O Tannenbaum, in honor of Joe's post about the upcoming Deutschland trip. Does the Ellicott Square Building have the largest indoor Christmas tree? This thing is huge...and beautiful. If you find yourself in this part of town, I highly recommend ducking into this amazing lobby to check it out.

I love how warm it has been so far this winter, and I love that we haven't had any snow yet, but I can't help but wonder if this should make us concerned about climate change. What's good for us could be really bad for other parts of the planet. In any event, the great weather makes for a great weekend. We started on Friday with lunch near my office, at Handlebar on Swan Street. This place is pretty awesome, but there weren't many other customers. I hope it gets busier at other times, because I'd hate to see it go away. Then we headed up to Allentown/Elmwood after work for the First Friday gallery walk. I wasn't too interested in the art we looked at in the shops, but it was fun to walk around with friends, and you couldn't help noticing how lively the city was, feels completely different from the place I left in 2009. We had dinner at Don Tequila, which was pretty solidly good and super budget friendly. Wish I would have taken some pictures there, but the only one I snapped all night was of this Buffalo statue in front of a gallery/house on Bryant. Today the Niagara gorge looks beautiful from the street in front of my house. I hope this weather lasts for a while longer!

After more than 6 years in Baltimore, I have come to realize that the best pizza really is in New York. NYC probably has the best, but WNY comes in at a close second, in my opinion. My favorite comes from this place in Niagara Falls that you'd never ever notice unless you were looking for it. It's on a residential street, and feels like a step back in time. There are only two people working there, and you can see the gigantic flour sifters, long table, and all the equipment they use to make this old fashioned pizza. Totally vegetarian, goes great with red wine, and I don't know what they put in the sauce--maybe crack--because I am so addicted to it!

DG Bread & Pizza, though locals tend to call this place Trusello's because I think that used to be its name.




Somebody made a Youtube video of the place. It's a little long, but you get the idea:

After nearly 7 years away in Baltimore, we decided to move back home, closer to family, in Western New York. My previous time in this area has always been spent in Buffalo, downtown and Allentown, so it feels a little strange this time to be living in Niagara Falls. But our new house has a view of the Niagara gorge from the living room windows, and that's a perk that makes my new location easier to accept. I took these pictures from practically across the street from our new house over the past couple of months. It's good to be home!

Paul's recent post about his wedding ring made me think of this advertisement I recently saw from Tiffany & Co. I worked for them in the late 1990s, and I am proud of my former employer for taking a stand on an issue that's important to me. It may be a smart marketing campaign, but it's also good to see them marketing directly to the gay community, because it moves us farther away from the margin and closer to normalization. I'm thinking back to when I was an adolescent, and how nice it would have been to see these things in mainstream media. It would have made me feel less alone, and would have allowed me to daydream about my future wedding and marriage one day, like most people do (and take for granted). It's these seemingly small things that add up and eventually change society's values and attitudes. It's a great way to start the new year, looking forward to the future! Happy 2015!

There's a lot about Baltimore that reminds me of Buffalo. Some of the architecture is among those things. The tallest building in each of these cities is a good example. Some of the facts:

One Seneca Tower
Buffalo, NY
Height: 529.00 ft
Floors: 38
Year built: 1974


Transamerica Tower
Baltimore, MD
Height: 529.01 ft
Floors: 40
Year built: 1973




From my rooftop patio

I absolutely love dim sum. This is some of the best I have ever had, probably number 3 on my list. The best ever was in San Francisco, and the second best was in NYC. This is from Tony Cheng's in Washington DC. If you are ever in the area around brunch time, I would highly recommend it. When I left Buffalo 5 or 6 years ago, there really wasn't a place to get dim sum, so my husband and I used to drive to Hamilton, Ontario for it. Has this situation been made right since I've been away?

We saw Neon Trees last night (in Baltimore) and I have to say it was one of the best concerts I have seen in a very long time, definitely one of the most fun. The audience really got into it, and sang along so much that at times you couldn't hear the band. The lead singer, Tyler Glenn, put on such an amazing show, crowd surfing and prancing around the stage with some of the campiest dance moves since Freddie Mercury. He was so much fun to watch and listen to. And awesome music, wow. Then I gained huge respect for him when he gave a little speech in the middle of the show that, admittedly, got a little preachy but was amazing. He wanted to explain that a lot of the songs from the latest album are about his struggles dealing with his sexual orientation and his regret for wasting all the years in his 20s, not being honest with himself (and everyone else). He urged everyone to embrace who they are and be happy with it, and then proclaimed himself "a proud gay man." He said if you're a hater you're encouraged to walk out the door, because the night was about people who wanted to sing together, dance together, and sweat together. Just beautiful...and the audience went wild. Fun times!

These are a few of my favorite things that I miss and/or appreciate about Buffalo.

The pink/orange (pinkorange?) Lake Erie sunrise and sunset


The rooftop patio at Tappo was really nice. If I still lived in Buffalo, I'd spend all my time and money here. Love the view and surroundings.


My husband celebrated his birthday while we were in Buffalo, and our friends treated us to dinner in his honor. I've lived in lots of places, but my favorite people and best friends come from Buffalo. And check out this exquisite menu! Really decadent.


We have a friend in our new town, Baltimore, who visited Buffalo once. The only thing she really remembers about her visit is this place. I took this picture for her to show her the new and improved Bada Bing. Sad they demolished its former home in the Delaware Court Building.


I have always admired the detail in this building's facade, the lovely Market Arcade.


My first apartment in Buffalo, in 2001, was in this building. I had just relocated from NYC and couldn't believe I got to live in this building, with this kind of grand entrance, while I paid less than $500/month for rent. The apartment was pretty swanky, and was nicknamed Cosmopolitan. We also had a ghost, who we believe was the ghost of Charlotte Sidway Spaulding. Pretty cool to include that in the low cost.


M&T Plaza was designed by the same architect as NYC's World Trade Center's twin towers, Minoru Yamasaki. That makes me love this building even more today. It seems a little like an echo.


St. Paul's Episcopal Church was designed by Richard Upjohn, the same guy who did NYC's Trinity Church on Broadway and Wall Street.


The Prudential (Guaranty) Building is by Louis Sullivan, widely known as the "Father of Skyscrapers" and mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. Awesome.


The Ellicott Square Building was the largest office building in the world when it opened in 1896. True story. It played a hotel in Robert Redford's film, The Natural.


And the lovely and grand interior of the Ellicott Square Building. Just wow.


Vroom...shhh! I've always loved this sculpture downtown, and the name of it as well.


Buffalo Savings Bank, aka The Gold Dome Bank, was built as a replica of the Hall of Music, a temporary building that was part of the 1901 Pan Am Exposition, which was held in Buffalo.


So was the Electric Tower built as a replica of a Pan Em Expo building.


The inside of the gold dome. Hello, gorgeous!


I love this view of Niagara Square from hallway near the elevator bank at the Dulski Embassy Suites. I would highly recommend this hotel. It's beautiful, though I have heard the new glass panels are falling off into the street...and that's not good.


The retro '70s vibe of the Buffalo Metro, reminiscent of a vintage Burger King.


One of the things I absolutely love about Buffalo. I got to live in this adorable and charming little house in Allentown in the '90s, when I was completely poor and drifting. I wonder how many cities offer such gracious housing to their poor youth. Probably not many.


Hope you enjoyed my tour of Buffalo memories!

I was visiting my hometown a couple weeks ago, and we decided to stay at the Embassy Suites because I used to work in that building when it was the Dulski Federal Building. It was surreal to be in the same physical space, with the same view from the windows, but in completely new surroundings. It was like being on a parallel plane or the Twilight Zone.


My husband (then boyfriend) and I bought our house in the West Village, near the Federal Building because it was important to me to be able to walk to work. Within a year of living there, they closed the Federal Building and relocated my office across town. That made me sad, and it was the first in a series of events that got us thinking about fleeing Buffalo. You can see our old house in this photo, taken from the window of our hotel room. Another surreal experience.


These next two photos show what the view looked like from my office in 2001, and what it looked like from the same place (4 floors down) in my hotel in 2014. Trippy.



Another view from the Dulski Embassy Suites, circa 2001.