Last weekend we took a road trip up to Buffalo for Lizzy’s college graduation. She earned a B.S. in business, with a minor in psychology, Cum Laude, from the University of Buffalo. Congratulations!!!
The whole trip felt like a very strange time warp, like I stepped out of a time machine 30 years in the future. Jeannie and I met at UB. We were teenagers. I graduated in 1990, and she in 1991. The night before our trip Jeannie pulled out a bunch of old photos from her graduation and time around that. Man, we were so young! But we still feel like those same people.
When I finished college I couldn’t wait to get out of town. After a couple years of working a day job at a slowly dying company and trying to make it as a musician by night, it was pretty clear that things were going nowhere, so I moved to New York City to enroll in grad school. Now Lizzy, who grew up downstate, has decided to stay in Buffalo and make a life for herself up there. She has a good job awaiting her, and some close friends, and just likes the city. The cost of living is so much cheaper, and we’ve heard Buffalo is up and coming once again. We all feel fortunate about how the whole situation turned out.
We drove up on Thursday evening so we could help Lizzy move on Friday. She and two of her current roommates got a new apartment in the downtown area, just off the Elmwood strip between Allentown and Delaware park. It’s been a long time since I spent any time in that neighborhood. My various bands played gigs in some bars around there, but there wasn’t much reason to go down there otherwise. Although once beautiful back when the city was in its prime, it had been in decline for a while and was mostly pretty shabby in the post-Reagan era (although there were always pockets that remained nice, they were like islands). The city’s economic base of heavy manufacturing, cars and steel, had collapsed, and there was a massive population exodus in the 80’s and 90’s.
But they were right, Buffalo is back! After we moved Lizzy’s heavy furniture we walked around the neighborhood to find a place for lunch. A generation has gone by, and everything that was once run down is now super nice, restored, rebuilt, repurposed, and reimagined. Lots of apartments, restaurants and shops, bars and coffeehouses, and vibe is very much young positive energy. Lots of pedestrians out and about. Trendy shops for things like fancy pet supplies, gourmet coffee and yoga studios. Really nice looking houses down all the side streets. It reminded me alot of Greenwich Village and SoHo in the early 1990’s, San Francisco in the dotcom era, or Brooklyn in the aughts, when I lived in those places. We ended up at a great little Mexican restaurant with a great selection of margaritas.
We stopped at the Darwin Martin house, a local landmark designed by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright. When I was in college as an architecture student, I helps work on its restoration. I friend of mine who was a grad student actually lived on the grounds in the caretaker’s house. One of the buildings had a carpentry shop set up in what was once the living room. I remember measuring and cutting up pieces of wood to create trim to match the existing molding. For my graduation the school of architecture had a brunch on the grounds before the ceremony. Anyway, the place was a mess back then, in serious decay, but now it’s been fully restored, looking glorious, and even has a new visitor center.
Then we were back on the UB campus for the graduation ceremony, which has changed alot in 30 years. For one thing, there’s a new outdoor sports arena, which provided a safe venue for the event. After we went out to Baird Point so Lizzy and her friends could take pictures. That was a favorite spot to go smoke pot back in the day.
Afterwards we found ourselves back in Allentown for lunch, then hanging out at Lizzy’s new pad, and yet again in Allentown going out to dinner with friends. Michelle stayed to hang out with Lizzy and go to her graduation party and had a great time. She’s starting college at UB in just a few months, so it’s good for her to get to know Lizzy friends. She’s already making plans to come over to Lizzy’s apartment and use her kitchen to bake in.
On the ride home we listened to the 90’s grunge/alternative station for an extra dose of nostalgia.