View Of Buffalo

A View of Buffalo

From the lofty aerie of the 13th floor of the Statler Towers, in downtown Buffalo, I can look out over the sun washed blue expanse of the Eastern end of Lake Erie. In the center of this landscape, rising like a gothic apparition, the spike topped upper battlements of the old Erie County Hall dominate the skyline. The surface of the Old County Hall is a dark and gray, weathered limestone. It has that ancient, eerie and quasi menacing aura of a medieval castle in Scotland or Germany.

I have often wondered how many political deals, high and low, were struck there during the first 100 years of the City of Buffalo's incorporation. Two U.S. Presidents, Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore, presided there as Mayor of Buffalo when the edifice served as the central administrative offices for both the City and County governments.

The colorful stories abound among the many families, whose people have served there in clerical functions for generartions.The tales are passed down among them regarding anecdotes of the peculiarities that passed as political business through the years.The clerical people are both the dutiful acolytes and the institutional memory of our local history. I wish that someone had taken the time to record their memories. How much more colorful our history would be and how much better we would have really understood the events of their day if we could delve into their various impressions.

In many ways, we serve the County and City halls like feudal serfs bound to the land. Decisions, that affect much of our lives, are made for us there. The taxes and laws that govern us are handed down from the olympian heights within the building. In the event of flood, famine or siege we turn, like serfs of old, to the buildings current rulers for help and assistance. And although the line of accession isn't hereditary, it may as well be.The array of elected and appointed officials, who serve there, are a succession of the same people,only posessed of different names and faces. Most of the "ruling elite are facile of manner and glib of tongue. No babies go unkissed or older women uncomplimented when these silver throated soothsayers are anywhere in evidence.

The patronage and "pork are dispensed with proper respect to the nearness of the next election day and any particular influence that you or your clan can wield on that byzantine process. To be fair, we are but a microcosm of the larger process that is the Democratic Republic of these United States. And although we now communicate with e-mail instead of across the back fence, the process is still pretty much the same and the people little changed.

Few things in politics and government are novel. Originality is a forgotten imitation.

Joseph Xavier Martin