Monday, May 7th
There, now the Sondheim is out of my system. I’ve literally been singing that one little snippet of Assassins all week.
I’ve had a really good time here in the Queen City. Who knew Buffalo was such a cool town? Not only were the wings delicious, but the theatre is nice, the crew is great, there’s lots of architecture to see and there’s been plenty of other tasty food!
Tuesday was as smooth an opening night as we’ve had since I’ve been on the tour. The Shea’s Buffalo PAC is another converted movie palace. The house reminds me a lot of The Fox in Atlanta. That same sort of over-the-top interior decoration. When the theatre opened in 1926, it had a capacity of nearly 4,000 (more than an acre of seats). Now, the theatre seats just under 3.000. Like the Fox, the Shea’s Buffalo was foreclosed on by the city for back taxes in the mid-70’s and was rescued from the wrecking ball by citizens and re-born as a legitimate theatre. Unlike the Fox, this theatre has a newly remodeled stage house. There’s lots of room and the dressing rooms and offices are also new and clean. (Both a welcome change after Rochester and Hartford.) The crew has been great all week.
Wednesday I went out to explore Buffalo. At the visitor’s center, I picked up a Walk Buffalo guidebook. It took me on a roughly two hour walking tour of downtown that focused mainly on the wide array of architecture on display. Buffalo became a boomtown with the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825. The Great Lakes mouth of the canal was here, bringing all manner of goods from the Midwest to town before they could be shipped off to New York on the canal. This is also how Buffalo came to be a major producer of steel: the iron ore from Michigan came to town via the great lakes and the coal from Pennsylvania came north on the canals and railroads, meeting in Buffalo to be turned into steel. There was lots of manufacturing (the windshield wiper was invented here) as well as banking and finance (M&T Bank as well as HSB&C Bank are still headquartered here). At the turn of the century, Buffalo was one of the wealthiest cities in America. In 1901 Buffalo hosted the Pan American Exposition. Using the abundant electricity produced at Niagara Falls, Buffalo lit their streets and the whole exhibition with electric lights (hence, the Tower of Light). Of course, Leon Czolgosz shot and killed President William McKinley at the exhibition. (Even though the X-ray machine was being demonstrated at the exhibition, it was not used to find the bullet lodged in McKinley. The operating room on the exhibition grounds did not have electricity, reflected sunlight was used.) After McKinley’s death, Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in in Buffalo.
Downtown, there are examples of the latest modern building styles from the late 1800’s all the way to the urban renewal projects of the 1970’s. The Guaranty Building designed by Louis Sullivan was one of my favorites. Built in 1895, the building is one of the earliest skyscrapers. At 13 stories, it was a modern marvel when it opened. The outside of the building is clad in terra cotta tiles and ornamentation inspired by the forms of nature. Even today, it’s spectacular and none of the pictures I've found do it justice.
Buffalo’s City Hall is also an amazing building. Designed to be the height of Art Deco fashion, City Hall is crowned with tiles representing both Indian beadwork and the rising sun. The City Council Chamber is built to look like the Roman Senate. It’s a semicircle with the members seated in the lower rows and the galleries surrounding them. The ceiling is a stained glass sunburst.
The sunburst window above the Council Chamber.
Along my walking tour I was able to stop in and see Charlie the Butcher – well, not the actual Charlie, but one of his henchwomen – and try a buffalo gastronomic classic: Beef on Weck. The crucial part of this dish is the roll: kummelweck (shortened to weck). It’s a hard roll topped with pretzel salt and caraway seeds. Beef on weck is sliced roast beef on a weck. Before serving the top half of the roll is dipped in the au jus and the sandwich is served with horseradish and a pickle. It’s heaven. The salty roll brings out the flavor of the beef and the horseradish is perfect. Delicious.
Beef on Weck
Wednesday night we had a going away party for Pia (The Lady of the Lake). She wrapped up her engagement with Sunday night’s show. The Company hosted us all at Bijou. A good time was had by all, though I think we overwhelmed the staff at the restaurant. When the Company is picking up the bill, the Spamily can pack away the appetizers and no drink is left empty for long…
Thursday, I got to see two more Buffalo landmarks, one cultural and one culinary. I started my day with a tour of the Darwin D. Martin House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright designed the whole complex (main house, gardener’s cottage, conservatory, stables, pergola and a home for Mr. Martin’s sister). Finished in 1907, the house and its outbuildings were among the last of Wright’s so-called Prairie Homes. The house features the “tree of life” stained glass design that is reproduced so often. When I visited, the house was undergoing extensive renovations (it had been subdivided into apartments, served as the home to the President of SUNY Buffalo and some of the out-buildings had been demolished before being bought by a group of conservators). Though it meant that we couldn’t see the whole house, the renovations were interesting because they revealed not only what people had done to the house, but also the then revolutionary construction techniques Wright employed (steel beams and central pillars to support the house as opposed to wood framing). To compare the overwhelming horizontal lines of the house to the surrounding Victorian homes of the same era was striking. Wright even eliminated the downspouts from the design of the house (they would add a vertical element), letting the water fall free from the gutters into traps built into the foundation. The house was beautiful, if not very practical (people much over 6’ might bang their heads).
The Darwin D. Martin House
On the way home I stopped off at the Anchor Bar; home of the original Buffalo Chicken Wing. I ran into some of the Spamily there (Michael, Adam, Piper & Amy) and was able to sample all the different varieties of sauce on offer. The wings were very tasty, much crispier than most chicken wings. The hot sauce was, indeed, hot. While I imagined that the suicide sauce would be uneatably hot, it was do-able. Mostly very peppery; Piper, Amy and I were able to eat a whole plate. We took a great picture that I can’t wait to be developed of all of us with our wings. Adam is just trying a suicide wing and there are actual tears on his cheeks. We all got “I survived suicide at the Anchor Bar” bumper stickers for our trunk (the word suicide is written in flames!).
The Anchor Bar
After our late lunch, Piper organized a trip to the Parkside Candy Shoppe. The Parkside not only makes their own candies, they serve them in an old fashioned soda fountain straight from the 1920’s. The round room is painted pink and light green with glass candy cases on one side and the soda fountain and ice cream shop on the other. The highlight was the sponge candy. Outside was chocolate coating. Inside was crispy spun molasses. The whole thing was like chocolate-covered candy air.
Parkside Candy
Friday, Peter Lawrence came to town to check up on our little skit. Peter set the show on the touring company and is the one most directly responsible (after Ken, the PSM) for the show. He’s also the one who got the ball rolling on getting me job with Spamalot. It was great to see him and he seemed to like what he saw on Friday and Saturday. I got to socialize with him a bit over the meal breaks on Friday and Saturday. Friday night we went out the stage door and across the street to Hemmingway’s where the stage hands told me the wings were even better than the Anchor Bar’s. They were very tasty, but I suspect my palate for wings isn’t a finely tuned as a life-long Buffalonian…
The rest of the week passed as it does in most cities. Two shows on Saturday and two more on Sunday with the load-out eat up most of the time. The city of Buffalo, however, was gripped by Stanley Cup Fever. The Buffalo Sabres overcame the NY Rangers in both games of the weekend to advance to the Eastern Conference Title Game. It was quite literally the talk of the town. Where as we usually have two “peasant names” in each city as an inside joke for the locals (Harriet Beecher Stowe and Joe Lieberman in Hartford; Ben Franklin and Rocky Balboa in Philly), in Buffalo we only had to mention the Sabres to bring down the house every night. On Sunday, the whole town was so glued to their TV sets that the carpenters even missed some cues watching the hockey game.
I sent a couple of rolls of film off to Snapfish, I'll post them as soon as they come on-line...
I really enjoyed my time in Buffalo and found it a very pleasant surprise.
Bright and early this morning we were on planes to Indianapolis. We’ll try again for a minor league baseball game this week and maybe even make it to the track for some Indy Car practice. Mom, Dad, Sheila Marie, Donn and Rhoda are all coming to town for the weekend to celebrate Mother’s Day and say hello – I’m awfully excited!
JV
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