Buffalo's Pain

Today's New York Times shines the national spot light on our "shrinking city" rather clearly...

BUFFALO, March 13 — For a city that has lost so much unwillingly over the last several decades — industries, prestige, jobs and more than half its population — perhaps it was inevitable that a decision to allow anything of great value to leave here willingly would be met with howls of protest.

In this case the wealth is cultural, a collection of antiquities and medieval and Renaissance art that has been given to, or bought by, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery here since its founding in 1862 and that, beginning next week [read the rest...]

If the City's most loved and respected cultural institution is selling off a portion of its collection to stay afloat...yikes, isn't that just another sign - added to the growing list - that our City is "shrinking." Even if the AKAG had handled the pr side of things a bit better, it's still a wake up call folks. We're not growing...Buffalo be shrinking.

Last week, I attended the public hearing in Common Council chambers chaired by Council President David Franczyk. Never seen so many people in Council Chambers and this time discussing "deaccession"...

Wonder if David Franzcyk should be encouraged to hold a public hearing about the condition of Transfiguration Church - right around the corner from his house on Fillmore Avenue. It's a place where the art - albeit religious art like this Joseph Mazur mural - is literally falling off the wall. Then again, no one would show up...

- C'est la vie...

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