We continue the series on walking Buffalo, from the intrepid couple who walked every day—no matter the weather—in the first 30 months of Covid. They think (without being systematic) they walked every street in Buffalo, and many in other cities and towns, taking some 20,000 photos, some of which are shared in this series. While not itineraries, we hope to encourage others to “walk the walk,” to see, observe and appreciate Buffalo—and beyond. William Graebner and Dianne Bennett are also 5 Cent Cine’s film critics, here.
Today’s Photo-Essay: Murals: Off-the-Beaten Path
It’s no secret that the Buffalo region has murals; there’s at least on-line data base that aggregates many of the most “significant” murals and provides information about location and artist. Your “how-to-take-a-walk” walkers have no desire to replay that tune. No classics (Twain on Hertel), no “institutional” endeavors (murals sponsored by the AKG, Hertel Alley), no “big business” murals (the new Ciminelli group offerings, Gold Wynn Development), no…well, you get the idea. We would guess (and we hope) that most readers will not have seen the murals below.
We’ll start with one that’s about as inaccessible as any in the area, even in good weather. It’s a tribute to Manuel Rodriguez (1940-2012)—“Spain” as he’s commonly known (he took the name as a Buffalo boy, when, in response to neighborhood Irish kids bragging about their ancestry, he decided that Spain was just as good as Ireland). Spain achieved fame and notoriety as an underground cartoonist. He was perhaps best known for the “Trashman,” a super-hero figure that first appeared in the “East Village Other” in 1968.
This graffiti tribute to Spain can be found in one of the abandoned (and dangerous) outbuildings of the Central Terminal, on the triangle of land between William Street and Memorial Drive. We don’t recommend that you try to find the artwork, but if you do, enjoy the deer.
Not so hidden, but probably not well known to most Buffalonians, is another tribute, this one commemorating the service of American military veterans. It covers the façade of American Legion Post 1142, on Buffalo Avenue in the LaSalle area of Niagara Falls. Rather than celebratory and overtly patriotic, it has an understated, subdued, melancholic quality. In the section at right, helicopters conjure the war in Vietnam. A landing craft, first widely used during World War II, suggests that conflict. The centerpiece of the mural, one soldier helping another, a white hand on a darker one, offers a glimmer of a multi-racial perspective.
There’s not much to say about this clever tribute to Ol’ Blue Eyes, which was sketched some years ago on a garage in an alley somewhere on the lower West Side. If you come across it, let us know precisely where it is!
Back on the East Side, and somewhere west of the Central Terminal, bad boy O.J. can be found strutting his stuff on a muraled “Hall of Fame” wall. Still a hero after all these years, including some spent in prison. Bruce Smith is there too, among other Buffalo Bills idols. It’s by the local artist “New York” and probably was finished in 2019. Like the Sinatra rendering above, we’ve been unable to re-find the exact location. It’s not far from the Eugene Debs Hall on Peckham Street.
Jackie Gleason’s “The Honeymooners” (1955/56) is fading from memory, but TV’s favorite bus driver Ralph Kramden is doing his “away we go” thing on a wall of the Crave King building at the corner of Nason Parkway and South Park Drive. There’s no artist signature to be found, but the presence of a faded “Talking Proud” logo indicates the mural dates to the 1980s. Why Gleason in Lackawanna? Maybe because his mother was Irish—from Farran, County Cork.
The last of our “tribute” artworks resides on Jefferson Avenue, just a few blocks from a recently completed mural commemorating the Jefferson 10 who died at the Tops Market across the street. The one we’re presenting here isn’t nearly as dramatic or important as the Tops mural. It isn’t even a mural, really. But it does shed light on the community along and around Jefferson Avenue. Let’s call it the “totes” mural, because it’s essentially a set of pictures, painted on a few trash totes in front of a local business. Accomplished by Jay Hawkins, a member of the Urban Arts Collective, the paintings are dedicated (as a nearby sign says) “to the pillars of any community, the black barber shop.” Three businesses are celebrated: the Metropolitan Style Shop (owned by Leon Gresham), the Mr. Love & Sons Barbershop family, and the Carl & Jeff Barbershop. Leon Gresham died on September 3, 2019, just days before the muraled totes were installed.
Many area businesses have commissioned art work. Murals are especially common on the sides of delis and mini-marts. We are especially fond of a piece we found at Super Mario’s Market and take-out restaurant on Pine Avenue in Niagara Falls—heart of the city’s “Little Italy” —an establishment that was founded by Cesidio DiGregorio in 1932. The mural on the east side of the building features a sophisticated Euro-looking couple enjoying a fine-dining experience.
“Before and After,” a 1233 Michigan Avenue (Buffalo) classic, once advertised the benefits of a salon, long since converted to Young’s Texas Hots, then abandoned. This one’s an easy drive-by.
The purpose of “Before and After” is obvious. Not so for the mural on the east side of Cold Spring Taxi–Dispatch & Service, located at Jefferson and Northampton. It appears to depict watercraft and the Erie Basin marina, before its redevelopment. What that has to do with taxis we don’t know, but island and water motifs are not uncommon among the city’s murals.
Several murals fulfill “community” functions, though in remarkably different ways. At the intersection of Centre and Highland in Niagara Falls, a 2019 mural by Left-Handed Bandit (signature in yellow, below left) depicts 5 civic leaders of color and adds a political, and economic, manifesto: “Anything less than Ownership is Unacceptable.” At right, a montage of the site and Niagara Falls buildings. Details include a sign for Bus 52 and, at left, 2 policemen.
The mural that decorates the east wall of Lanigan Field House (150 Fulton Street in Buffalo) is less easily deciphered, nor does it contain a signature. It presents an evocative cityscape, which includes a reference to the nearby Perry Projects, as well as faces we don’t recognize. One man wears a #7 jersey. The field house was an early (1964) project of distinguished Black Buffalo architect Robert Traynham Coles, who worked mostly on the city’s East Side. There’s another mural of interest on the north side of the building.
Just a few feet from the intersection of Genesee and Jefferson, west on Genesee, is a non-descript building housing an agency providing 24-hour emergency shelter for homeless adults during the Covid-19 crisis. Non-descript, that is, except for several murals, simple and yet poignant, that grace the front and west sides of the one-story structure. The murals represent what clients might expect to find inside: calm, a place to cook, a television to watch, books to read, a pet. One of the murals bridges interior and exterior, with two men inside communicating on a corded phone with a girl outside. Another features a young woman doing laundry while her dog looks out the “window.”
Our penultimate offering might have been included under “business” murals, because we found it on the wall of a parking lot in a small business complex at 320 Grote Street, just west of Elmwood Avenue. We were taken by its whimsical quality: a man and a woman, each working to excavate one side of a heart, apparently working toward each other—to find the other—while also, paradoxically, rending the heart in two. It’s by the artist “Tabby.” As we later learned, Tabby is an Austrian artist, specializing in works that combine stenciling with spray-painting, who in May 2022 completed 20 pieces in 5 days while visiting Buffalo. This work appeared in a profile of the artist published in Buffalo Rising. We’re also fans of her “Money Laundering,” on Grant Street.
It’s back to the East Side, and 2215 Fillmore Avenue, for our final contribution, “Jesus Says Quit Playin.” It’s by J.P. Fox and it’s been around for a while—maybe decades. But that’s all we know. We can speculate that “Quit Playin” might be followed by “Games with God” or “Satan’s Game.”
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo – Look Up! Roofs and Roofers
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo – Buffalo’s Mini-Marts
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo – Remembering 9/11
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo – Street Humor
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo – The Yard as Spectacle
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo – Beware of (the) Dog
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo — Halloween
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo: Little-Known Trails and Paths
How to Take a Walk in Buffalo: Church Board Advice
How to Take a Walk—in Buffalo: Coping with Covid
How to Take a Walk—in Buffalo: Planters
How to Take a Walk—in Buffalo: Christmas Tidings
© William Graebner
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