[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 14, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E197-E198]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             ON BUFFALO, NEW YORK: THE ``CITY WITH HEART''

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JOHN J. LaFALCE

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 14, 2001

  Mr. LaFALCE. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with my colleagues an 
article that appeared yesterday in the national newspaper, USA TODAY. 
After conducting a nationwide search for a ``City with Heart'', they 
chose my hometown of Buffalo, New York. In this great, historic city 
you will find four enjoyable seasons, world-class educational 
institutions, expansive parklands, and the finest in art and 
architecture. For sheer quality of life, dollar-for-dollar my money is 
on Buffalo.
  It is with a great deal of pride that I commend to you this article 
entitled ``Lots and Lots of Heart in Buffalo.''

                    [From USA Today, Feb. 13, 2001]

                          The City With Heart

                        (By Cathy Lynn Grossman)

       Buffalo--We're snowed by Buffalo.
       USA Today launched a nationwide search for a ``City with 
     Heart''--one with the energy, excitement and community 
     fellowship that make a one-stoplight town or a swarming 
     metropolis a treasured hometown.
       Readers responded to our call with notes, poems and a bit 
     of professional public-relations puffery, singing the praises 
     of more than 120 communities from Tacoma, Wash., to Miami, 
     Fla., to Barnes, a cozy English town outside London.
       Some listed their towns' tourist-brochure features. But 
     most messages zeroed in on the great, unmappable qualities 
     like generosity of spirit--the social capital that makes 
     people rich in human connection, says political scientist 
     Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and 
     Revival of American Community (Simon & Schuster, $26).
       Many Americans remember with longing those places and times 
     where we felt those bonds, expressed in ``neighborhood 
     parties and get-togethers with friends, the unreflective 
     kindness of strangers, the shared pursuit of the public 
     good.''
       The people of Buffalo still know these well. And they 
     stuffed the valentine ballot box with the most notes to tell 
     the world the sunny truth about their oft-maligned, blizzard-
     thumped city.
       They managed to be simultaneously proud and humble about 
     their world-class art, architecture and grand urban parks; a 
     great history including two U.S. presidents; and generations 
     of immigrants and their descendants who turn every weekend 
     from May to October into a street festival.
       ``Don't let the snow fool you,'' wrote Marge McMillen, 
     listing, as many did, the city's renowned museums and music 
     hall, schools and sports teams. ``Buffalo is a warm-hearted 
     lady.''
       So we winged into town for a day to see.
       Eleven Buffalo buffs--eight of them born here--joined us 
     for platters of chicken wings at the Anchor Bar, world famous 
     for the spicy tidbits that legend says were invented here. 
     Friendlier people would be hard to find.
       ``That's why we all come back here,'' says Dennis Warzel, 
     one of five in the lunch group who tried living elsewhere and 
     felt Buffalo call him home. He's now rooted here as securely 
     as the lavish Buffalo Botanical Gardens, where he spends 
     hours volunteering.
       ``That's why my parents, who retired to Florida, returned 
     to be with their old friends,'' says Bonnie MacGregor, bass 
     drummer in the Celtic Spirit Pipe Band. If Buffalo were a 
     band, its tunes would be drawn from Irish, Scottish, Polish, 
     Italian, German, Slavic, Jewish, Native American and a dozen 
     other cultures.
       ``This lovable rust-belt city is full of blue-collar guys 
     of every ethnic background who get together on Sunday to 
     watch the Bills and remove their shirts in 35-degree weather. 
     (We) support everything from tractor pulls to the 
     philharmonic--and hardly any drive-by shootings,'' quips Jim 
     Joslin.

[[Page E198]]

       Good neighbors keep this city's heart beating, all agree. 
     Asked for signs of neighborliness in action, Sandra Cochran 
     leapt to mention Friends of Night People. Lodged in a pink 
     and white house on the edge of downtown, it's a 24-hour soup 
     kitchen and shelter of last resort, established 32 years ago 
     when the homeless didn't have the media attention they get 
     today.
       ``Generosity here is above and beyond anyplace I've ever 
     worked,'' says director Darren Strickland, watching volunteer 
     Betty Dorio make bologna and cheese sandwiches. The shelter 
     serves 72,000 meals a year and provides eye, foot and health 
     care for 1,600 children, women and elderly annually.
       MacGregor noted the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. It was 
     the nation's first such center and one of the largest for 
     research and treatment. Yet it is permeated by positive 
     feelings, she says, ``Everyone smiles.''
       Indeed, that very gray Monday, there was upbeat 17-year-old 
     Dan Zak, a weekly volunteer from Canisius High School, 
     playing the grand piano in the hotel-handsome atrium lobby.
       ``You can be a workaholic here, but it's optional,'' says 
     Russell DeFazio, who hikes and plays tennis in Delaware Park. 
     ``It's still a laid-back place.''
       ``We work hard, but we make time to enjoy ourselves,'' 
     echoes Alan Kegler.
       With family. With friends. With strangers. ``I wake up on a 
     snowy day and my neighbor has already cleared my driveway,'' 
     says Linda Storz. ``You have to catch someone in the act just 
     to thank them.''
       Ah, snow. Talk turns to that inescapable word, and once 
     again the Buffalonians puff with pride.
       ``I love the coldest, snowiest days here because everyone 
     grows closer. People come out of their houses, smiling and 
     greeting one another on the street. It feels as safe as 
     Mayberry and as beautiful and sentimental as a holiday 
     greeting card,'' wrote Sara Saldi.
       ``It's not how much snow we get. It's how we handle it. Our 
     city never closes. We clean up and get going where others 
     can't,'' says Philip Wiggle.
       Of course, problem-solving is second nature here in the 
     birthplace of ``brainstorming,'' a creative thinking process 
     developed by a local advertising executive, Alex Osborn, that 
     soon spread worldwide. Buffalo nurtures the idea with an 
     annual creativity conference, that has drawn hundreds of 
     think-outside-the-box folks for 43 years.
       One problem minimized: The tell-your-grandchildren-about-
     it-someday blizzard that dumped 25 inches of snow in a day 
     last Nov. 20 and gave even indefatigable Buffalo pause.
       Most people would be calling the moving vans if they spent 
     seven hours of a snowstorm trapped in a subway station like 
     Monica Huxley. But Huxley, who hadn't lived in Buffalo yet a 
     year, wrote to USA TODAY that the helpful camaraderie among 
     strangers led her to love her new hometown.
       MacGregor was among 200 who huddled in the Christmas 
     wonderland of the tree-decorated Hyatt hotel lobby. She 
     recalls:
       ``About 11:30 p.m., ladies from the hotel's housekeeping 
     brought around lots of blankets and told us that we should 
     each find a Christmas tree to sleep near. They then kept the 
     tree lights on and turned the hall lights off. We slept like 
     little kids in a big `sleepover' underneath the trees.''
       Warzel was trapped on downtown streets for nearly 20 hours, 
     including a stretch where a ``lady went car to car passing 
     out Ho-Hos.'' Nancy Lynch was assured that her son, trapped 
     at school, was housed for the night by the welcoming parents 
     of the school neighborhood; Ellen Kern, caught for ``just 
     4\1/2\ hours on Maple Road in my car,'' marveled as strangers 
     offered coffee and brushed snow from the windshields.
       ``For a big city, it's very small,'' says Kern.
       Adds Nancy Lynch: ``When people do small nice things for 
     one another, they tend to want to reciprocate. When the cycle 
     is repeated over and over again over the years, you end up 
     with a City with Heart.''

     

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