Certain family members didn’t like the idea that their grandson was going to be living in a ghetto, and so just before I was born, my mother and father moved into an apartment here at 36 Chapel Road in the Kenmore neighborhood. While only a few miles away from Sheridan Park, it remains a world away to this day. This wasn’t our first stop today, nor would it be our last, but by the time we start to head out of Buffalo later, we’ll have driven nearly 400 miles over the streets of what was once known as the City of Lights, but today would better be known as the City of Crime.
Art Deco was all the rave in 1920 when the North Park Theatre was opened. The stained glass windows that were falling into disrepair have been hidden behind walls, architectural changes were made to save on heating costs, and over time, like so many things in Buffalo, there was too little commerce and little care for a theater when larger problems were challenging Buffalonians. Back in 1998, Buffalo native Vincent Gallo, who directed Buffalo ’66, premiered his movie right here at North Park. Stars Christina Ricci and Asia Argento joined Vincent, bringing a touch of glamor back to the theater for a moment. Remember that I’m writing this in 2019, and just around the corner in 2020, the theater will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. In 2013, new owners started the laborious process of restoring North Park to its former glory. In the summer of 2019, during the theatre’s reopening, the lobby’s high ceilings and views of the restored stained glass were unveiled.
A hoped-for breakfast stop at an old deli scheduled to reopen today after its owner had been on vacation was a futile waste of time as nothing inside was set up, and as we were looking inside, the gruff, unfriendly owner chased us away, telling us he was not reopening and that’s that. It turned out that within 60 days, that old guy named Jack Shapiro would retire, and Mastman’s Kosher Deli would disappear.
We ate at Bertha’s Diner just down the road here on Hertel Avenue instead. Nice place. Just an old-style coffee shop with some ridiculously low prices. A table nearby is overheard talking about Schwabl’s, a restaurant of keen interest to us. They confirm that one of them has eaten there in the past week, and it is, in fact, still open. Lunch is on the schedule.
Earlier, I said Buffalo should be called the City of Crime. While the rate of violent crime has fallen since the 1990s, Buffalo is still usually in the top 10 of the most dangerous cities in America. The poverty rate here stands around 30%, and moving through its streets, the sense of that danger is palpable. As far as New York as a whole goes, Buffalo is the most dangerous city in the entire state. With that said, I never felt threatened anywhere we visited, but then again, I also knew that I would not want to be the person needing to walk through this neighborhood at night after buying one of these beautiful buildings for a renovation project. By the way, check out this Jackson’s Produce & Meats shop with the box glued onto the front of the old house; doesn’t it give the impression that the cannibal slaughter was going on in the main house with body parts being sold in the front?
The ethnic hate and racism in this city are worn right out in front. Apparently, this council member, Nick Bonifacio guy was a “Handpicked party controlled Italian.” Listening in on Buffalonians at some of the eating establishments, it’s easy to overhear conversations about the “Eyetalians,” “Polacks,” “the Jews,” and “the Blacks or Coloreds.” I thought this kind of ethnic division was something from a previous century and that the North was supposed to be welcoming of African Americans, but that’s not my experience here on the streets of Buffalo.
Shortly after emigrating from Germany to Buffalo, New York, my family, the Kurchoffs, became established with a strong foothold in Buffalo.
That’s my mom sitting in front of Buffalo Engine House No. 26, built back in 1894 with the help of her great-grandfather.
In our senseless wandering around, somehow, we made it back out to West Seneca and Schwabl’s. Not only did we have a late breakfast, but it was not even lunchtime yet. Seeing we are able to shovel food in where it was thought there was no more space, we know ourselves well enough that if we leave now, we’ll not return later. So we walk into the nearly empty restaurant and are happy we did. Only 20 minutes after our arrival, not only was the place full but there were ten people waiting for a table.
The Schwabl family started their business of feeding people in this city back in 1837, only five years after Buffalo had become an official place on the map. By 1942, they were operating in their current location and will hopefully continue well into the future. Their specialty is the Roast Beef Sandwich On Kümmelweck, also known as beef on weck – a half-pound of hand-cut roast beef served on a fresh roll dusted with rock salt and caraway seeds with some sinus-clearing horseradish. For dessert, I order a stand-alone beef on weck without the sides. I think I could have eaten three of them.
We should have started heading south out of Buffalo, but Mom had one more stop she wanted us to make. So, back across town, but first, we dipped down Emslie Street here to visit the ruin of the Sacred Heart Church, where Aunt Eleanor was baptized and attended catechism as a child. Back then, the church was still new, having been built in 1913, shortly after Auntie was born. I wasn’t able to capture a decent photo of the church itself, so I snapped this image of the crossroads to act as my reminder of where the place was.
If I’d not taken this photo myself, you could have told me that this 1950 Packard Sedan had just come off the assembly line and that I was looking at Buffalo during its heyday. This was almost our last stop in the city today, but next, we took a drive past Our Lady of Victory Basilica, which was also known as Father Baker’s. This was another situation where I was not going to be able to get a decent photo, which is a shame as it’s a very nice-looking cathedral and, as I was informed, the place where I was baptized. Time to leave Buffalo.
As we point the car to the southwest, we are effectively aiming for home, but we’ll first have to stop in Angola. Mom is nervous about heading down, and I think she’d like to postpone our visit, but my curiosity is too great. Our family used to own a summer cottage on Lake Erie in Angola, and the last time mom was there in 1993, the place was in ruins; she was expecting worse today. The last time I visited the cottage was probably in 1968.
Arriving in Angola off Lake Shore Road at the intersection with Humboldt Avenue, we find the place entirely renovated. The man renting it tells us he’s moving out soon and talks a bit about the new owner. I ask if I can take photos of the outside, and he obliges me. We walk around the old place and try to remember our days spent here long ago. Mom and I, as children, had both spent summers out here next to the lake with Grandma Josephine and Auntie. Mom, as an adult, had also lived out here after she and her second husband considered making a life south of Buffalo. That didn’t work out, and ultimately it was sold off. Without fanfare, we leave driving southwest a day ahead of schedule.
Buffalo was exhausting but also taught me a lot about who my mother is, considering the environment she grew up in. My mom was born in 1947 before the exodus of the city had begun. She stayed long enough through the early 1970s to witness the first mass migration when 100,000 people were moving away from Buffalo during those years. She watched poverty skyrocket and witnessed her parents lose their life savings to a swindler. Her poor decision to become sexually active at 14 years old (while good for me) likely put her in a far worse position than if she’d finished high school and (maybe) attended university. She appears to have grown up blaming others for her situations, rarely taking responsibility for her biases and blunders. First, moving to California in an attempt to reconcile with my father, she quickly realized the error of her ways and returned to Buffalo, but only shortly before marrying another man and moving to Phoenix, Arizona, to start fresh. I have no idea what my mother was looking for in Buffalo and even less hope that she found anything more than bittersweet nostalgia.
Out of the depravity of upstate New York and back into the bucolic countryside of rural America. I love it out here.
Ah, yes, it’s Dolly Dimples again. Caroline and I passed this psycho-killer monument back in 2000 when we were driving to Buffalo for the first time. Dolly lives at Valvo’s Candies in Silver Creek, New York. Click here to see my old photo at night and just try to imagine her emerging out of the night.
Our last stop on one of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie, to be exact. I may someday be proven wrong but I believe this is the last photo of my mom and I ever taken. My mom died on March 25, 2018. It’s strange to think that over the intervening 13 years, there wasn’t one more photo taken of the two of us.
Playing it by ear, we drive south into Pennsylvania through some Amish areas before reaching Warren on the Allegheny River. It’s a nice little town. Mom has to do some laundry, so we take a pause in the trek home. This was also our last chance for scoops of Perry’s ice cream and we didn’t pass up the opportunity. Once a glutton, always a glutton.
We did not pull up to an Amish household and ask to do our laundry here, though if I thought it possible, I’d love to spend a few days with an Amish family learning firsthand about their way of life.
A couple of hours later, we find ourselves continuing along the Allegheny River.
It’s getting late in the day, and sunset is soon to happen. Mom is hungry for some dinner, so we check into Mid-Town Motel in Tionesta, Pennsylvania, for under $65, including tax. Without paying, we are given a key and told to come back after we eat as the only open restaurant stops serving at 9:00 p.m. which is only about 15 minutes from now. The Forest Inn was on the other side of the Allegheny River, with lasagna as the special of the day. We both opted for it out of convenience. With drinks, dinner was a reasonable price of only $18.65 without tip.
Back on the other side of the river, we stop at the front office and pay our bill offering thanks for getting us to dinner with minutes to spare. The room is great, terrific even. We have a fridge, stove, two TVs, A/C, microwave, small dining room table, a desk, couch, and three ceiling fans, and we are across the street from the river. Tomorrow, we send ourselves in the direction of the Ohio River which we should pick up just south of Wheeling, West Virginia.