The Buffalodown, Vol. 2, Issue 40
Stories & Events for Social Connection
By Seamus Gallivan
- Humboldt Parkway public meeting tonight
- Musings on Music: Allman Betts returning to Kleinhans
- Featured Events: 34 this week, always encouraging submissions!
- Links to the Deep End: ICE in Buffalo, centenarians, Grace Lougen & more
Thank you for your attention!
Please forward this to kindred souls, and subscribe here if you haven’t yet!
Welcome to another big bunch of new subscribers this week! Shout out to Jim Heaney of Investigative Post for leading his own weekly newsletter by recommending Reconnecter along with five more independent news sources often linked here, proclaiming, “There’s more to local media than what the chains offer.” Reconnecter is all about connecting people, places, and causes, and this weekly Buffalodown is open to your input.
In light of the public meeting tonight on the future of Humboldt Parkway,repeating this lead story from last week, about the original inspiration behind Reconnecter – the fight for parkway revival in the heart and lungs of Buffalo, which I entered more than a decade ago by joining both the Restore Our Community Coalition and Scajaquada Corridor Coalition.
Representatives from the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) have recently responded to the community and court dismissal of their band-aid proposal for Humboldt with a rebranded attempt at community engagement called Queen City Forward. We’ll meet again for a “listening session” open to all tonight, December 2nd, from 5-7pm in the Schiller Park Senior Center at 2057 Genesee Street – 2.5 miles from the area in focus, for reasons so far unknown.
Shout out to the grassroots East Side Parkways Coalition (ESPC) for their advocacy to lead us to this point – and for being the only entity to make a flyer for the meeting tonight that includes basic details. And thanks to ESPC for having me on their weekly WUFO radio show over the weekend; tune into future episodes Saturdays from 11:30am-12pm on 96.5FM, 1080AM, or www.power965radio.com.
Looking further ahead, the next event presented by Investigative Post will be Geoff Kelly and Jim Heaney interviewing Mayor-elect Sean Ryan on Friday, December 12th, at 7pm in the Burchfield Penney Art Center, 1300 Elmwood Ave. It’s part of the Burchfield Penney’s Second Fridays free event including an exhibition opening, live music and all-ages art-making – more details to come, please stay tuned!
Become a paying member to support social connection!
Musings on Music
Allman Betts returning to Kleinhans on Wednesday
On the eve of the return of the Allman Betts Family Revival to the sublime Kleinhans Music Hall, recalling a few of the high highs and low lows in the history of the Allman Brothers Band in Buffalo.
The lowest of the low was in 1970, when the Allmans’ tour manager killed Buffalo club owner Vincent Aliotta in a dispute after the band’s performance at Aliotta’s Lounge on Hertel Avenue, for which the assailant was declared temporarily insane due to touring life in a landmark legal case.
The band played on, of course, until a hiatus beginning in 1976, during which Gregg Allman came to Buffalo for rehab, and in a wild story performed at Canisius High School with then-wife Cher and children in tow – the ace storyteller Sean Kirst told that tale in The Buffalo News (BN) in 2017.
Over the decades, the band has been a regular visitor here, from The Aud to Darien Lake, where I first saw them in the late-90’s and reviewed their show for BN in 2012.
While the band’s time ended with Gregg’s passing in 2017, his son Devon along with Duane Betts – son of founding Allmans guitarist Dickey Betts and named after fellow founding guitarist Duane Allman – have turned what was originally a memorial birthday tribute to Gregg into an annual tribute tour with a stellar cast of guests in a format inspired by The Band’s Last Waltz, and fortunately for us they keep coming here to revisit the Allmans’ incredible catalog.
Backed by Devon and Duane’s Allman Betts Band, guests for the Kleinhans show will be Robert Randolph, Amanda Shires, Judith Hill, Jimmy Hall, Cody Dickinson, Luther Dickinson, Alex Orbison and Mattie Schell.
Tickets are still available here at the Kleinhan’s website.
An audience video from last year’s show at Kleinhans:
Become a paying member to help us present and promote more music!
Events in the Week Ahead
Thanks to all who’ve submitted their events! Welcoming submissions with a flyer and link to seamus@reconnecter.org
Visit and subscribe to The Buffalo Hive for another community events calendar!
Become a paying member to help us promote community events!
Links to the Deep End
Deeper dives into subjects that matter for social connection
- Dale Shoemaker of Investigative Post stays on the beat of ICE in WNY, reporting last week that amidst the steep spike in arrests this year, “two-thirds have no criminal history.”
- A banner week for BTPM NPR’s What’s Next show, with a handful of long-form interviews from the history of indigenous communities around what became the Erie Canal, to East Side initiatives, Grassroots Gardens and Niagara Pride.
- NPR reports on our rising and thriving population of centenarians, for whom social connection is central – “If you look at the communities that have the greatest levels of social connection, you’ll see lower rates of chronic conditions and longer life expectancies.”
- Greg Hennessey’s music-centric In the Flamingo Lounge podcast spotlights Grace Lougen, one of my favorite humans and musicians. Flashback to last year’s Buffalodown: Living the Dream at Kleinhans, when Grace led the house band in my favorite song of hers, invoking MLK’s spirit of communal interconnectedness with “Outside Ourselves.”
Thank YOU for reading this far and being part of it all – extra thanks to everyone supporting this work with a membership at www.reconnecter.org!
Please share with friends to sign up for next week’s Buffalodown, and reach out with any feedback, all ideas welcome!
Related Posts
