the recent years of serious climate change we would get a really nasty blizzard once every ten years or so in the city itself. There would be long lasting snow packs but the big crippling blizzards didn't happen in the city very often. Now recently there have been more big storms but they come and go quickly. Last year the big storm with several feet of snow was gone and melted away in a few days with no long lasting snow pack. The streets were also cleared fairly quickly. Now there is talk on the national media about Buffalo being a destination city in the new age of climate change for folks fleeing the extreme weather of other parts of the country. There is also plenty of water that cannot be drained off by pipelines to the drought stricken parts of the country like Arizona because the Great Lakes are international waters. Treaties with Canada make it impossible for other states to lay claim to the water here.
Another thing that makes Buffalo a nice place to live are the nearby colleges and hospitals. They make a difference. I am ten minutes away from four college campuses. Add a few more within another five minutes or so. There is a hospital five minutes away and several more about ten minutes from here including a world renowned neurosurgery hospital and a cancer institute. A great children's hospital too where our kids were born. It makes a difference.
It is also a liberal city. I don't see any trump signs anywhere in my neighborhood. In 2020 when President Biden defeated trump in the election there were church bells ringing throughout the city and especially in our neighborhood. It sounded joyous.
I'll continue this "Why Buffalo" in another post.
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