I was going to include a couple pictures to show the ever changing Elmwood but I'm having trouble downloading pics onto my computer. I was meeting my sister on on my way down elmwood I noticed that the building nect to Mhtos and where Avenue used to be is gone. It looks like they are going to build something new into the spot there is a sign that I think says Buffalo Fleece on the fence. I know there is all ready one empty space on that block the JR league place moved next to Mhthos on the other side and then the place next to louies is either closed or is still closing I'm not sure. But it looks as if that will be a verry differant looking block soon. It all ready looks differant now. I thought I read on here that Le Metro on that block has been bought by someone.

Yesterday as part of my Elmwood excursion I took some pictures on bidwell Parkway. As I took these two pictures of the two houses connected by the new store front I got more then what I was expecting. This guy started talking to me on the corner. I hadn't noticed that next to delshi I think the palce is called is a Jewerly store. Aparantly it is a chain Jewlery store. The guy was verry upset and thought it didn't belong on Elmwood. He said something about he was going to make flyers about it. I admit I don't know if I think it is a good or a bad thing. It is true that there should be mostly local places but then what about Burger King, Blockbuster, Rite Aid, HSBC and maybe a few other places I forgot about. Maybe the Jewlery store will bring in another crowd. Maybe that is good for elmwood maybe it is bad. I don't know if locals spend enough money to keep all the businesses open or if for them all to survive they need some suberbinites. I also don't know Who paid to fix up the building was it the owner or did the diamond place fork over some cash. That conrner building was an eye sore for many years and was falling apart. Wich reminds me of the bills I can't belive they lost, I could kind of feal it as I watched. The Sabres are on tonight I think at 9pm hopefully they can win. I wonder if a sports store will ever open on elmwood. Elmwood is always changing and growing I hope Abrahms is a move in the right direction. I guess we shall see.

Elmwood & Aurburn Finally all fixed up

this article was in the buffalo news today. I find it interesting because it seems simalur to what the elmwood area tried to do. Or maybe that would be still tryies do to. The sprit is atleast the same. You have to be verry tough to out do walmart. I know it really isn't about elmwood. But it is very simalur to how a lot of people would like elmwood to be.


FOCUS: EAST AURORA
The little village that wouldn't

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East Aurora has maintained its quaint ambience by telling big-box stores to stay out of town - and making it stick

By KAREN ROBINSON
News Southtowns Bureau
9/26/2005

Click to view larger picture

Derek Gee/Buffalo News
Village Trustee Elizabeth Cheteny wants East Aurora to be a model for other communities seeking to preserve their small-town identity.

Wal-Mart went up against East Aurora twice and lost both times.
Wegmans wanted to give the community its best. The village helped give it the boot.

And this summer, village leaders drove out restaurant drive-throughs.

Is it any wonder that East Aurora is the community where developers fear to tread?

East Aurora's get-tough stance on development, its vigorous and successful opposition to keeping out "big box retailers" like Wal-Mart and a healthy sense of community are key factors in retaining its atmosphere of a bygone era boasting small-town charm and a vibrant business district.

Some see this approach as an impediment to progress. But village officials and community leaders look around at the cookie-cutter developments in nearby communities and hear of the traffic problems in places like Williamsville and Hamburg that make for hazardous driving and walking conditions and say: If that's progress, you can have it.

"Old-time Main Street is what people are striving for. It's the new way," Village Trustee Libby Weberg said. "It's coming back around. A lot of communities have to reverse what they've done - suburban-style, auto-driven development."

The community's latest move was daring and controversial: banning new restaurant drive-throughs along Main Street.

At a time when some restaurant chains are erecting new buildings specifically because they want a drive-through, East Aurora's decision might seem shortsighted.

"How can you eliminate drive-throughs, at a time when people utilize them and they're a normal part of a lot of business plans?" asked Gary Grote, executive director of the Greater East Aurora Chamber of Commerce.

The ban's chief proponent, Trustee Elizabeth Cheteny, makes no apologies.

"We can be a model for other communities," said Cheteny, a preservationist and professional planner on the staff at the University at Buffalo.

"All too often, developers want to impose faceless, nameless architecture anywhere," she said. "They hit a wall here. We don't want to be anywhere; we want to be East Aurora."

Talk of the drive-through restriction sparked immediate results, even before the Village Board enacted it. Starbucks Coffee and Dunkin' Donuts revised their plans, eliminating drive-throughs after the village initially rejected their proposals.

Some merchants think it was a wise move to clamp down on drive-throughs.

"Drive-throughs bring additional cars and break up foot traffic. We need to keep a walkable community," said Lisa Hoffman, owner of KidBiz, a children's boutique. "Once we start to lose that, it would kill all these businesses. People would not park their cars and walk through small shops."

While stances such as the drive-through ban are considered rigid by some, others say it hardly rolls out the welcome mat for developers.

"Many businesses won't even come into East Aurora because they know what they're up against," said Aurora Building Inspector Patrick Blizniak, citing a pullout in 1997 by Wegmans and others.





A fine line

For years, East Aurora has straddled a fine line between controlled growth and a desire for new business. It has made the community the envy of others that many times have struggled to define their niche against big-time development.

Working in East Aurora's favor, is its location.

As the hub for five surrounding rural communities, East Aurora is like the big city to some and has been for years - further fueling longtime support for the mom-and-pop stores.

Equally important, it is far enough away from retail giants and suburban malls that many don't want to drive that far and prefer to shop right in their own back yard.

"I hope there's always the mom-and-pop stores and little shops," said Linda Coletti, manager of Toy Loft, a specialty toy store on upper Main. "There's something for everybody. It would be sad if none of this exists across the country. Every place would look the same."

East Aurora also has benefited from watching what has gone on elsewhere.

"Our location helps us because when the Cheektowagas, West Senecas and Lancasters were being bombarded with development and had no citizens groups yet, we were this sleepy little town that was left alone for a really long time," said Ellen Moomaw, a member of East Aurora's Citizens Coalition.

Ed Vidler, president of the family's 75-year-old five-and-dime store on upper Main, has long likened the village to Brigadoon.

"It's one of the few towns that's always been self-supporting," said Vidler, 77, pointing to its horse-racing heritage, the famed Roycroft campus and Fisher-Price's roots.

Vidler says reasonable growth is important.

"Had Wal-Mart come in, East Aurora wouldn't be what it is today," he said. "I think the concern now is urban sprawl and keeping business right in the core."





Citizens are active

East Aurora also stands out, many say, because of how active its citizens are in community issues and government. Plus, the weekly farmers' market, a slew of annual events and festivals bolster community spirit. There are even wooden garbage bins, with hand-carved Roycroft sayings, that line Main Street.

"A lot of communities don't have those things," Cheteny said. "It's a step back in time, and it's working."

Still, government officials and citizens groups remain vigilant about what developers want to do in the community.

"I don't think it's a matter of development or no development, but development that's shaped for the community," Cheteny said. "A village's character erodes slowly, and you don't realize it right away. It's rarely one project. It's a series of small decisions - a gradual erosion of what makes a place special."

Last year, Aurora town leaders capped the maximum size of any new retail/commercial buildings at 55,000 square feet, though it only applies in the town. The Aurora Citizens for Smart Growth spurred the town to consider the restriction after leading a fight five years ago against a $12 million Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for Olean Road and renewed talk in the past few years of Wal-Mart's looking to expand its presence in the Southtowns.

Village officials never adopted a parallel measure, though they now are working on a set of design guidelines for commercial development while refining the village code to eliminate ambiguities so that developers know what the village is looking for when they make proposals.

"A healthy mix of retail is good. A number of chains shows a strong market, but I wouldn't want to see them dominate," Cheteny said. "Why shouldn't we set some ground rules for development and set standards for what we want?"

Moomaw says its important that the community stick together. "Keeping everything small and slower-moving, keeps all of us villagers together more - feeling like a family," she said. "We all love this place and can sit on our front porches and watch it go by and appreciate it. It does kind of have that timelessness."

This article on Losman was in today's parade I belive in the Buffalo news. They had a couple good pictures of him. I thought the one of him talking to some people on Elmwood was a great picture.


Citizen Losman

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Is J.P. ready to step up and become Buffalo's next big local hero?

By ERIK BRADY

9/4/2005

Buffalo is a needy place. We yearn for love. That's why we feel compelled to ask visitors what they think of us.
New York doesn't ask. Nor do Chicago and Los Angeles - cities comfortable enough in their civic skins to assume their own greatness. We know what's great about Buffalo. But deep down we fear others don't see it. And we can get a tad defensive.

All of which is why J.P. Losman has a chance to be among the best-loved Buffalo Bills of all time - if (and it's a big if) he can produce a winning record to match his winning personality.

Losman didn't wait for us to ask. He tells all who will listen how much he likes Buffalo and Buffalonians. He says that's why he lives downtown year-round. And he sounds sincere - as if this kid from California really gets us.

"When I came here, I didn't know anybody," Losman says. "I wanted to see what true Buffalonians are like. And so I met them, and they're just like me - just very, very real people. They're not fake or phony. They're not fluff."

You've got to love a guy who likes us because we remind him of him.

Next week, he'll get his first start as quarterback of the Bills. He's 24 and barely more than a rookie, so it is unfair to expect too much too soon. We'll expect it anyway. And if he's good enough, Losman will quickly become local legend. If he's good enough, buzz will follow him through the door at restaurants and stores, the way it does when Tim Russert or the Goo Goo Dolls or JoAnn Falletta stops by.

The cult of the quarterback in most NFL cities makes that position preeminent. It isn't always so in Buffalo: O.J. Simpson was a far bigger star than Joe Ferguson. But Losman begins with a built-in advantage: He lives here. Star running back Willis McGahee makes his off-season home in Miami.

But there's more to it than that. Losman chooses to see and be seen at a rate that is rare for the mercenaries who get paid large sums to play with our hearts and with the image of our city on their helmets.

If Losman turns out to be The Man, we will love him all the more for being Man About Town. He eats on Elmwood and hangs out on Chippewa. He drives our streets and meets the people.

Just ask Clem Arrison. The retired honcho of Mark IV Industries was walking one of his dogs by his house on Lincoln Parkway some months back when Losman stopped his car. Losman asked if Arrison might want to sell his stately home one of these days.

"He was wearing this rusty old Bills jacket," Losman says. "He asked what I do for a living. Usually I don't like to say if people don't already know. But in this case I figured I owed him that. I told him I played for the Bills.

"He said, "You didn't make the playoffs last season.' I said, "No, sir, we didn't.' He asked if I was on my first contract. I said I was. And he said the house was worth a lot of money and I should come back after I signed a couple more."

Arrison, 75, confirms the conversation. He doesn't remember saying the Bills didn't make the playoffs, but allows he could have said it. He does remember telling Losman to come back in a few contracts.

"Losman has good taste - it's a very nice house," Arrison understates. "But I'm not going anywhere. He's a very pleasant young man. I hope he does well."

When Losman was younger, he would drive the Pacific Coast Highway, gawking at the mansions and imagining he might live in one some day. These days he does the Buffalo version of that. That's how he discovered Arrison's home and fell in love with it.

Losman says sometimes he imagines himself in that house, married with children, living happily ever after in the City of No Illusions.

This is why Losman, if he wins, is sure to be the Next Big Thing on the Niagara Frontier. It's not just that he lives in our city and hangs out where we do.

Even his daydreams are based here.






Dawning of a New Age


Losman is tooling down Elmwood Avenue in his black Denali, air-drumming dramatically on the steering wheel as Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers wails on the sound system.


You know, sometimes, I don't know why,

But this old town just seems so hopeless

I ain't really sure, but it seems I remember the good times

Were just a little bit more in focus.





Sounds like a suitable anthem for our fair city. Losman can't do much about most of our troubles. But if his Bills win, we can forget all that for a few hours on Sunday afternoons.

You remember what it feels like when the Bills are winning big - even if that feeling blurs in memory as time goes by. Wouldn't it be nice to regain that clear-eyed focus of yore? Isn't that how things felt in the Jim Kelly era, when the Bills enjoyed an extended run as one of the NFL's best teams?

Years from now we may look back on this month as the dawning of the Losman era. Of course, he could also become a forgotten footnote, like Todd Collins, or a scorned waste of talent, like Rob Johnson.

But the cusp of a new season is a time for optimism. Losman seems different somehow. Collins didn't have Losman's belief in himself. And Johnson didn't have Losman's belief in us.

Broadly speaking, there have been just three major eras in Bills history. The Kemp era. The O.J. era. And the Kelly era.

Jack Kemp won a pair of AFL championships 40 years ago, and we sent him to Congress for nine terms. O.J. Simpson ran for 2,003 yards and conferred a Hollywood aura on our Rust Belt burg. We loved him until that was no longer possible.

Kelly K-gunned the Bills to four consecutive Super Bowls. He still lives among us, in Orchard Park, ennobled by the struggles of Hunter, his stricken son, who died last month.

Kelly's Bills lost all four Super Bowls, but we loved those teams for their grit and resilience. We even had the vanity to suggest they were a lot like our two-fisted city, always ready to battle back after yet another devastating punch to the gut.

Kelly retired eight seasons ago. He has never really been replaced. That burden is next left to Losman. Five quarterbacks have started games for the Bills since Kelly last laced 'em up. Only one had a winning record - and Doug Flutie gave us a season to remember, not an era.

Kelly thinks Losman could his true successor: "He's a kid, and you can't expect too much too soon. But he has all the tools."

Wide receiver Eric Moulds is the only Bill remaining who played with Kelly: "J.P. is a lot more athletic than Jim ever was. Jim had his run. He's in the Hall of Fame. J.P. has to earn his stripes. He doesn't have a number on the back of his jersey yet. He has to prove he is No. 7."

That was Flutie's number. Collins wore No. 15, Kemp's former number. Drew Bledsoe wore No. 11, Johnson's former number. None has yet replaced Kelly's revered No. 12.

Bledsoe's near-40,000 career passing yards got tossed out of town over the winter in favor of Losman's 32 career passing yards. No one knew much about the new kid, other than that he was a first-round draft choice from Tulane who broke his leg in training camp last summer and missed most of the season.

Profiles in USA Today and The News in late July painted a portrait of a young Mexican-American who plays the drums, loves his mother and recalls growing up in a two-bedroom apartment with seven others in the tough L.A. neighborhood of Venice Beach.

Local talk-radio hosts and their callers agreed: You've got to love a kid with a story like that. But, they quickly added, that only gets Losman so far.

Buffalo loves a winner. In that much, we're like everyplace else.


Small-town Atmosphere

Losman likes us, but he knows we're not perfect. He thinks one of the downsides to living here is that it's too insular, like being in high school again.

"Yeah, you know, all those high school-type rumors go around - stupid, little things. If you're walking with a girl, next thing you know you're her boyfriend or whatever. All those little rumors are still here in this city."

Well, sure, but high school isn't so bad when you're the quarterback. And when you're dating the equivalent of captain of the cheerleaders - a University at Buffalo graduate from Williamsville who is a striking beauty of Sicilian and Ukrainian descent.

Losman asks that her name not be given for the sake of his privacy and hers. Besides, he insists, they are not really dating. They spend time together. They watch DVDs. They read and discuss Henry Miller novels. But he says they consciously avoid the words boyfriend and girlfriend, because his need for immersion in football just now is too great to leave time for an in-depth relationship.

"I can't give a girlfriend what a boyfriend should give a girlfriend right now," he says. "It's all on football and how I could better myself before I could give to somebody else."

He says he played the field at the end of high school and beginning of college, but no more. "I like relationships," he says. "Meeting someone on a real basis, the whole honesty and responsibility thing. It's healthy for people to really get to know one another. Multiple girls lead to multiple problems. I'm not with that."

Not exactly what you would have heard from Joe Namath back in the day. Losman's quick release is sometimes compared to Namath's, but otherwise he's more Broadway Market than Broadway Joe.

Even so, he says, he knows rumors go around that he's dating various women in Buffalo simply because he strikes up conversations with them in bars, which he thinks is unfair to him and to them.

"People talk about movie stars and athletes like they know them just because they met them or shook their hand," Losman says. "Next thing you know, you are the focal point of this conversation in some other household. They don't know anything about me, yet they're talking about me like (some rumor) is completely true because that's what they've heard.

"And American culture has supported that. With all these athletes and movie stars, people just want to get in their business. You don't have to have a camera to be a paparazzi. There's paparazzi everywhere. They use their mouths. And when they see me walking with somebody or talking with somebody, they're just going to go ahead and assume we're dating or we're involved. That's what I was getting at. It's all the same little high school stuff. High school never ends."

He thinks that's more or less true all over the globe. The difference in Buffalo is the size of the city means you see the same people so much of the time. There's good and bad in that. The bad part is the ever-grinding rumor mill. The good part, he says, is he's getting to know some real Buffalonians - that funny word for us that Losman tosses off easily in conversation as if born in the First Ward.

"Buffalo is a small town - or I should say it has a small-town atmosphere," he says. "People here go out and see a lot of the same people. Everybody knows everybody, it seems like, one way or another. And I'm not used to that."

Losman can become a big kahuna in our little fish bowl. He feels comfortable so far with his small-city celebrity. Can he remain this visible and low-key once the season begins? He thinks so. Can Buffalo embrace a Californian whose favorite band is Incubus? If he wins, heck yeah. Is this the dawning of a new age? Stay tuned.
Driving with J.P.



Losman often drives his Denali around Buffalo and its suburbs to see what he can see. He thinks it's a good way to come to know a place.

"As soon as I got here, that's what I did: I just drove around everywhere in the Buffalo area," he says. "I was so curious just to see my new city. There's a lot of cool, historical buildings that I love looking at. There's a lot of history in Buffalo, and I want to learn more of it."

Bills fans might prefer that he make it instead. But Losman is a history buff who took several history courses at Tulane, where he majored in classical studies.

"As soon as I got drafted, that night I went online and looked up all the things that Buffalo had to offer, where it was on the map, the layout of the city, a brief history of it. What's happening, what have been the problems, why did it die down, some of the economic problems, all those things."

Losman sees evidence of some of those problems when he leaves his luxury loft on Main Street and takes the Skyway and Route 5 past the steel mill and grain elevators on his way to work.

"I like taking a drive to work," he says. "Blast some music, think about what you're going to accomplish today."

The Denali is on loan from a dealer who thinks it is good business for Losman to drive it, according to Gary Wichard, Losman's agent.

"When I grew up, we didn't have much money," Losman says. "When I was in college, I was a starving student. Now I can afford anything - and everything's free."

Wichard says he has never represented a young athlete so disciplined with money that he didn't even buy his own car. Our newest would-be hero knows the value of a dollar, just like his fans.

It is crazy to put too much on Losman's shoulder pads just yet, of course. He has thrown just five NFL passes. The Bills will try to bring him along slowly. They have a rock-solid defense and a workhorse running back on which to rely.

But if they're going to be any good, now and for some time to come, the Bills need Losman to be good. There is no getting around that.

Losman thinks he will be. When the Bills drafted him, critics contended he was too cocky. But that's not necessarily bad in Buffalo. Kelly exuded cockiness. Cocky is good if you can back it up.

Just how cocky is Losman? Here he is, driving on Elmwood, still listening to Tom Petty. He wears no seat belt as he hangs a right at the art gallery and heads toward Hoyt Lake. It sparkles in the bright sun of summer.

"Did you know they won't let you canoe on that lake?" Losman says, smiling playfully. "If I win a Super Bowl, I want privileges. You know, at least once a week."

Why would he need a canoe? J.P., if you win a Super Bowl in this town, they'll think you can walk on water.



Buffalo native Erik Brady is a national sports reporter for USA Today.

At work we listen to The Lake. It is an interesting radio station that plays a good mix of rock music. During one of the commerical breaks I heard an ad for the Elmwood Collective. They also Mentioned Tru Teas as part of it and said they are across the street from the New Co-op. I don't remember everything but it sounded like they where also encouraging people to come to the Elmwood Area not just them. If that is true I'm sure it will help the area out a lot. I also read and article in the Buffalo News about the guy who owns Faherty's and Toro. The article wasn't only about him. It was about how Hertel had improved a lot over the last few years and how they kinda modeled what they did after elmwood. I'm sorry I can't remember the guys name or the new place he will have on Hertel. I'm not sure if it was her or not but I saw someone running down Elmwood today that looked like Lilho but I couldn't tell cause people kinda look differant in person then in pics so.