This month I am asking readers, what are the undiscovered gems in Buffalo and the surrounding area that I need to visit this year?
Buffalo’s Garden Walk is always fabulous…
In July, I will spend a couple of weeks in a cozy little cottage that’s a stone’s throw from Lake Erie. It’s not far from Point Breeze, where my family rented a similar cottage while I was growing up, and oh, it brings back memories!
While I’m staying there, I like to invite friends and relatives to visit and enjoy the beach, they in turn invite me to visit them in Buffalo, and I never fail to take a drive through the old West Side. This year I have several big reunions to attend on the weekends, so it will be a happy, but very busy time.
But the Open Gardens just outside of Buffalo are equally beautiful. Photos by Moxie Gardiner.
I was delighted to learn about the one and only Kazoo Factory and Museum in Eden, NY, from a reader.
During the week though, when everyone goes back to work, things get quieter and I try to carve out time to explore the Western New York area and all it has to offer. I have my favorites of course—the Buffalo Garden Walk, the Italian Festival, and the Explore Buffalo tours that are always on offer.
But I’m on the lookout for new things and places to write about, and for old things that somehow I’ve missed before. My readers have always been so helpful when it comes to suggestions, so this month I am asking, what are the undiscovered gems in Buffalo and the surrounding area that I need to visit this year?
I’ve been going to Delaware Park since I was a child, but every time I go I find something new….
You’ll see from the photos that I love Buffalo’s parks and gardens, lively waterfront, unusual museums, historical places, and local festivals, among other things. While writing a recent blog about fossil hunting, I learned for the first time about the Penn Dixie Fossil Park and Nature Preserve in Blasdell, so that will be a priority. One of my blog readers suggested the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum in North Tonawanda so I’ll check that out too.
There is lots to see and do at Buffalo’s Italian Heritage Festival, but I go for the food!
Also for the first time, I’ll have a fish fry at the Swannie House restaurant (the oldest in Buffalo) and tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s historic Darwin Martin House. But that still leaves time for plenty of other excursions!
Does Scajaquada Creek have its secrets, aside from the beautiful lily pond shown in the featured photo? Well, I only recently learned that British writer Shadrack Byfield was wounded there during the War of 1812, and ended up having his arm amputated. I’m sure there is more to learn (especially from the Buffalo History Museum which sits on its banks).
Kayaking is my favorite way to see Buffalo’s waterfront. Photo by Dean Gallagher.
I should mention that when my book, Virgin Snow, is published, (with any luck this summer, fingers crossed), I will be back again, probably more than once, to meet with book clubs and readers who like discussing what they read. Hopefully, those trips should afford me additional opportunities to visit places I’m not able to see in July.
Do you have a favorite, little known place in Buffalo, one that others might like to know about? Send me your ideas and suggestions in the comments below. I love to hear them, and you just might see your recommendation mentioned in a future blog!
And yes, I take time to enjoy the beach, and never, ever miss a Lake Erie sunrise, or sunset, if I can help it.
Moxie Gardiner is a writer, gardener, and traveler who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.
It’s hard to underestimate the impact of the long Buffalo winters on young romance.
As you know, faithful readers, I love to reminisce about the summer days of my Buffalo childhood, filled with daily trips to the neighborhood swimming pool, games of kickball in the street, and popsicles on the front steps when the sun dipped low over the Niagara River. But this month I’ve decided to write about summer memories of a different time of life, unique to Buffalo only in their intensity.
I’m speaking here of summer love.
Come summertime, even the neighbors begin to look interesting…
Yes, these steamy affairs happen everywhere, but it is difficult to underestimate the impact of the long Buffalo winters on romance. Gazing upon a potential love interest dressed in a sweater, jeans, parka, gloves and the obligatory Buffalo Bills knit beanie, does not exactly send the heart aflutter. Come summertime though (defined by some Buffalonians as temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit) the clothes come off and the city comes alive.
“Gimme some skin” took on a whole new meaningin summer.
After about eight months of cold and gray, summer seems to happen almost overnight. All activity moves outside and suddenly there are people everywhere. Seeing all that flesh after so many months of bundled up darkness makes the heart race, the palms sweat, the hormones jump, and, well, you know the rest.
When I was a young teenager, our social scene was at the Massachusetts Swimming Pool. We would bring our transistor radios, lay our towels by the pool, get the juices flowing listening to songs like “Wild Thing” by the Troggs and “Hello I Love You” by the Doors, and dream of being dunked by the hunky guys who actually had chest hair at age 15 (in our ethnic neighborhood, we were blessed with more than our fair share of these fine specimens). I swear that summertime smell of suntan lotion, chlorine, and warm concrete had an aphrodisiac effect on our young libidos. (If I could figure out a way to bottle that smell, wouldn’t I make a fortune?) Add to that the shirtless guys playing basketball next to the pool and there is little wonder summer “attractions” happened quickly, and frequently.
Sometimes the flirting could get outrageous.
Once in college, the mating scene moved to beach parties by the lake, picnics in Delaware Park, outdoor concerts, and when we reached legal drinking age, to any one of Buffalo’s many bars. If you had no luck by 4 am when the bars closed, you could always try again at a late-night food stop like the Mighty Taco (although the morning after might be even more embarrassing after a few bean burritos).
Yes, the summers are “hot” in Buffalo, but as songs, movies, and TV shows affirm, summer flings (the kind that “don’t mean a thing,” as they sing in “Grease”) are a phenomenon everywhere. So I wondered if there was something more than cold winters that prompt this, i.e., a scientific reason why people are so attracted to each other during the summer months.
Didn’t the guy with the guitar always get the girls?
It appears there is. Scientists say that when skin is exposed to more sunlight, our bodies produce dopamine, serotonin, and MSH (sometimes called the “happy hormones”). Warm weather apparently tells our mammalian bodies that our period of hibernation is over, to move outdoors, and as the blood quickens, to start searching for ways to sate our appetites. The visual stimulation of summer, of course, cannot be overlooked. Meeting someone on a beach in a bikini, or jogging shirtless and sweaty in the park, is more likely to lead to amorous arousal than working on a term paper in the cold Buff State library.
Yes, you can find your forever love while riding mopeds together to the beach.
Do summer romances ever last? Well, that depends. If you find that you are attracted to more than your love interest’s bronzed body, that you enjoy talking to each other as much as, um, other things, then yes, they can last. But until you see your summer sweetheart looking up at you lovingly, in that parka and Buffalo Bills cap while shoveling snow, I wouldn’t make any commitments.
Have you ever had a summer love? Did it last? I would love to hear from you in the comment section, below.
Moxie Gardiner is a writer, gardener, and traveler who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.
I spent many childhood days in Buffalo’s city parks. Little did I know then they were designed by America’s first and greatest landscape architect.
We loved to climb up and visit President Lincoln back then.
In the mid-Atlantic region where I now live, August, not April, is “the cruelest month.” With routine temperatures in the ‘90s, oppressive humidity, and near-nightly thunderstorms that make the days wetter but not cooler, August is the time when everyone either stays inside or leaves town. It’s as if the earth is scolding us for our sins with its hot, fetid breath.
In the Buffalo of my youth, August, on the contrary, was my favorite month. It was that golden slice of time before school started; the last days at the neighborhood swimming pool and evenings sitting on the porch, listening for the familiar melody of the ice cream truck, calling us kids into the streets like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Although we spent most August days within walking distance of our house, on weekends our parents would often load us into the car to visit one of Buffalo’s city parks, where we would scramble out to explore the Buffalo Zoo, climb on the statues in Delaware Park, or roll down the hills in Front Park. The parks gave us room to run, yell, and be as wild as children want to be in the waning days of summer.
Olmsted believed city dwellers need green spaces like this in South Park, for physical and mental wellbeing.
I was thrilled to see that the old stone statues still guard the gates of the Buffalo Zoo in Delaware Park.
I loved the parks, but little did I know at the time that they were carefully designed by America’s first and greatest landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, a man most famously known for designing Central Park in New York City, and the grounds around the US Capitol in Washington, DC. However, his work in Buffalo – the first park and parkway system designed and built in the US – is considered by many to be his best.
Oliver Hazard Perry maintains his vigil over the waters of Niagara from his perch in Front Park.
Buffalo’s Olmsted Park System, created over 150 years ago, includes six major parks, multiple parkways, circles, and small spaces. Each park was to have a unique identity that defined its role in the overall system. Delaware Park, with its large lake and majestic trees, was envisioned as a peaceful natural environment. Front Park, with its majestic view of the Niagara River and Lake Erie, highlighted the water and its military and historical connections. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park (formerly Humboldt Park) was originally intended for public ceremonies, while South Park’s conservatory and botanical gardens emphasized the area’s native plants. Cazenovia’s lake-and-island system was to be surrounded by trees and grasslands, and Riverside’s formal gardens were originally situated along a series of shallow ponds known as the Minnow Pools.
One of my favorite spots in Cazenovia Park.
The wading pool in Martin Luther King, Jr. park is reportedly one of the largest in the country
The minnow pools at Riverside Park are now rock gardens surrounded by flowers.
By the time the 1970s rolled around, decades of neglect, lack of investment in urban centers, and insufficient city budgets left these beautiful parks in sad shape. Fortunately, a group of citizens organized the Friends of Olmsted Parks in 1978 to advocate for them, and in the decades since, the parks have slowly begun to recover.
Olmsted once said, “A park is a work of art, designed to produce certain effects upon the minds of men.” Never have his words been more prescient than during our current pandemic. According to the National Recreation and Parks Association, time spent in parks and green spaces can help individuals fight against mental health issues like depression, anxiety and stress, and enjoy the benefits associated with decreased health complaints, improved blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and a greater ability to face problems.
Young and old enjoy a round of golf at South Park.
Aware of this recent research, I decided to visit all six Olmsted parks this summer to see how they were faring, and observe whether Buffalo urbanites were out seeking the benefits of these natural environments during stressful times. I am pleased to report that all six parks were full of people, even though I visited most of them in the middle of a workday. There were ball games underway, kids running through wading pools, people of all ages walking dogs, sitting on benches, and paddling boats on Hoyt Lake. I have recently read that more than a million people are visiting Buffalo’s parks every year.
Plenty of baseball games at Cazenovia Park.
The cannons at Front Park reflect Buffalo’s role in military history.
Yes, there is more work to be done but the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, charged with the management and operation of these parks since 2004, has developed a “Plan for the 21st Century” to restore the parks to Olmsted’s original vision and complete the system originally conceived as a “city within a park.” The Conservancy says its goal is to restore the parks and parkways “in ways that respect their status as important neighborhood, regional, national, and international resources.”[1]
The Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy is working hard to improve the condition of the parks.
Call me a wimp, but I spent more of the sweltering “dog days” of August inside my mid-Atlantic, air-conditioned house, than outside. I’m happy to know that in Buffalo, many people are following Olmsted’s advice, and doing otherwise.
Do you have a favorite Olmsted park? How are the parks in your neighborhood doing? I would love to hear your stories—past, present and future.
Moxie Gardiner is a writer and gardener who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.
As an inner city child, one of the things I looked forward to every summer was a trip to the countryside to pick berries.
As an inner city child, one of the things I looked forward to every summer was a trip to the countryside to pick berries. It was a simple, tactile pleasure enjoyed by my parents and their parents before them, each generation hunting and gathering in much the same way.
Every June, we would make our annual trek to a strawberry patch in Brant, NY, not far from our cottage in Angola. We would spend hours going up and down the rows with our flimsy little wooden crates, looking for the biggest, juiciest strawberries. The aroma was heavenly—you could smell the warm strawberries as soon as you got out of the car—and no one seemed to mind if you popped one or two (or a dozen) in your mouth as you worked along the rows.
The sun warmed your back and turned it as red as the strawberries, particularly if you went picking in your bathing suit after a day at the beach. But on the farms not far from Lake Erie, there always seemed to be a nice, cool breeze to keep you going. That and visions of delights yet to come: strawberry shortcake, strawberry milkshakes, strawberries on ice cream, strawberries on cereal, and later, as we grew older, strawberry daiquiris! For the adults, “strawberry back” had a different meaning, after a few hours bending over the low-growing plants.
“You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet/ Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it/ Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for/ Picking.” (All quotes are from Seamus Heaney’s poem “Blackberry-Picking”)
As summer wore on, the strawberry-gathering ritual was replaced by blackberry picking, a far more perilous adventure that took us to the wild places. While strawberries are a cultivated crop, blackberries and black raspberries, at least those of my youth, grew on steep hillsides and along country roads.
“Then red ones inked up and that hunger/ Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots“
Black raspberries are small and easier to pick, but the larger, plumper, tastier blackberries are protected by nasty thorns. You have to really love blackberries to go after those babies.
Our fingers got scratched and pricked and sometimes we ended up with poison ivy, but when we found a good patch full of ripe berries, we gathered and ate until our stomachs ached. Once found, their location became a jealously guarded secret, much like the wild gardoon patches in the heart of the city.
“Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full,“
“Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.”
One of my favorite Irish poets, Seamus Heaney, wrote about blackberry picking as a metaphor for childhood enthusiasms and disappointments. Like every Holy Grail of youth, the poem speaks to how once tasted, one will go to any lengths to obtain the succulent wild berries, and how, like so many fruits of summer and childhood, are far too quickly gone.
“I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.“
As I began to write this blog, I wondered, how many children, especially those living in cities today, are able to experience the fleeting joy of berry picking? I see from a quick online search that trips to pick-your-own strawberry farms are recommended as a healthy, outdoor activity for families with small children during this pandemic. However, I found no such encouragement for blackberry picking. Too much trouble, I suppose, in these days of triple-washed, packaged fruit, and in fairness, with encroaching development, wild blackberry patches are fewer and harder to find. But you can only truly know the deliciousness of a blackberry, I firmly believe, if you have, at least once, gone to the trouble of picking your own.
As an adult, I still enjoy harvesting berries, and unlike poor youthful Seamus, I’ve learned to eat only what I am able, and quickly freeze or preserve the rest as sauces, jams and jellies.
This preservation strikes me as a metaphor for life as well. Capture what you can of the “essence” of summer—and of youth—without trying to cling to something that cannot stay.
Do you have fond memories of berry-picking? Write to me and tell me your stories! I look forward to hearing from you.
Moxie Gardiner is a writer and gardener who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.
No one had air-conditioning, the windows were wide open, and there were no family secrets in the summertime.
Everyone has heard tales of the fearsome Buffalo winters, but few, other than those who live there, know the splendor of its summer days. And as glorious as the days might be, they are nothing compared to the magic of the city’s summer nights.
We cooled off in the backyard until the neighborhood pools were open.
When I was growing up on Buffalo’s West Side, summer did not begin on Memorial Day. For us it began the day after school ended, usually around the third week in June when the weather turned from cool to mild. We would take our report cards to the Super Duper supermarket to get free tickets for rides at Crystal Beach, pull out our bikes and hose them down, and fill the kiddie pool in the backyard for good measure. Until we turned 10 we weren’t allowed to leave our block, so we made the best of what we had.
On the hottest nights, we’d go down to the Niagara River with Dad to catch a cool breeze.
We counted down the days until the neighborhood pool would open (usually as soon as the water warmed enough to avoid hypothermia) and satisfied ourselves with street games like Kick the Can and Red Rover. If we could scrounge up the money, we’d treat ourselves to trips to Ganci’s Groceries for a bag of Bugles and a baloney sandwich, to Pepe’s for a lemon ice, or wait until we heard the melody of Charlie’s Super Cones truck to buy a single twist of chocolate that tasted like velvet on the tongue.
Our moms made sure we were all home for the summer evening ritual.
At dusk, we would hear the mothers calling from their porches: “Jooo-eeee!” Carmel-lllooo!” in their peculiar singsong cadence. Children would run, breathless, up to their houses and leap onto their front porches before the streetlights came on, or suffer the consequences. All up and down the block families gathered on their porches, and the evening ritual celebrating the arrival of summer would begin.
My bisnonno loved to catch up with the other Sicilian men.
It often started with the quick flare of a match and the winking red glow of a cigarette, as the parents sat back in their folding chairs. Cars would slow as they threaded their way down our one-way street to avoid hitting the dogs wandering out to do their business after dinner. On the porches, we would hear the older Sicilians punctuating their sentences in Italian, and the occasional clink as a bottle of homemade wine was poured into glasses.
We would sit on the steps, eating our popsicles, and learn about the world through front porch osmosis.
Our family of 10 didn’t have enough chairs on the porch for everyone, so we kids usually sat on the front steps, eating popsicles Mom always kept in the freezer. Neighbors would drop by to visit and share neighborhood gossip and we sat, rapt, and soaked it all in. Everything was debated on those front porches—religion, politics, long hair styles, the Vietnam War. We learned about the place that we lived and the people we lived with, through front porch osmosis. No one had air-conditioning, the windows were wide open, and there were no family secrets in the summertime.
As we got older, we would sit on our friends’ front porches and huddle off to the side, listening to music on our transistor radios while sand flies from the river pinged against the window screens. We could smell what our friends had for dinner and hear the murmur of their favorite television show. We got to know which families treated each other well and which didn’t. We learned which houses to avoid after the sun went down.
All of my life, I have insisted that wherever I live, I must have a front porch. I still like to sit there on summer nights, listening to the birds and cicadas in the gloaming. But the sounds and smells of the country at night are different from those of the city. Now as I sit on my porch, I am more likely to hear the cry of an owl than a baby crying, and to smell the pungent smoke of a campfire than a puff from a Lucky Strike.
Our recent pandemic has made me appreciate the simple things in life, like sitting on a porch, surrounded by family and friends, trading stories and drinking ice tea. How I look forward to doing this again, if our luck holds out, this coming summer in Buffalo.
“It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer….Every dawn seemed to promise fresh miracles, among other joys that are in short supply these days.” ―Anna Godbersen, Bright Young Things
Do you have fond memories of summer nights on the front porch? I would love to hear some of your childhood memories, particularly of your favorite place to listen and learn from grownup conversation. Leave me a comment please, and subscribe if you like my blog!
Moxie Gardiner is a writer and gardener who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.
