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BUFFALONEWS.COM

July 2, 2017 • Western neW york edition

Campaign funds reportedly eyed in Grassroots probes

PROFILE: JEFFR EY GU N DL ACH

Influence extends to 4 organizations linked to founder of East Side club

By Susan Schulman N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

B y C ol i n Da bkow sk i N E W S A R T S C R I T IC

L

OS ANGELES – The fir t thing you’ll see if you are brave enough to peer over the gate of Jeffrey Gundlach’s $15 million estate in Pacifi Palisades is your own refl ction in the stainless steel surface of a half­ton sculpture by Anish Kapoor.

The fir t thing you’ll likely hear is the bark of a security guard aiming a semiautomatic pistol at your head.

“If somebody’s interested in causing me trouble, they already know that it’s going to take a number of people. Some of them will die,” said Gundlach, whose art collection was robbed in 2012.

Gundlach’s rotating, six­man security detail operates out of a military­style command center at the edge of his property, where he lives with his girlfriend. It might seem excessive, but, like all of the Buffalo­born billionaire’s pursuits – in academics, business and art – it refl cts his distaste for half­measures.

SE E GU N DL AC H ON PAGE A 8

By Stephen T. Watson N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Photo by Jenna Schoenefeld/Special to the News

Plea expected by ‘investment guru’ in scam

By Phil Fairbanks N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Michael H. Wilson donned many faces – investment wunderkind, indicted scammer, international fugitive – during his decade­ long journey in the spotlight.

Even at age 21, when he fi st arrived in Buffalo, he wowed people with his purchase of a $6.3 million estate in Hamburg, a price tag that set a local record at the time.

And then came the fall.

Now 30, Wilson is expected to appear soon in a downtown courtroom to plead

INDEX

Automotive ..................E1 Books ............................ D4 Business ....................... G1 Crossword ................... F5

It wasn’t uncommon, investigators said, for individuals to pony up as much as $250,000 apiece as part of their initial investments, but Wilson allegedly never invested those funds.

GustoSunday ............. D1 Home & Style ..............F1 Letters .......................... H5 Lotteries ..................... C2

Obituaries .................. C4 Picture Page ............ A12 The Region ................. C1 Scoreboard................ B11

guilty and once and for all end the federal investigation into an $8 million scam target­ ing wealthy investors. No one will comment on when Wilson might plead guilty, but court records indicate the two sides have reached a plea agreement.

If he does plead guilty, it would mark the start of the end for Wilson, the onetime invest­ ment guru who arrived here from Cleveland in 2007 before running afoul of the FBI and fl eing fir t to Canada, and then to Vietnam.

“I remember him being very young,” said See Wilson on Page A12

Sports ............................ B1 Travel ........................... F8 TV Topics ..........................

Viewpoints ................ H1

WEATHER

Political contributions/ payments to organizations since 2006 Grassroots $ 202,200 political committee Be the Change $ 63,396 political committee (Started 2010) Maurice Garner, $ 58,397* Garner Associates consulting firm Urban Vision $35,034 for Tomorrow consulting firm Buffalo Urban $ 14,985 Chamber of Commerce (Started 2013) Total $ 374,012 * Includes $5,714 paid to Garner’s sons Source: NYS Board of Elections campaign filing reports

erations. When those other or­ ganizations are included, the total political money increases to almost $375,000, The News analysis found.

The common denominator of those organizations is Mau­ rice L. Garner, the Grassroots founder who more recently See Grassroots on Page A6

Amherst clinic’s move remains in limbo Drug treatment site has stirred battle

Jeffrey Gundlach sits in front of a painting by William Ritshel in his office at DoubleLine Capital in Los Angeles.

Deeper ties

Maurice Garner’s connections go beyond Grassroots

When the Catholic Health System made plans to offer methadone, suboxone and oth­ er medications to drug­depen­ dent patients in Amherst, it wanted to do that at its existing outpatient drug treatment cen­ ter on Sheridan Drive.

But the clinic’s landlord balked at drugs being distrib­ uted there. It refused to renew the lease.

That meant Catholic Health had to seek a new location for its expanded services, setting off the community controversy over where to treat addicts.

Catholic Health offi ials found one a short distance

Partly sunny, breezy. High 77, low 62. Details on Page C8.

away, at 910 Millersport High­ way, and unveiled the site to a handful of town and county representatives in spring 2016.

But news of Catholic Health’s proposed move there drew bit­ ter opposition from neighbors and town offi ials when it was revealed publicly in April.

The battle is being played out as an opioid crisis contin­ ues in Amherst and the rest of Erie County.

The timeline of Catholic Health’s efforts to offer medica­ tion­assisted treatment in the town is outlined in the system’s application to the state Health Department for permission to move the clinic. The Buffalo News obtained a copy through a Freedom of Information Law request.

The application also details See Clinic on Page A12

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Jeffrey Gundlach’s drive and laserlike focus have helped him become a transformational figure – his $42.5 million to gift to the Albright-Knox is no exception

TheGrassrootspoliticalclub has worked to elect dozens of politicians over the past three decades, including Mayor By­ ron W. Brown.

Now, the East Side organi­ zation fi ds itself under the mi­ croscope of state and federal in­ vestigators, who two weeks ago took documents from the orga­ nization’s headquarters using a warrant.

Authorities haven’t dis­ closed the target of the raid, but several sources have said the action grew out of the state and federalprobesagainstG.Steven Pigeon, a former Democratic Party chairman and political operative who is charged with political corruption. Investiga­ tors are believed to be follow­ ing a money trail that includes campaign fi ance reports for Pigeon, Grassroots and others.

While the Grassroots club has had significant political clout, public records that The Buffalo News searched found that it is not a big­time mon­ ey machine. It took in some $202,000 in contributions and related payments over the past 10 years, according to state Board of Elections reports.

But Grassroots’ infl ence goes beyond the walls of its Genesee Street storefront of­ fi e, touching four other op­

A8

The Buffalo News/Sunday, July 2, 2017

Jeffrey Gu ndl ach: No half-measures in business, life

Carol Gundlach, with her son Jeffrey at the Albright-Knox last September, says her youngest son was “an easy child, a very eager child, to do well.”

Mark Mulville/Buffalo News

GUNDLACH • from A1 Gundlach, 57, whose $42.5 million donation to the Albright­Knox Art Gallery last year was the largest to a cultural organization in West­ ern New York history, has no interest in being a minor player.

That has been a theme throughout his life, whether as a hypercompetitive student at Am­ herst High School, a renegade Ph.D. student at Yale University or as a rock drummer in Los An­ geles, a career he abandoned to pursue his true calling after watching an episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” according to his favor­ ite bit of personal lore.

The theme continued in 2009, when he launched his new fi m, DoubleLine Capital, in the wake of a messy public divorce with his for­ mer employer.

“I don’t spread things thin,” Gundlach told TheNewsinSeptember,afterhisAlbright­Knox donation was announced. “I focus deeply. I do that with my work, with my company. I want to make a difference to the things that I apply my­ self to and not just, as T.S. Elliot said, mete out my life in teaspoons.”

And while he has spent the last 15 years building one of the most impressive private art collections on the West Coast and one of the most successful investment management fi ms in the United States, Gundlach is turning his at­ tention to more­enduring projects.

“I could either buy another picture, or I could massively transform the Buffalo art museum,” he said in an April interview in his offi es on the 18th fl or of the Wells Fargo tower in downtown LosAngeles.“It’sjustbadlyinneedofatransfor­ mational project.”

Transformational projects are a specialty of Gundlach’s.

Case in point: himself.

Even as a child, intent on success

The youngest of three brothers, Gundlach grew up in a modest house on Harlem Road in Snyder where his mother, Carol Gundlach, still lives. His father, Arthur, who died in 2013, was a chemist for Pierce and Stevens Chemical Corp. whose claim to fame was inventing a highly du­ rable wax widely used to coat the fl ors of bowl­ ing alleys.

Even now, despite the fact that he lives next door to Stevie Nicks in a Tuscan­style villa perched on the edge of a Santa Monica canyon, Gundlach still carries hints of his middle­class upbringing.

He wears tailored suits on company web­ casts and fi ancial news shows, but he inhabits them with a hint of discomfort. During an in­ terview, he was dressed in brown­and­orange checkered shirt, brown slacks and brown shoes.

Artworks by Andy Warhol, Clyfford Still, Jeff

“I DON’T SPREAD THINGS THIN,” GUNDLACH TOLD THE NEWS IN SEPTEMBER, AFTER HIS ALBRIGHT-KNOX DONATION WAS ANNOUNCED. “I FOCUS DEEPLY. I DO THAT WITH MY WORK, WITH MY COMPANY. I WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO THE THINGS THAT I APPLY MYSELF TO…”

Koons, Donald Judd, Willem de Kooning, Jo­ seph Cornell, Piet Mondrian, Cy Twombly and others share space in his house with a painting done by a largely unknown artist: his maternal grandmother Helen Fuchs Gundlach’s pastoral scene from 1929 depicting her West Seneca gar­ den.

Look hard enough and you will fi d clues from Gundlach’s ancestry that suggest a future love of art. Look even harder and his status as a bond trader with a net worth of $1.7 billion, whose predictions in the fi ancial press move markets, begins to emerge.

Carol Gundlach said the youngest of three sons, even as a child, was intent on succeeding.

More than anyone in the immediate family, she said, Jeffrey took after his uncle Robert Gund­ lach, a physicist who invented much of the tech­ nology used in the Xerox copy machine.

“He was a very intense little fellow,” she said in a phone interview from the family home, where prints of famous Albright­Knox paint­ ings by Georgia O’Keeffe and Picasso and pho­ tographs of family members visiting the gallery hang in her kitchen. “I found him a very easy child, a very eager child, to do well.”

Drew Gundlach, who has built a successful construction business focusing on historic res­ toration work, said his younger brother always wanted to get it right.

He recalled a day from their youth when he taught Jeffrey to ride a bicycle in their Snyder driveway.

“There was a little rock wall along the side of the house,” he said. “He’d fall off that bike and crash into the wall. He was all banged up, but he got right back up and back on the bike. At the end of the day, he was riding that two­wheeled bicycle. No training wheels.”

It was a clear precursor of a life to come.

“He follows things through all the way to the end,” Drew Gundlach said.

Culturally active upbringing

The Gundlachs were culturally active, tak­ ing frequent trips to the Albright­Knox, the Buf­ falo History Museum and Buffalo Museum of Science.

Carol Gundlach said she believes those expe­ riences and the family’s artistic background – her mother was a trained pianist and her moth­ er­in­law a successful painter – shaped her sons.

“They have startled me,” she said of their suc­ cesses in academia, business and philanthropy.

“Idon’tknowwhereitcomesfrom.Mywholelife is blessed beyond anything I would ever have dreamed.”

Jeffrey Gundlach, too, acknowledges the ad­ vantages of his upbringing.

“I was given skills and opportunities,” he said. “I mean, sure, Harlem Road between Main and Sheridan? Not the greatest opportunity in the world. But I’m a white guy that got a scholar­

ship to an Ivy League college.”

Partially out of a belief that the family would not mix well with the upper classes, Gundlach’s grandparents prevented his mother from at­ tending Vassar on a full scholarship.

“It’s a class thing: You don’t fi in,” he said.

“There was a lot of class­consciousness 50 years, 70 years ago in Buffalo. ‘That’s not our place.’”

When his other brother, Brad, now a college history professor in Illinois, applied to Prince­ ton University, the family argued against it. But he went anyway, smoothing the path for Gund­ lach’s academic rise.

After discovering a preternatural talent for math, Gundlach earned straight A’s at Amherst High School and a full scholarship to study math and philosophy at Dartmouth College.

When he wasn’t playing in his neighborhood, competing on the WIVB trivia show “It’s Aca­ demic” or practicing his timpani part for his high school orchestra, he was studying.

“I was just a guy that was trying to get A’s,” he said. “I always wanted to succeed.”

Gundlachwaspartofagroupofhigh­achiev­ ers at Amherst High. One of them, his neighbor and classmate Charles Zukowski, is a long­ten­ ured electrical engineering professor at Colum­ biaUniversity.HerecalledGundlachasahappy­ go­lucky kid, eager to play practical jokes on his brothers and compete against neighborhood kids in pickup games.

“We were pretty competitive, in a fun way.

Everybody wanted to do well,” Zukowski said.

“In our social group, everybody valued educa­ tion, everyone assumed they were going to col­ lege. There was friendly competition in school and on the SATs, and all that stuff.”

Next chapter: Rock and roll

Gundlach graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth in 1981 and entered the mathematics doctoral program at Yale. But he dropped out after his proposed thesis, a radi­ cal argument about the concept of infin ty that challenged the underpinnings ofmodern math­ ematics, was rejected by his adviser.

Disenchanted with academia, Gundlach moved back to Buffalo to work construction jobs with his brother Drew, waiting for his next opportunity to be a major player.

It soon came in the form of an offer from fel­ low musician Bev Eyre, whom he had met as a student at Dartmouth. “A guy who I’d been play­ ing in a band with said, ‘Let’s go to LA. There’s a big music scene out there. We’ll be rock and roll people.’ I said, ‘I got nothing better to do.’”

So, in 1983, the Ph.D. dropout became a glam­rock drummer.

He played in a series of Los Angeles rock bands, the best known of which was called Rad­ ical Flat, a nod to his math background.

“He was an incredible drummer,” Eyre, who could not be reached for comment, told Busi­

A9

The Buffalo News/Sunday, July 2, 2017

Jeffrey Gu ndl ach: No half-measures in business, life ness Insider in 2012. “He never missed a beat, like a machine gun. He could play so many cool rhythms, switch tempos, doing something real fast, then a little slower.”

After chasing his music dream for two years and building a small following, the life of a struggling drummer lost its charm. One night in the mid­1980s, in an oft­repeated story, his fortunes changed: He found himself sitting alone in his grun­ gy West Hollywood apartment, surrounded by cardboardboxesforfurnitureandadonatedTV that required a pair of pliers to change the chan­ nel, when he came across an episode in progress of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”

Cue Gundlach’s impression of TV host Robin Leach: “We have a special show tonight. We’re go­ ing to be counting down the 10 most lucrative professions,” he said. “I’m like, cool. I could use a little direction.”

The No. 1 profession, Leach informed him, was investment banker.

“They said you need to work very hard, and you need a very analytic mind,” Gundlach said.

“I’m like, check and check.”

Starting from scratch

Tantalized bythe trappings of aninvestment banker’s lucrative lifestyle, Gundlach grabbed a copy of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages. He fl pped to a section labeled “investment managers,” fi ­ uring this was the same as “investment bank­ ers.”

With no experience or knowledge of invest­ ment, he wrote letters of interest to the 23 com­ panies that had paid for bold­faced listings.

Trust Company of the West hired him on faith and shuffl d him into a minor job in its bond department.

Between the day he was hired and the day he started, Gundlach devoured everything he could about the bond market, deriving the for­ mulas that undergird the market from scratch so he could understand them from the inside out.

“The day I started, I knew more than any­ body that worked there about bonds,” he said.

Within six months, Gundlach, at 26, was managing Chrysler’s pension fund. Over a 24­ yearcareeratTCW,hebuiltthefi m’sbondbusi­ ness into a national powerhouse.

He earned a reputation as a smart analyst with a knack for accurate predictions. In 2006, he called then Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan “out of his mind” for saying – prema­ turely, as it turned out – that the housing bust had bottomed out.

That foresight allowed Gundlach to protect his clients’ money through the fi ancial cri­ sis that followed, soon earning him the title of “Bond King,” solidifying his reputation as one of America’s most successful investors and elevat­ ing him to oracle status in the fi ancial press.

“He is a strong personality in the industry, and he has grown quite the reputation,” said Steven Gattuso, a Buffalo­based fi ancial ad­ viser who campaigned to bring Gundlach to speak to a group of fellow industry members at the Albright­Knox in 2015. “He’s one of a hand­ ful of people that can command some media at­ tention when he makes a prediction or an ob­ servation about what’s happening in fi ancial markets.”

Because of his reputation for accurate pre­ dictions, Gundlach is sought after by fi ancial newsoutletsandappearsseveraltimesayearon CNBC and Fox Business News. His speeches are live­blogged and dissected by investment pros for clues about the future.

Gary Schreier, senior vice president for pro­ gramming at the Fox Business Network, de­ scribed Gundlach as a straight­talker with a reputation for accuracy. A case in point: his pre­ diction that Donald Trump would win the Re­ publican presidential nomination and the gen­ eral election.

“His immense value is his track record, his knowledge, his acumen, his confidence and also his self­assuredness. He says what’s on his mind to a large degree. He’s not overly careful about parsing his words,” Schreier said. “That’s uniqueandmakeshimsomeoneweappreciate.”

Jeffrey Gundlach, second from right, was the drummer in the mid-’80s-era band Thinking Out Loud.

In the end, the court ordered TCW to pay Gundlach and three members of his team $67 million in back pay and denied TCW’s request for damages. Gundlach was found responsible for breaching his fi uciary duty to TCW, a fi d­ ing that carried no fi ancial penalty and which TCW was thus unable to appeal.

Asked how he felt about the verdict, Gund­ lachsaid,“Theymassivelylost.Itwas67tozero.”

A passion for modern art

When any of DoubleLine Capital’s 210 em­ ployees exits the elevator on the 18th fl or of the Wells Fargo Tower, Gundlach’s brushwork greets them.

He spent the better part of a year painting the entry sign for DoubleLine, which, like the fi m’s name, was inspired by a Piet Mondrian painting that hangs on the second fl or of his home.

As with everything in Gundlach’s life, Dou­ bleLine is shot through with art.

The company’s Wi­Fi network is named “Rothko,” after the abstract painter.

Its conference rooms are named after fa­ mous modern artists, several of which contain actual pieces by those artists.

The entire DoubleLine investment team can fi around a massive table in the Warhol room,

where a 1963 Andy Warhol car crash picture, “Five Deaths Twice,” hangs. The Judd confer­ ence room features a Donald Judd sculpture next to a wide window looking out on the fi an­ cial district of Los Angeles, with the Hollywood sign visible. In the Calder conference room, a Calder mobile dangles from the ceiling.

“The rooms aren’t sterile here,” said Rob­ ert Cohen, who joined DoubleLine in 2012 and serves as its director of global developed cred­ it. “You walk into a conference room here and there’s something lively happening.”

Gundlach does not have a corner offi e, pre­ ferring instead to survey his domain of traders and analysts from a desk that might belong to a low­level accountant, save for one item: A foot­ ball inscribed to Gundlach by DoubleLine client and Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy: “Thanks for taking care of my money,” the in­ scription reads. “Go Bills.”

Before announcing his donation to the Al­ bright­Knox last year, Gundlach’s name was in the local news for another high­profile proposi­ tion: He was part of a group including Jim Kel­ ly that briefl entertained buying the Bills, but eventually dropped the bid in the face of strong competition.

Kelly declined to be interviewed for this sto­ ry.

Insatiable curiosity, commitment

An ugly business battle

Gundlach’s success in piloting his company and clients through the housing crisis also pre­ cipitated one of the biggest dramas in his life, when, in 2009, he was forced out of TCW and began an ugly legal battle. He claims the com­ pany was plotting to steal millions of dollars in future fees, the fruits of his team’s work during the fi ancial crisis. TCW claimed that he and his team stole proprietary information in a se­ cret scheme to launch their own business.

“I worked so hard. So hard,” he said. “I was working till midnight, getting up at 5 a.m., kill­ ing ourselves. My reward for doing that was they tried to steal the business.”

The subsequent court battle played out in Los Angeles Times headlines and on blogs, where developments in the case were reported with O.J. Simpson­level detail.

In the fi ht, according to court fi ings, TCW accused Gundlach of a litany of improprieties.

These included keeping a trove of drug para­ phernalia, hardcore pornography and sex toys in his offi e. In a memo to his staff, Gundlach wrote that the material uncovered by TCW con­ tained “vestiges of closed chapters of my life.”

Gundlach’s countersuit accused TCW of at­ tempting to defraud him and his team of their future earnings by forcing him out of the com­ pany. What’s more, he accused TCW manage­ ment of hiring private investigators to collect incriminating information on the sex lives of him and his team members. In his case, he said, they did not succeed because he and his former wife had already decided to divorce by the time he began a relationship with another woman.

(Gundlach has one daughter, now 26, with his ex­wife and former bandmate, Nancy Draper.)

TCWspokesmanDouglasMorrisdeclinedto address the allegations, noting that the compa­ ny is under different management and does not comment on former employees or competitors.

Gundlach is a long­suffering Bills fan, but his interest in football is dwarfed by his pas­ sion for art. And although he grew up visiting the Albright­Knox, Gundlach didn’t gain an ap­ preciation for modern and contemporary art until a 2002 trip to the Tate Gallery in London, where he came across a man sketching a Mon­ drian painting.

“It’s like I’m hit by a thunderbolt,” Gundlach said in September of the painting that changed his life. “All of a sudden, at that moment, all I cared about was more modern art.”

Almost immediately, Gundlach began col­ lecting 20th­century pieces.

Every room of his house – from the living room where a Calder mobile spins in front of a $28 million Warhol portrait of Marilyn Mon­ roe to a hallway where a Diebenkorn landscape dialogues with a transcendent Mondrian – feels like a conversation across art history.

In his vestibule, for example, Robert Rauschenberg’s excellent 1955 piece “Monk” hangs on a circular wall opposite a pristine stack of Donald Judd drawers from 1975. In a hall leading to his study hangs a luminous Wil­ lem de Kooning from 1946.

“This is de Kooning when he just becomes de Kooning,” Gundlach said. It’s an observation he makes frequently about the artworks in his col­ lection, many of which capture his favorite art­ ists at the cusp of an artistic revelation.

Gundlach, before he became Gundlach, was just another art enthusiast who bought Califor­ nia landscapes. Now, he’s a modern art expert with an encyclopedic knowledge of the artists he collects, a house fi led with art books and in­ sights drawn from his own analytical mind.

Photos by Jenna Schoenefeld/Special to the News

Jeffrey Gundlach is never far from fine art in his office at DoubleLine Capital in Los Angeles. Below, Andy Warhol’s “5 Deaths” in the Warhol conference room.

Hisknowledgeofmodernandcontemporary art and deep curiosity sets him apart from most other high­profile collectors, said Amy Cappel­ lazzo, the Buffalo­born art expert at Sotheby’s who helped to coordinate Gundlach’s gift to the Albright­Knox.

“It’s like when you see a child who has natu­ ral athletic ability,” Cappellazzo said in an inter­ view last year. “He’s very, very passionate and very, very, searingly intellectual about it. Once he knows an object or is curious about an artist, it’s full­on research, deep.”

Albright­KnoxArtGalleryDirectorJanneSi­ rén, who worked with Gundlach on last year’s fundraising campaign, admitted that he has to brush up on his art history before meeting with Gundlach. And he has a Ph.D. in the subject.

“Jeffrey knows more about Mondrian than most people that I know,” Sirén said. “When I go to visit with him, I’m browsing through my Mondrian biographies, for example, because I don’t want to be in a situation where I can’t car­ ry a conversation with a person as knowledge­ able as he is.”

Sirén also said it was Gundlach’s desire to go big that pushed him and other gallery offi cials to seek 50,000 square feet of new gallery space instead of a smaller amount. This was be­ cause Gundlach insisted that the gallery be on par with what he sees as its peer institutions: the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Gundlach’s home, his art collection, his ap­ proach to business, and his entire way of life re­ fl cts this insatiable curiosity and commitment.

If he’s going to go to Amherst High or Dart­ mouth, he fi ured that he may as well graduate at the top of his class. If he’s going to learn how the bond market works, he reckoned, he may as well learn it better than anyone else in the industry. If he’s going to buy a portrait by Andy Warhol, he might as well know twice as much about it as the person he is bidding against.

And if he’s going to make a donation to an art museum, Gundlach may as well make sure that it has an earth­shattering effect.

“I’m in the fi ed income hall of fame. I’ve got the most successful startup investment man­ agement company in the history of the business.

I don’t have anything to prove,” he said. “To peo­ ple who like to criticize me, I say: ‘So, what major museum is named after you?’”

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Only in Sunday’s Buffalo News: An in-depth look at the Pegulas, Buffalo’s new first family of hockey Western New York Edition

.

B U F FA L O N E W S C O M

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Copyright 2011

Getting it done

ONLINE WORKOUTS Fitness apps make it possible to exercise almost anywhere.

Page C1

Sabres defend an early lead and turn back the Senators, 4-2. Page B1

Manny Fried, a guiding presence to area’s actors, writers and social activists, dies at 97

‘He was a man with a purpose’

By Colin Dabkowski NEWS ARTS CRITIC

See Fried on Page A2

Officer pinned to van kills a drug suspect

Automatic weapons used as witnesses cite deaths ASSOCIATED PRESS

Buffalo News file photos

Manny Fried wrote and spoke out about the plight of the working class throughout his life. Above left, the playwright works in his office in 1978. Top right, the actor rehearses for his one-man show in 2007.

Lower right, the activist appears before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1964.

WEB SAMPLER

INSIDE THE NEWS Teachers warned in Wisconsin MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin school districts are warning teachers their contracts might not be renewed as Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to cut public employees’ collective bargaining rights remains in limbo despite Assembly approval Friday. Story on A8.

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

See Shooting on Page A2

See Libya on Page A2

Anner’s dream to host TV program comes true Oprah gives show to both finalists

Buffalo News Arts Editor Jeff Simon talks about what viewers should look for during Sunday’s Oscar telecast at video.buffalonews.com.

INDEX

Business Today ..............D6 City & Region ..................D1 Classified ..........................B9 Comics .............................. C8 Crossword .............. B13, C9 Entertainment ............... C4 Jingo ..................................C5 Life & Arts ........................ C1 Lotteries ...........................D2 Obituaries ....................... D4 Opinion ............................A6 Picture Page .................. C10 Sports .................................B1 Television .........................C6

By Maki Becker

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A proposed highspeed rail between Tampa and Orlando got a temporary reprieve Friday when the Obama administration gave Florida Gov. Rick Scott a week to reconsider his opposition. If he rejects the $2.4 billion, New York and others may split it. Story on A5.

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

WEATHER

Cloudy, with some snow. High temperature 28, low 24. Details on Page D10.

John Neal rides his bike on a snow-covered side street in North Tonawanda on Friday.

James P. McCoy/Buffalo News

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BENGHAZI, Libya — Protesters demanding Moammar Gadhafi’s ouster came under a hail of bullets Friday when pro-regime militiamen opened fire to stop the first significant anti-government marches in days in the capital of Tripoli.

The president, speaking from the ramparts of a historic Tripoli fort, told supporters to prepare to defend the nation.

Witnesses reported multiple deaths as gunmen on rooftops and in the streets shot at crowds with automatic weapons.

“It was really like we are dogs,” said one man who was marching from Tripoli’s eastern Tajoura district. He added that many people were shot in the head, with seven people within 10 yards of him cut down in the first wave.

Also Friday evening, troops loyal to Gadhafi attacked a major air base east of Tripoli that had fallen into rebel hands.

A force of tanks attacked the Misrata Air Base, retaking part of it in battles with residents and army units who had joined the anti-Gadhafi uprising, said a doctor and one resident wounded in the battle on the edge of opposition-held Misrata, about

Florida gets rail funds reprieve

By Lou Michel

An undercover Lackawanna police officer could have lost both his legs if he hadn’t used deadly force and shot three times into the blacktinted back window of a minivan filled with drug dealers, authorities said Friday.

When the shootout was over late Thursday afternoon, van passenger Rashad Bradford, 29, of Buffalo, was dead with one bullet in the head and another in his back.

The van’s driver, Derrick “Murder” Nailor, who has been arrested 27 times, had stopped gunning the engine and backing up in his attempt to shove an unmarked police minivan out of the way in an attempt to escape, police said.

Officer Joseph Milkowski, who fired the shots, had opened the sliding passenger-side door of the police van when the other van rammed it in the parking lot of the NOCO gas station at Grant Boulevard and Abbott Road at about 5:53 p.m.

Libyan protesters hit by hail of bullets

Please Play Responsibly. ©2011 NewYork Lottery. You must be 18 years or older to purchase a Lottery ticket.

Reality show contestant and Kenmore native Zach Anner says his goal has been to stay true to himself, no matter what happens.

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Oprah. Johnny. Ellen. Conan. And now, Zach and Kristina?

Zach Anner, the comic filmmaker who grew up in Kenmore, tied with Kristina Kuzmic-Crocco and Oprah Winfrey awarded each their own show in the finale Friday night of “Your OWN Show,” a reality TV competition on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

He now gets to host his own show — an inspirational travel program — on Winfrey’s new cable channel.

It’s a dream come true for Anner, who has been making silly sketch comedy videos with his friends and family since he was a little boy.

But it could be more than that.

Anner showed that he’s got what it takes to make it in show business — and it doesn’t See Oprah on Page A2

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Manny Fried, the actor, union organizer and prolific playwright who stood up to McCarthyism and served as an outspoken champion of the working class, died early Friday morning in a Kenmore nursing home. He was 97.

Even until this year, he remained a guiding presence in Buffalo’s theater, literary and social activist communities and was widely regarded as the most important figure on Buffalo’s theater scene.

“He was a passionate, hardworking man devoted to hardworking people,” said Lorrie Rabin, Fried’s daughter. “He was very focused on his politics and his social beliefs. He was a man with a purpose.”

Once dubbed “the most dangerous man in Western New York” for his union-organizing activities and association with the Communist Party, Fried was the subject of government investigations and public recriminations for much of his life. He was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee at least twice, in 1954 and 1964, each time refusing to answer questions posed by the committee or to give names of other suspected communists.

In a 2007 interview, Fried recalled his response to the committee’s questions with a few simple sentences. “My answer will be, I will not answer. The First and the Fifth,” he said, invoking constitutional amendments. “Or in other words, it’s none of your business.”

During the McCarthy era, he was blacklisted and prevented from working

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Police chief says officer opened fire to prevent more injury to colleagues SHOOTING • from A1 An eight-year police veteran, Milkowski found himself pinned between the rear end of the drug suspects’ van and the middle seat of the police van.

As the suspects’ van continued accelerating and pushing deeper into the interior of the police van, the officer drew his weapon and fired to prevent himself and other officers from being harmed further, according to Lackawanna Police Chief James L. Michel.

Milkowski suffered multiple contusions and is now on injured-on-duty leave. He was not the only officer hurt.

The impact of the suspects’ van colliding into the police van threw Officer Chuck Jaworski 15 feet through the air

as he was getting out of the front passenger door.

Like Milkowski, he, too, was transported to Erie County Medical Center, where he was treated and later released; he also is on injured-on-duty leave.

The driver of the police van jumped out of the vehicle just before the other van backed into it. “He yelled, ‘Police, you’re under arrest,’ ” Michel said.

A fourth officer in the van suffered minor bruises.

Earlier, two other unmarked police vehicles had pulled up on either side of suspects’ van, boxing it in at the gas station. With a curb and pile of snow in front of the vehicle, the driver had tried to escape by backing out.

Lackawanna detectives under the command of Capt. Joseph Leo and Erie County sheriff’s narcotics officers led by Senior Detective Alan Rozansky had targeted the individuals in a joint operation based on a tip involving drug sales.

Crack cocaine was found beside the suspects’ van, authorities said. No guns were found. All four have criminal records.

Nailor, 30, of Buffalo, was charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer, a B felony; first-degree reckless endangerment, obstructing governmental administration, third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled

substance, resisting arrest, criminal mischief, loitering, unlawful possession of marijuana and driving with a suspended license.

Megan Costner, 28, and Milton Campbell, 34, both of Buffalo, were charged with third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, fourth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, resisting arrest and loitering.

All three were arraigned Friday before Lackawanna City Court Judge Louis Violanti. Nailor and Campbell were sent to the Erie County Holding Center without bail. Costner was also sent there in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Michel said an investigation into the fatal shooting will be conducted by

U.S. says Gadhafi’s legitimacy ‘reduced to zero’ 120 miles from the capital.

The doctor said 22 people were killed in two days of fighting at the air base and an adjacent civilian airport.

In Washington, President Obama signed an executive order freezing assets held by Gadhafi and four of his children in the United States. The Treasury Department said the sanctions against Gadhafi, three of his sons and a daughter also apply to the Libyan government.

Obama said the U.S. is imposing unilateral sanctions on Libya because continued violence there poses an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to America’s national security and foreign policy.

A White House spokesman said it is clear that Gadhafi’s legitimacy has been “reduced to zero” — the Obama administration’s sharpest words yet.

Associated Press The U.S. also temporarily abandoned its American passengers are welcomed by a embassy in Tripoli as a final flight carrying U.S. Embassy worker in Valletta, Malta, American citizens departed from the capi- after being ferried from Tripoli, Libya. tal.

The U.N. Security Council met to considGadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam, told foreign er possible sanctions against Gadhafi’s regime, including trade sanctions and an journalists invited by the government to arms embargo. Secretary-General Ban Ki- Tripoli that there were no casualties in moon urged it take “concrete action” to Tripoli and that the capital was calm.

Everything is peaceful,” he said. “Peace protect civilians in Libya, saying “the violence must stop” and those responsible for is coming back to our country.”

He said the regime wants negotiations “so brutally shedding blood” must be punwith the opposition and said there were ished.

But Gadhafi vowed to fight on. In the “two minor problems” in Misrata and Zawievening, he appeared before a crowd of ya, another city near the capital held by the more than 1,000 supporters in Green opposition.

There, he said, “we are dealing with terSquare and called on them to fight back rorist people.” But he said he hoped to and “defend the nation.”

“Retaliate against them, retaliate reach a peaceful settlement with them “and against them,” Gadhafi said, speaking by I think by tomorrow we will solve it.”

Earlier Seif was asked in an interview microphone from the ramparts of the Red Castle, a Crusader fort overlooking the with CNN-Turk about the options in the square. Wearing a fur cap, he shook his fist, face of the unrest. telling the crowd: “Dance, sing and pre“Plan A is to live and die in Libya, Plan B pare. Prepare to defend Libya, to defend the is to live and die in Libya, Plan C is to live oil, dignity and independence.” and die in Libya,” he replied.

He warned, “At the suitable time, we The marches in the capital were the first will open the arms depot so all Libyans and major attempt by protesters to break a tribes become armed, so that Libya be- clampdown that pro-Gadhafi militiamen comes red with fire.” have imposed on Tripoli since the begin-

ning of the week, when dozens were killed by gunmen roaming the street, shooting people on sight.

Friday morning and Thursday night, text messages were sent urging protesters to stream out of mosques after noon prayers, saying, “Let us make this Friday the Friday of liberation,” residents said.

In response, militiamen set up heavy security around many mosques in the city, trying to prevent any opposition gatherings. Armed young men with green armbands to show their support for Gadhafi set up checkpoints on many streets, stopping cars and searching them. Tanks and checkpoints lined the road to Tripoli’s airport, witnesses said.

After prayers, protesters flowed out of mosques, converging into marches from several neighborhoods, heading toward Green Square. But they were hit almost immediately by militiamen, a mix of Libyans and foreign mercenaries.

“We can’t see where it is coming from,” one protester said of the gunfire. “They don’t want to stop.”

In the nearby Souq al-Jomaa district, witnesses reported four killed as gunmen fired from rooftops. “There are all kind of bullets,” said one man in the crowd, screaming in a telephone call to the AP, with the rattle of gunfire audible in the background.

Another protester was reported killed in the Fashloum district.

After nightfall, protesters dispersed, and regime supporters prowled the streets, a resident said. As they have on past nights this week, many blockaded streets into their neighborhoods to prevent militiamen and strangers from entering.

Meanwhile, Libya’s delegation to the United Nations in Geneva announced Friday it was defecting to the opposition, and it was given a standing ovation at a gathering of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Libya’s 11-member Arab League mission also announced its resignation in protest of the crackdown.

Disability community was rooting for Anner OPRAH • from A1 really matter that he happens to have cerebral palsy and uses an electric wheelchair.

“I know that it’s obviously going to be the first thing people see the first time they see me,” Anner said. “Eventually, I hope that we get to a point in our culture where it’s not like, ‘Oh, that’s a guy in a wheelchair who does travel videos.’ That it’s ‘Oh, Zach’s a guy who does travel videos and he’s really good at his job.’ That it’s not really an issue. I think that’s where we’re headed.”

The disability community has taken notice of Anner — and they are rooting for him.

“It’s about time,” cheered Todd Vaarwerk, director of advocacy and public policy for Western New York Independent Living.

He, like Anner, has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. He even grew up in Kenmore.

Vaarwerk is especially excited about how Anner’s show, by focusing on travel, will shed light on the fact that people with disabilities aren’t consumed with their disabilities — a common misconception, he said.

Peter Blanck, who heads a disabilities advocacy center at Syracuse University, called Anner’s appearance on Winfrey’s show “a watershed moment.”

“Who would have thought 20 years ago that something like this could happen,” said Blanck, chairman of the Burton Blatt Institute. “Historically, it’s been out of sight, out of mind.

Now, we have it right in the cultural mainstream.”

Blanck, who speaks extensively about the portrayal of

people with disabilities in the media, commended Winfrey for picking Anner.

“It’s a very important move by the network,” he said. “She isn’t just including him. It sounds to me . . . that he’s included on his merits. He’s a funny and engaging guy. At the end of the day, that’s what will keep him on the air, not that people feel sorry for him but because he’s funny and smart.”

He also called it an economically “shrewd move,” pointing out that there are 50 million Americans with disabilities.

“Now, there’s a whole new market” for Oprah’s network, he said.

Jim Boles, chief executive officer of the Museum of disABILITY History in Amherst, believes Anner will be an inspiration “to people who have a disability and people that don’t.”

Anner “competed with what looks like to me a lot of talented people,” Boles said. “It will inspire people to see them competing and maybe winning.”

Joie Buddington, who runs People in Places, an East Aurora organization that arranges travel tours for people with developmental disabilities, was thrilled to see that Anner is hosting a travel show.

“You can get to know people when you see them travel,” she said. “It really shows how people’s abilities are common. Special needs are more than a wheelchair. It can be anything.

There can be all kinds of assistance any of us could need to access when we travel. He really speaks to that with vision.”

Anner’s family couldn’t be prouder of their son.

“He deserves it,” said his

mother, Susan Anner, a University at Buffalo theater lecturer who lives in Amherst.

“Oprah has this thing: that there’s no such thing as luck,” she said. “It’s when preparation meets opportunity. That’s what this is. This is his opportunity, and he was ready for it. He’s been working on this for years.”

Anner’s family made it a point to make sure his disability didn’t get in the way of his life.

“When you have a child with a disability, you’re really apt to focus on the disability,” she said. “I always saw him for him, what he needs. He needs to have fun. He needs to have friends.”

She believes that Anner grew up so well-adjusted because, after spending kindergarten in a Special Ed program, he was mainstreamed into a regular classroom from his prefirst grade class at Lindbergh Elementary School. An aide worked with him.

“He excelled,” she said. “He did great.”

He continued going to regular classes at Kenmore Middle and later Kenmore West High, but he ended up missing a lot of school because he had health problems, common for people with cerebral palsy. He went to UB for a year but decided to transfer to the University of Texas in Austin to study filmmaking. He also found it easier to get around Austin compared with Buffalo, with its harsh winters.

Susan Anner wasn’t crazy about the idea of her son leaving Buffalo. She told him if he was willing to fill out the application himself and got accepted, he could go.

“He did and got accepted,”

she said. “I had to follow through.”

Her son quickly adapted to living independently, she said.

But she, of course, looks forward to when he comes home.

Now, watching him on TV, she’s been overwhelmed with emotion.

“I feel like he’s always had this in him,” she said. “I’m still surprised by how composed he is.”

Anner’s father, Jonathan, of the City of Tonawanda, said his son has been wanting to do a travel show for a long time.

He took Zach and his brother on a trip to Europe in 2000.

Jonathan Anner, who watched the finale Friday night at the Scotch-N-Sirloin in Amherst where he tends bar, said he knew his son would win.

“I’m thrilled,” he said. “If he can get five or six episodes of a show, I think he can really show his stuff.”

Anner’s goal is to stay true to himself, no matter what happens.

“The reason that I’m in this position is because I’ve found a way to be myself,” he said.

“That’s the hardest thing to be — yourself. I think it is for all of us.”

He’s well aware that his starring role on his own show will make him a pioneer for people with disabilities.

“Even though there’s a lot of responsibility,” he said, “as long as I’m myself, then I’m on the right path. As long as I can stay true to my values and who I am, that pressure is lifted somewhat . . . That’s the message I want to get out there: Find a way to be true to yourself.” e-mail: mbecker@buffnews.com

his department and the Sheriff’s Office “under the strict supervision of the Erie County District Attorney’s Office.”

Attorney Thomas H. Burton, who is representing Milkowski, said his client could have lost both his legs if it had not been for the cushioning of the van seat he was pinned against.

“This arrest attempt turned bad for the cops in a second. It’s an example of why street officers can never let their guard down,” Burton said. “It doesn’t get much worse, having the back of a vehicle come at you through an open door. This officer had no other choice [but to shoot]. He could have left that scene with no lower legs.” e-mail: lmichel@buffnews.com

He was blacklisted during McCarthy era FRIED • from A1

On the Web

View photos of Manny Fried in the United States by the Fed- through the years at eral Bureau of Investigation. He galleries.buffalonews.com found work at a Canadian company as an insurance salesman.

But Fried, whose friends de- falo family, to whom he was scribed him as stoic and unwa- married for 48 years. vering in his convictions, was The Lurie family owned the no Willy Loman. For the rest of Park Lane Restaurant and his life, he continued to write apartment building on Gates and speak out about the per- Circle, once considered the nexceived abuses of the govern- us of Buffalo’s upper-class social ment and the plight of the life. Fried made no secret that working class in his plays, es- straddling the world of laborsays, newspaper articles and organizing and the rarefied sopublic appearances. cial atmosphere of the Park In 1972, he began his tenure Lane was often a tenuous balas an English and creative writ- ancing act. That struggle, like ing professor at Buffalo State much else in Fried’s life, found College, where he remained on its way into his writing, in the full-time faculty until 1983 pieces like the 2007 one-man and taught as an adjunct pro- show “Boilermakers and Marfessor until 2008. During his tinis” and last year’s memoir, time at Buffalo State, he men- “Most Dangerous Man.” tored dozens of local playMindy Fried, Manny’s other wrights. daughter, remembered her faFried drew on his experi- ther as a man of ironclad will, ences as a labor organizer for an attribute he said came from his writing, which focused pri- his own parents, who struggled marily on the plight of working through hardships of their own. men and women. In a career “He had incredible integrity, that spanned more than eight and I learned the value of decades, Fried penned more standing up for what you bethan two dozen plays, including lieve in despite the odds,” Minthe commercially successful dy Fried said. “I think he suf“Drop Hammer” and “Dodo fered a lot through his life but Bird,” each of which has been continued to be a loving and frequently produced outside of giving person. The older he got, Buffalo. the more generous he became.”

Emanuel J. Fried was born Darleen Pickering HumMarch 1, 1913 in Brooklyn to mert, Fried’s longtime friend Austro-Hungarian immigrants. and director of Theater for His family relocated a few years Change, called him “absolutely later to Buffalo, where his fa- the patriarch” of the Western ther operated a dry goods store New York theater world, a man on Genesee Street. He attended who mentored dozens of playSchools 37 and 47 and Hutchin- wrights and helped to create son-Central High School. and foster several local organiAs a boy, Fried worked as a zations. bellhop and elevator operator “He had so many different at downtown hotels, a concescommunities that he touched: sionaire at Offerman Stadium Buffalo State College, the labor and as a theater usher, shoe community, the theater comsalesman and newsboy. munity and numerous others,” At the urging of a high Hummert said. “Loyalty was his school teacher, Mr. Fried wrote middle name.” his first play at 14, about the Actress Rosalind Cramer, prostitutes he met while working as a bellboy at the Ford Ho- who worked with Fried on the tel at Delaware Avenue and Buffalo theater scene for more than 30 years, said he was “an Chippewa Street.

Under the stage name Ed- unforgettable personality.”

“He always had an idea in ward Mann, Fried appeared in many plays on Broadway and his head. He always wanted to on national tours, including do something. He always want“Having a Wonderful Time,” ed to write something or per“American Way,” “Crime and form something,” Cramer said.

Punishment” and “They Shall “He made everyone that he was Not Die.” He worked with with feel that they were impormembers of the famed Group tant to him. And they were.”

Theatre in New York City and In 2008, the Subversive Thewas a close friend of its most atre Collective christened its prominent member, the theater new space, in a former factory and film director Elia Kazan. on Great Arrow Avenue, the After moving back to Buffalo Manny Fried Playhouse. in 1939, Fried served as coAs Fried’s health declined chairman of the UAW-CIO Vol- over the past two years, friends unteer Organizing Committee visited him in his Kenmore asat the Curtiss-Wright airplane sisted living facility during a factory, where he worked as a weekly event called “Mondays template maker. On behalf of with Manny,” inspired by United Electrical, Radio and Fried’s well-received perforMachine Workers of America, mance in a 2005 Studio Arena known as the UE, he organized Theatre production of “Tuesworkers at Wurlitzer, Spaulding days with Morrie.” Another Fibre, Buffalo Bolt, Columbus gathering had been scheduled McKinnon, Wales-Strippit, for this coming Monday, a day Pratt & Letchworth, Otis Eleva- before his 98th birthday. tor and Blaw-Knox.

Fried often boasted that he During World War II, Fried came from good stock — his served with the 20th Infantry in mother lived to be 99 and his fathe Pacific Theater and rose to ther 97.

Regarding his political the rank of first lieutenant beenemies, most of whom passed fore being discharged in Noaway decades ago, Fried would vember 1945. often reply: “Living longer is the He also served for a short best revenge.” time as director of the Buffalo He is survived by his daughContemporary Theatre, a company that produced plays about ters. M A memorial service is the working class. It was at a planned for 11 a.m. Sunday in Buffalo Contemporary Theatre the Chapel at Forest Lawn. variety show that he met his future wife, Rhoda Lurie, the e-mail: daughter of an aristocratic Buf- cdabkowski@buffnews.com

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The Buffalo News FEBRUARY 12, 2012 » SECTION F

Illuminating the arts, style, people + ideas.

Interview: Soledad O’Brien talks about kids, career and upcoming King event speech. Page F3.

People Talk: Couples counselor Rene Jones is an expert on keeping it together. Page F5.

Books: Former lawyer makes a compelling argument for the introverted in ‘Quiet.’ Page F10.

Travel: Fascinating, feisty Bucharest – once known as ‘Little Paris’ – rises from its past. Page F14.

spotlight

Blacklisted in Buffalo A REVIEW OF FBI COLD WAR CASE FILES REVEALS J. EDGAR HOOVER’S INTENSE SURVEILLANCE CAMPAIGN TARGETING MILTON ROGOVIN AND MANNY FRIED

By Colin Dabkowski

O NEWS

ARTS

CRITIC

n Feb. 3, 1967, a thin man in his mid­50s with graying hair and thick glasses walked into the downtown Buffalo office of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines on Court Street. ¶ The man, who refused to give his name, told the clerk he was planning a European vacation and might leave within the next two or three weeks. His travels would take him first to Basel, Switzerland, then to Prague and possibly on to Bucharest, Romania. From there, he said, he was hoping to travel to Chernovtsky, a small town just over the Romanian border in the Soviet Republic of the Ukraine. ¶ Later that day, FBI agents paid their own visit to the KLM clerk.

They pressed her for the specifics of the conversation, which she recounted in ex­ quisite detail, and asked her to select the man’s picture out of a photo lineup. There was no mistaking who it was. ¶ Milton Rogovin, the noted former communist whose every move the FBI had been tracking for the past 30 years, was heading for enemy territory.

The Working Man Rogovin died in January 2011 at the age of 101 after a long and successful career as an internationally regarded social documentary photographer. A review of a 591­page section of his FBI file obtained by The News through his son, Mark, reveals a federal agency nurs­ ing a 40­year obsession with a man it saw as a central figure in the Communist Party ap­ paratus of Western New York – long past the time he fit that description.

While the FBI was bringing the full breadth of its international intelligence net­ work to bear on the comings and goings of Rogovin here and abroad, it was also keeping tabs on another former communist’s activi­ ties at home.

Manny Fried, the union organizer, play­ wright and left­wing fire­ brand who died last February at 97, was

himself the subject of decades of FBI scruti­ ny beginning in the early 1940s and extend­ ing into the ’90s. That information is com­ piled in a file that likely exceeds 5,000 pages.

Portions of Fried’s file, which often show the FBI to be concerned as much with its own image as with the activities of its subject, were obtained by The News through Fried’s daugh­ ters, Mindy Fried and Lorrie Rabin.

The documents about both men are chronicles of invasiveness and paranoia on a grand scale. They tell us as much about an era of mounting national anxiety as they do about the lives of Fried and Rogovin. They were compiled at a time when the United States was facing the palpable threat of nu­ clear war with the Soviet Union, which led the government to infringe on the rights and freedoms of individual Americans.

“It was a part of the general climate, that people were afraid to be associated with somebody who was [a communist],” said See Blacklist on Page F2

During the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s and ’60s, Buffalo's Milton Rogovin, top, and Manny Fried were the subjects of constant surveillance from the FBI and negative coverage in the press. Sections of their FBI files reveal the shocking extent of that surveillance.

Buffalo News photo illustration; News file photos

FEBRUARY 17-19 Tickets: call 1-800-745-3000, Shea’s Ticket Office, 650 Main St., www.ticketmaster.com – Variety

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“THE BEATLES ARE BACK!”

Shows, dates, times, prices, artists subject to change.

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, February 12, 2012

Continued from Spotlight Cover

Families felt the pressure of FBI watch BLACKLIST • From F1 Mindy Fried. “If you were to put it in the context of our language, we would say that person is a terrorist.

Because he is associated with the Soviet Union, with the overthrow of the government, they didn’t really look at it as a union organizer who is trying to get good wages for the workers. It was really blown up as something much more terrifying.”

Each of these men – two among dozens of Western New Yorkers with communist ties closely watched by the FBI during the height of McCarthyism and after – were de­ scribed in the Buffalo press at some point as the most dangerous or prominent communist in Western New York. Each man was on the per­ sonal radar of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and occupied the upper ech­ elons of Hoover’s secret index of sub­ versive Americans to be rounded up in the event of war with the Soviets.

But today, a year after their deaths and decades after the FBI’s intrusion into their personal lives pushed each into successful careers in the arts and activism, their reputations as accom­ plished American artists and com­ munity heroes are secure.

Both men, guided by a belief in human equality that predated any of their artistic or political activities, joined the Communist Party in the late 1930s. For that reason, each be­ came the subject of intense scrutiny from Hoover’s FBI, which recorded thousands of minute details from their public and private lives through surveillance operations and armies of paid informants.

What follows are a few snapshots from the lives of Rogovin and Fried during the height of the McCarthy period in the 1950s and ’60s, when Hoover’s well­oiled domestic spying machine pursued its subjects with re­ lentless and sometimes blind ambition.

••• n 1967, the information the FBI collected from the KLM airline clerk Rogovin spoke with in Buffalo quickly made its way up the agency’s chain of command and land­ ed on the desk of Hoover himself.

In an urgent memo to Richard Helms, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Hoover wrote that the FBI had alerted its own legal attaches (or foreign offices) in Bern, Switzerland; Bonn, Germany; London, Paris and Rome that the Rogovins might be en route and to report back on their activities while they were in Europe.

“This Bureau, however, would ap­ preciate any pertinent information your Agency may receive concerning the Rogovins,” Hoover added, hoping to supplement his own agency’s re­ sources with those of the CIA. FBI offices across Europe sent back acknowledgments of Hoover’s heads­up, all of which are completely redacted in the file.

However, the last page of memos from this period indicates that, to the best of the FBI’s knowledge, the planned trip never took place.

Hoover’s letter – which suggested nothing less than the full activation of the United States’ vast internation­ al security apparatus – was the latest in a long series of false alarms.

••• n February 1954, Emanuel J. Fried received a subpoena to ap­ pear before the House Un­ American Activities Committee in Albany, an instrument ostensibly de­ signed to root out dangerous commu­ nists that tarred the reputations of thousands of left­leaning Americans.

Fried would later challenge the constitutional legitimacy of the com­ mittee, prompting Albert Einstein to write Fried a letter of support. But at the time, he worried about how to approach the hearing.

“I still don’t know what I’m going to do,” Fried wrote in his diary, ex­ cerpts of which his daughters shared with The News. “I have considered using the 5th amendment. It says that you don’t have to say anything on the grounds that it might incrimi­ nate you or make you a criminal.

Informers keep showing up pretend­ ing to be somebody else. [Daughters] Mindy and Lorrie are losing friends at school. I can tell the FBI is tapping into our telephone. Sometimes they breathe heavily and I can hear them.”

••• n Jan. 5, 1954, Milton Rogovin sat in the Mexico City airport calmly reading a newspaper

Buffalo News photo illustration

The FBI’s decades-long investigations into Milton Rogovin and Manny Fried yielded thousands of pages of documents, detailing everything from their physical condition to trips out of town. Documents included a 1955 FBI memo (left) describing Rogovin and his wife as they left Buffalo for Mexico, an anti-Communist union flier about Fried and a document signed by J. Edgar Hoover that argued for Fried’s inclusion on a list of dangerous Americans. (For a deeper look into the FBI files of Milton Rogovin and Manny Fried, visit www.buffalonews.com.)

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Fried’s daughters could tell the phones were tapped, too. Though the period was difficult for Lorrie, she tried to find the humor in it.

“I had a girlfriend, at 11 years old, we thought it was a hoot. And we would tell 11­year­old­type dirty jokes to entertain the FBI. [My friend] and I would get on the phone and we’d talk, telling the kinds of jokes that 11­ year­olds think are funny,” she said.

••• n 1957, Milton Rogovin was called to testify before a House Un­American Activities Committee hearing in Buffalo – an event that caused him and his wife to cut their official ties to the local Communist Party and in some ways launched Rogovin on his career as a social documentary photographer.

During that hearing, its director, Richard Arens, an aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy, responded angrily to Rogovin’s refusal to answer questions about ties between his trip to Mexico and the attempted assassination of former President Harry Truman by Puerto Rican nationalists.

“It is a pretty serious charge to level against a man,” Arens said, “that he is a member of an organiza­ tion that has been repeatedly, by Government agencies, including the courts, found to be part of an inter­ national apparatus of a foreign pow­ er on American soil, operating to de­ stroy this country. We would like to give you, therefore, an opportunity, as any red­blooded American ought to have, to deny, while he is under oath, that he is part of that appara­ tus. ... Do you care to avail yourself of the opportunity to stand up here and deny while you are under oath that you are a member of the Communist apparatus in this community?”

Rogovin talked with his lawyer for a moment and responded, like so many before and after him: “I de­ cline to answer on the basis of the first and the fifth amendments.” In so doing, he sealed his reputation as a public enemy in the eyes of the FBI, which only pursued him more in­ tensely thereafter.

••• ife in the Fried household in the 1950s, as Lorrie Rabin recalled, came with its own set of rituals.

“It was our household version of the parents needing to teach the child to beware of strangers. I remember as a very young child: ‘Men might come up to you and ask you where Daddy is in the evenings. And you are to not say anything. You’re not to talk to them because they’re dangerous peo­ ple,’” she recalled. “This is my dad and my mother telling me this, when I was 10 years old, 11 years old, around the time of the first subpoena. They’d say, ‘What are you going to say? Let’s role­play this, what are you going to say?’ It got scary.”

••• n the early 1960s, after spying on Milton Rogovin for 20 years and driving him and his wife out of the communist party in 1957, the FBI tried to turn him into an informant.

“If the subject is cooperative, con­ siderable past history of the CP in

Getty Images

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, seen here in 1953, made sure the FBI kept close tabs on Fried and Rogovin.

while an FBI special agent snapped at least seven pictures of him from a distance. In one of the photos, repro­ duced in extremely low­quality pho­ tocopies in his FBI file, Rogovin seems to stare directly at the camera with an angry expression on his face.

The bureau’s legal attache in Mexico City, alerted by the Buffalo FBI office that past December, had been trailing Rogovin and his wife around the country for a month and a half.

During the Rogovins’ time in Mexico, agents recorded license plate numbers and interviewed hotel staff as the couple moved from one hotel to the next in Mexico City.

The FBI followed the Rogovins to the southern Mexican region of Oaxaca, a subsequent report said, where they met with a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (the leftist organization of volunteers who fought against Franco during the Spanish Civil War), who had ties to American communists in Mexico and to the blacklisted screenwriter Albert Maltz.

Agents watched the Rogovins as they visited museums and friends’ apartments, as they ate in restaurants and took snapshots of ancient ruins.

One report included the observation that, aside from innocuous interac­ tions with left­leaning people and or­ ganizations, the couple’s activities “ap­ pear to be those of the ordinary tourist in that they visited most of the locali­ ties of normal tourist attractions.”

A year later, FBI agents at the Buffalo airport observed Rogovin, dressed in a “tan trench coat, black suit, carrying tan leather camera bag” and Ann, “dressed in gray coat, carrying black handbag, low heeled shoes, hatless, straight black hair bobbed below ears” as they departed for Mexico again.

They telegraphed that information to Mexico City, but the FBI office there lost tabs on the couple when they switched their travel plans at the last minute. This time, much to the cha­ grin of the FBI, the Rogovins man­ aged to leave Mexico City for Acapulco and head back to the United States before the feds caught on.

••• mmediately after his testimony before the House Un­American Activities Committee in early

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1954, life for Fried and his family changed dramatically. Neighbors and friends cut them off. Fried’s 11­year­ old daughter, Lorrie, lost her best friend and was shut out of neighbor­ hood carpools.

Fried’s wife, Rhoda, found the stress and social ostracism almost im­ possible to bear. As informants and agents were circling him and his fam­ ily as they went about their daily lives and with his position as a labor leader under increasing fire, Fried was strug­ gling to hold his life together.

Then, this happened: The I.U.E., an electrical workers union that had formed seven years prior, put out a flier smearing Fried, who was still working for the I.A.M., a rival union representing machin­ ists and aerospace workers.

The flier featured two pictures of a young Fried, one tinted red to rep­ resent his communist association. It warned workers not to associate with him or to vote to join the I.A.M. “HE is a Communist,” the flier warned. “His name is MANNY FRIED. HE has red hair. HE wears glasses. HE has been identified by sworn testimony before Congressional Committees as a Communist. HAS HE BEEN IN YOUR HOUSE? If he calls on you, remember, he is a COMMU­ NIST, an enemy of America.”

A report from his FBI file in 1956 showed that the FBI was well aware of the pressure its activities were put­ ting on Fried’s wife and children.

According to an informant, the re­ port stated, the couple’s children “have been having difficulty with other children who were not allowed to associate with Mannie’s children because of Mannie’s activities.”

“My best friend down the street was told not to play with me, and that was huge because she and I hung out all the time,” Lorrie Rabin recalled. “I went to dancing school on Saturday nights, and none of the parents would allow me in their car­ pool because I was the communist child. My mother became sort of like a lioness – she was going to protect her child. What a big memory I have of her getting on the phone and call­ ing and calling and calling and final­ ly finding a parent who would allow me into a carpool.”

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Buffalo could be verified through him,” a 1961 report said. “Subject could provide considerable informa­ tion regarding individual members of the CP in the past, possibly reveal some foreign contacts, could show where sources of income for the CP exist and because of his regard by the CP as a theoretician and student of Marxism, could gain a useful posi­ tion in the CP from which he could be of great future assistance.”

On June 19, 1961, two FBI agents approached Rogovin near his Chippewa Street optometry busi­ ness. When the agents identified themselves, Rogovin was abrupt but respectful. “I have nothing I wish to discuss with the FBI,” he said. “If you think there is something wrong there are certain legal procedures you can go through.”

“It is noted,” the report states, “that although subject spoke brusquely, he was visibly nervous, breathing quickly and beginning to perspire immediate­ ly after [Special Agent] [redacted] in­ troduced himself.”

Undeterred, the FBI tried again several times to confront and inter­ view Rogovin. Each time he refused to speak to the agents, until his temper got the best of him on June 3, 1964.

“You’ve got a G– d–­ nerve stopping to talk to me!” Rogovin yelled at the two agents who approached him outside his office. “If you have anything to talk to me about, take me to court!”

After that, the FBI gave up on try­ ing to turn Milton Rogovin into a do­ mestic spy.

••• y 1955, Fried was already de­ termined to put his experi­ ences with the FBI and HUAC into the form of literature. That spring, he sent out copies of the first chapter of his novel “The Un­ American,” in which he wrote about the struggles of a fictional family per­ secuted by a right­wing witch hunt, in hopes of finding a publisher.

The FBI was paying attention.

Someone who received a copy of the pamphlet promptly sent it to the bu­ reau, where it was treated with grave importance, not for its national secu­ rity implications, but for how it might make the agency look.

“This matter will be followed close­ ly in an effort to obtain further infor­ mation concerning the proposed book, especially in order to determine if there are any unfavorable references to the Bureau contained therein.”

A later report, which argued for Fried’s continued inclusion on Hoover’s Security Index of leftist citi­ zens to be detained in case of a na­ tional security emergency, noted that the FBI did not attempt to interview Fried. “Because of his theatrical sense and activity,” the report said, “there is a real probability subject would use such an attempt as an opportunity to cause embarrassment to the Bureau.”

Fried and Rogovin, whose artistic work could be seen as one collective indictment of misplaced power, spent the rest of their careers prov­ ing them right.

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email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

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The Buffalo News JANUARY 8, 2012 » SECTION F

Illuminating the arts, style, people + ideas.

People Talk: This Abraham Lincoln fan travels back in time through coins, stamps. Page F3.

Music: BPO’s ‘Polish Masterworks’ a reminder of beauty that lies outside our door. Page F6.

Books: Darcy, Wickham and crew return in P.D. James’ ‘Death Comes to Pemberley.’ Page F10.

Travel: Experiencing the singular beauty of the Grand Canyon in winter. Page F14.

spotlight

STILL’S SEARCH FOR THE SUBLIME Striking new Denver museum honors the eccentric artist’s wish that his monumental abstract works be housed in one place

Courtesy Clyfford Still Museum

Still’s vision: The violent swirl of black shapes on a crimson canvas, above, makes up Clyfford Still’s massive painting “1949, No. 1” in Denver’s Clyfford Still Museum. At right, an AlbrightKnox Art Gallery visitor ponders Still’s famous work “1957-D, No. 1.”

News file photo

By Colin Dabkowski NEWS ARTS CRITIC

D

ENVER – Coming face to face with Clyfford Still’s monumental painting “1957-D, No. 1” for the first time, certain people experience something like a religious conversion.

For these worshipers at the altar of Still, there is something intoxicating about the scale of the canvas, which occupies a 9-by-13-foot stretch of wall space and dominates any room in which it happens to hang.

Viewers drink in its craggy yellow lines set against a background of deepest black and allow themselves to be shaken by Still’s metaphysical intent. Some have claimed that the painting makes them physically dizzy, as if they might trip and tumble headlong into the canvas.

Works like this, the irascible artist once proclaimed, “are not paintings in the usual sense; they are life and death merging in fearful union.”

That’s all well and good.

See Still on Page F4

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, January 8, 2012

Continued from Spotlight Cover

Jeremy Bittermann

A shrine to Still: Denver’s new Clyfford Still Museum, which sits in the shadow of the massive Denver Art Museum, was designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture. The exterior of the building, which opened Nov. 18, is made from concrete cast onsite, while the interior was designed to highlight Still’s paintings.

Albright-Knox yields Still ranking to Denver STILL • From F1 But when many visitors peer into the black and yellow canvas in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, they feel nothing. For them, it’s an encrypted message with no cipher, a Magic Eye painting that refuses to come into focus. And all those reverent Stillgrims, standing before the canvas with eyes wide and jaws agape, seem like idolaters.

What’s missing is connective tissue, something to bridge the gap between the Albright-Knox’s extensive trove of mature paintings by Still, who lived from 1904 to 1980, and his half-mad desire to transmute oil paint and linen canvas into the very stuff of life and death.

What’s missing is proof.

For decades, that proof sat under lock and key in a Maryland warehouse, awaiting a temple.

Now, at long last, that temple is complete, and the keys to unlock the long-hidden brilliance of Clyfford Still have been unearthed.

Raul Garcia

Still goes West

On a small patch of land in downtown Denver’s bustling Civic Center Cultural Complex, a modest concrete building stands in the shadow of the Denver Art Museum, a massive piece of stainless-steel origami designed by Daniel Libeskind.

The Clyfford Still Museum, which opened to the public on Nov. 18, contains a stunning 94 percent of Still’s existing work – nearly everything the artist ever painted or drew – along with most of his personal effects. That adds up to 825 paintings, 1,575 works on paper, Still’s extensive libraries of books and music, even his crinkled old maps and weathered baseball gloves.

The opening of the museum ended the nearly 50-year reign of Buffalo’s Albright-Knox as the largest museum repository of Still’s works in the world, with 33 of the artist’s paintings. The gallery now happily relinquishes that distinction to Denver.

The construction of the 28,500square-foot Still Museum was the fulfillment of perhaps the oddest last will and testament in 20th century art. In it, Still stipulated that the bulk of his estate would go to an American city that would construct a museum dedicated solely to its study, exhibition and preservation.

That Still had the temerity to demand a permanent and exclusive shrine to his work is remarkable

Out of the shadows: Denver sunlight pours into the second-floor galleries of the Clyfford Still Museum, above. One of Still’s early paintings, from 1936, reflected his lifelong interest in painting about human struggle and aspiration.

enough. That he got almost exactly what he was after, 31 years after his death, is a testament to the artist’s foresight, his legendary ego and his supreme confidence in the cultural value of his art.

The 2004 announcement that Denver would build the museum came after decades of speculation about whether the artist’s wish would ever come to fruition.

“Unless a heretofore unnoticed City of Gold surfaces somewhere, Still’s museum will not likely become a reality,” News art critic Richard Huntington wrote on the occasion of a major Still exhibition in 1993. “Meanwhile, we must settle for miracles piecemeal.”

What the Clyfford Still Museum promises are miracles wholesale, which Still acolytes and neophytes alike hope will bring the artist’s reputation out of the shadows – in which he purposely hid it – and into the full light of recognition.

“It’s the most important museum project of my generation,” said Dean Sobel, the director of the new museum and former chief curator at the Milwaukee Art Museum, on a brilliantly sunny Denver morning in early December. Sobel, whose musings on Still hew to the academic rather than the metaphysical, has been saying that an awful lot lately. And with good reason.

“This isn’t just a new wing to

put all this stuff in .... This is a whole life’s work that has been sealed away, of one of the most important American artists ever,” Sobel said. “And his role in abstract expressionism, which was probably the most important American art movement, was an unsung story that we’re really anxious to tell.”

That story begins to sing even as you approach the building, a gem of understated design by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture. From outside and within, the building feels entirely of a piece, as if it had been chiseled out of a single block of concrete.

The outside of the museum is made of concrete cast at the construction site using a system of spaced boards. This created a series of ragged vertical lines that (whether intentionally or not) mimic the verticality of Still’s paintings and cast beautifully rugged shadows in Denver’s ethereal, highaltitude sunlight.

The first floor, which one enters through an unobtrusive door that does not announce itself (a bit like the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s hidden entrance), is a simple space with a single retail cart, offices, a hallway of educational screens and vitrines, and a free-floating staircase ascending to the main galleries.

The real magic starts on the second floor, where morning light pours through high skylights, filtered by a concrete ceiling that looks like the inside of a cheese grater. As the sun rises and its light intensifies, the museum’s overhead bulbs gradually dim and the natural light takes over. This allows visitors to see Still’s canvases in vastly different lighting conditions, from the spotlighting of the bulbs to the allover crispness of the Denver sun.

“This is really effective, to be able to see what I sometimes call the natural habitat, the way Still always intended his work to be seen,” Sobel said. “Buffalo and San Francisco” – where another major Still collection resides – “were really kind of rehearsals or warm-ups for that.”

The inaugural exhibition itself, co-curated by Sobel and Still scholar David Anfam, is a revelation from start to finish.

The story begins immediately upon entry to the museum, where visitors are likely to hear the disembodied voice of Albright-Knox Chief Curator Douglas Dreishpoon, who appears along with Sobel and Anfam in a series of excellent minidocumentaries on the life and work of the artist.

Along with glimpses into Still’s personal collection of books, his pointed and sometimes vituperative correspondence and road maps for places like Buffalo and San Francisco, the first floor features an interactive timeline that places Still’s work in the context of 20th century art and culture.

It’s a sly way to get around Still’s requirement that no other artist’s work be shown in the museum: his will didn’t explicitly rule out touch screens.

“This is actually a good screen, with Picasso and Hitler and ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ “ Sobel said, pausing to run his finger across the digital timeline. “Still overlapped with some very un-Clyfford Still kinds of things: the Beatles or Bob Dylan, the Sex Pistols.”

The exhibition proper begins with Still’s early work, a great deal of which he painted while living in Alberta, Canada. Visitors immediately encounter two Turneresque landscapes of city and sky from the late 1920s, each one fractured by a supernatural vertical tear in the firmament.

That jarring line running like a wound from God’s jagged fingernail across the surface of the canvas seems to presage the vertical shapes that would appear in the monumental canvases that brought Still to prominence in the art world during the 1940s and ’50s. It’s easy to imagine that scar in the sky as the first rip through which the artist’s genius would begin to trickle.

As the country struggled through the Great Depression in the 1930s, Still focused his attention on the human figure, painting skeletal portraits of farmers and their wives. As the decade wore on, these figures began to dissolve into increasingly abstract, expressionistic shapes. Still’s work from this dark period sometimes juxtaposed man and machine, fusing images of gears and bones into vaguely frightening tableaux.

For me, these surprising and unexpected canvases – “Most people blindfolded and dropped into this room wouldn’t know these were Clyfford Stills,” Sobel said – called to mind a potent paragraph from “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” James Agee’s famous chronicle of Southern sharecroppers during the ’30s: “If I could do it,” Agee wrote, “I’d do no writing at all here. It would be photographs; the rest would be fragments of cloth, bits of cotton, lumps of earth, records of speech, See Still on Page F5

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, January 8, 2012

Spotlight: Art While looking at the paintings in the Albright-Knox collection alone might lead one to believe that Still was after something very dark, this exhibition reveals what may have been his true ambition: to capture the resilience and irrepressibility of human life against daunting odds.

Courtesy Clyfford Still Museum

Evolution of an artist: As Still’s vision expanded, his portrayal of the human figure, still obviously visible in the 1937 painting at left, began to dissolve into abstract shapes (the middle painting from 1942) and eventually to the vertical lines and blobs (the painting at right, from 1949) that would characterize his most famous work.

Journey toward abstract

The will of Still

BY COLIN DABKOWSKI

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STILL • From F4 pieces of wood and iron, phials of odors, plates of food and of excrement. Booksellers would consider it quite a novelty; critics would murmur, yes, but is it art; and I could trust a majority of you to use it as you would a parlor game.”

The paintings that emerged from Still’s formative years in the ’30s were directed at the same goal. They strive toward the impossible task of representing even a small sliver of human life in the 20th century – in all its horror, triumph and need for redemption – through paint and canvas.

Still’s journey away from the figure continued into the ’40s, when his work took a sharp turn for the abstract. By then, his bodies – almost Baconian with their contorted shapes and absence of skin – transform into wispy vertical lines, mere suggestions of the human form that would eventually reference nothing but themselves.

It’s at this point that Still signs the final papers in his fiery divorce from European modernism and really begins to find (that is, to lose) his footing. In paintings like “1944 N. No. 1,” a canvas layered thickly with black paint and traversed by a serpentine red line – what’s left of those standing figures of the ’30s – this man has struck out into the great unknown.

After that, all bets are off. Still’s creativity, confidence and ego take him into the phenomenally inventive paintings of the late ’40s, in which expertly rendered blotches of color create landscapes that, if you look long enough and try not to think too much about it, can start to feel as big and as frightening as the world.

Indeed, monumentality was one of Still’s trademarks. His paintings exist on a scale meant to suggest the infinite, perhaps even to evoke the spiritual. Buffalo’s great 1957 Still accomplishes this feeling of awe mixed with dread – at least for those who allow themselves to have it – as well as anything on view in this exhibition.

But the context the Clyfford Still Museum provides and the story it tells help newcomers to Still’s work appreciate his work in entirely new ways. That sense is also on luminous display in paintings like “1949-No.1,” one of Sobel’s favorites, a masterful swirl of phantasmal red shapes sailing across an impossibly rich background of thick, viscerally applied crimson paint. It’s a painting to get lost in.

While looking at the paintings in the Albright-Knox collection alone might lead one to believe that Still was after something very dark, this exhibition reveals what may have been his true ambition: to capture

Later work: In Clyfford Still’s mature work, some theorize, the human figure often appeared as a simple vertical line or shape, as above in the snaking figure from his “1944-N, No. 1.” Still’s compositions took on an even greater boldness and size in the ’50s in works like “1957-J, No. 2.”

the resilience and irrepressibility of human life against daunting odds.

“When faced with a massive will such as Still’s, we figure it’s him or us, that to give in to a relationship with him would be to invite a swallowing up,” wrote the curator T. Grace Sharpless in a 1963 exhibition catalog in the museum’s airy study area.

“We fear that he is about destruction, but he is not. He is about life.”

Still’s grand quest forged ahead through the ’50s, represented here by massive murals (close relatives of Buffalo’s grand 1957 canvas) that tower over viewers and almost dare them to enter the canvas.

On he charged, through the ’60s and ’70s, his search for the sublime still tethered to the ground by that thin red line and other vertical reminders of the human figure in disguise, reaching ever upward: A sym-

bol, perhaps, of man’s aspiration.

When the end of his career came, it came beautifully. One of his great, late paintings, from 1977, is mostly blank canvas dotted with jagged yellow wisps, with the odd spot of orange red and white.

This stunning painting, which when I saw it was being ogled by a large group of women who gazed at it speechless for an uncommon length of time, seems like Still’s retreat back through that cosmic tear that appeared in his early paintings of Alberta.

It’s a fitting, poetic cap to a self-assured career that ought to rank among the greatest in 20th century art. Now, thanks to this modest, magnificent museum, it is poised to do just that. email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

n 1978, two years before his death, the abstract expressionist painter Clyfford Still put his signature on one of the most curious documents in 20th century art.

Still’s last will and testament stated that the bulk of his work would go to an “American city that will agree to build or assign and maintain permanent quarters exclusively for these works of art and assure their physical survival with the explicit requirement that none of these works of art will be sold, given, or exchanged but are to be retained in the place described above exclusively assigned to them in perpetuity for exhibition and study.”

With that signature, Still effectively locked up his reputation in a Maryland warehouse. While the public’s appreciation for Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko was skyrocketing, Still’s own reputation remained paused in 1979, when a major retrospective of his work was mounted in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “In the ’40s and ’50s, Still was singled out by everybody as the man to be,” said Dean Sobel, director of the newly opened Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. “Pollock said, ‘Still makes the rest of us look academic.’ [Robert] Motherwell said, ‘Out of all of us, Still was the most original, a bolt out of the blue.’

Osorio said Still was the spark plug that got it all going. But something happened after that Met show, and what happened was nothing.”

That is, until 1999, when Curt Freed, a Denverite and nephew of Still’s widow, Patricia, began to lobby the city to establish a museum to house the late artist’s collection. Patricia Still rejected the overture because of concerns that the museum would merely be an outgrowth of the Denver Art Museum.

Four years later, Denver tried again, this time with the help of John Hickenlooper, the city’s progressive mayor and an adherent of scholar Richard Florida’s theories about creative cities and the creative class. Hickenlooper, who went on to become the governor of Colorado, helped shepherd the effort by promising that no taxpayer money would be used to build or fund the museum.

Clyfford Still in 1959, in a portrait by Hans Namuth.

This time, Patricia Still agreed. In 2005, the museum was officially formed as a nonprofit institution. Soon after, director Dean Sobel was hired, the land was purchased, the architect selected and the capital campaign to fund the $29 million building launched.

Last year, in order to ensure that the museum would be able to sustain itself well into the future, the city of Denver made the controversial move of selling four of Still’s paintings to raise money for the museum’s endowment, a sale that brought in a head-spinning $85 million to fund research activities and operations.

Its uncommonly large endowment means that the Clyfford Still Museum will not immediately face the same challenges as other single-artist museums, which sometimes struggle to keep things fresh. For Sobel, who sits comfortably at the helm of the brand-new museum, the primary goal is to keep the art and the spirit of Clyfford Still alive.

“The imperative of this museum … is to promote the art of Clyfford Still and to do programs that extend that, but we will never be an institution that is going to rely on the attendance to tell us whether or not we’re doing a good job,” Sobel said. “There are a number of cultural destinations in this country or the world that are important and meaningful but don’t necessarily set out to serve the whole audience. They even become kind of destinations. They could be ‘The Last Supper’ in Milan or it could be Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation.”

As the latest and perhaps most promising experiment in a string of single-artist institutions, it seems the Clyfford Still Museum is off to a running start.

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CAUSE OF DEATH STILL UNCERTAIN IN INMATE’S DEATH | PAGE C1

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BUFFALONEWS COM

Copyright 2017

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

BILLS D-LINE BOSS WON’T PULL PUNCHES

Uncertainty grips world on the eve of Trump era

‘Patriots Day’ does well, just not in Boston

Mike Waufle

SPORTS, PAGE B1

W N Y EDITION

Serving Western New York since 1880

LIFE & ARTS, PAGE D1

Improving water quality a priority in Cuomo’s proposed budget

Penchant for disruptions unsettling to key powers

By Steven Erlanger N E W YOR K T I ME S

LONDON – The Germans are angry. The Chinese are downright furious. Leaders of NATO are nervous, while their counterparts at the European Union are alarmed.

Just days before he is sworn into office, President-elect Donald J. Trump has again focused his penchant for unpredictable disruption on the rest of the world. His remarks in a string of discursive and sometimes contradictory interviews have escalated tensions with China while also infuriating allies and institutions critical to the United States’ traditional leadership of the West.

No one knows where exactly he is headed – except that the one country he is not criticizing is Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin. For now. And that he is an enthusiastic cheerleader of Brexit and an unaffiliated Britain. For now.

Trump’s unpredictability is perhaps his most predictable characteristic. The world is accustomed to his provocative Twitter messages, but is less clear about whether his remarks represent meaningful new policy guidelines, personal judgments or passing whims. In the interviews, Trump described the EU as “basically a vehicle for Germany” and predicted that the economic bloc would probably see other countries follow Britain’s example and vote to leave.

Trump also said Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, had made a “catastrophic mistake” in allowing refugees to pour into Europe.

The barrage of inflammatory comments in joint interviews published Sunday and Monday in Britain and GerSee Trump on Page A7

A new theory on mystery of D.B. Cooper 1971 skyjacking case long baffled FBI agents

By Amy B Wang

Photos by Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Scajaquada Creek: Sewage overflows from Lancaster, Cheektowaga and Buffalo emerge from a 4-mile underground tunnel into Forest Lawn. Some infrastruc-

ture improvements are already underway to reduce the volume, dredge the creek bottom and expand its flood plain.

Seeks $2 billion to target infrastructure, pollution

By T.J. Pignataro N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Discharge point:

Wastewater treatment facilities:

Raw sewage overflow spots pollute creek and stream waters that flow into the Niagara River, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Besides the stench, floatables in the water hamper recreational and development opportunities.

Upgrades to sewage treatment plants can increase capacity. Reducing inflow and infiltration into sanitary sewer systems by correcting improper connections on downspouts or sump pumps and repairing broken underground lines can also help prevent systems from being overwhelmed.

Lake Erie/Lake Ontario beach access:

Algae:

Addressing infrastructure at overburdened wastewater facilities can result in collateral benefits to the environment and recreation, like reducing the number of beach closures from sewage overflows during and after heavy rainfall events.

Runoff from agriculture and other sources can create a stew of manure, phosphorus and other nutrients that feed algal growth.

Raw sewage in Scajaquada Creek near the Buffalo History Museum.

Manure and pesticides in Chautauqua Lake.

Elevated levels of lead in drinking water in schools and homes.

Floatable debris polluting beaches and even Canalside.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said he wants to address problems like these with a $2 billion proposal to improve water quality in the Buffalo Niagara region and the rest of New York State.

Part of the money would be spent on projects beyond gray infrastructure – like replacing water and sewer lines and expanding wastewater plants – and instead pay for ways to prevent water pollution in the first place, proponents said.

The spending Cuomo called for in his State of the State speech last week shocked environmental activists.

“This was an amazing proposal,” said Jessica Ottney Mahar, policy director for the Nature Conservancy. “The level of funding is exciting, and frankly, it surprised me.”

But one of the most important aspects of Cuomo’s request is his call for protecting water at its source, said Jill Jedlicka, executive director of BufSee Water on Page A5

WA S H I N G T O N P O S T

WASHINGTON – It was “one of the longest and most exhaustive investigations” in FBI history – and to this day remains the only unsolved skyjacking in the United States.

In 1971, a well-dressed passenger hijacked a Northwest Orient flight, demanded $200,000 and later escaped by parachuting out of the back of the plane with the ransom money.

But who exactly was “D.B. Cooper,” the mysterious man who managed to pull off the heist and disappear without a trace?

More than four decades later, three amateur scientists think they may have found evidence that would narrow down Cooper’s identity to that of an aerospace engineer or a manager.

The scientists, working for a group called Citizen Sleuths, said they have been analyzing particles found on a clipon necktie that Cooper left on his seat – 18E – before jumping out of the plane.

See DNA on Page A3

INDEX

Business & Careers... E1 City & Region.............. C1 Classified ...................... B7 Comics .......................... D4

Life imitates art as refugees play ‘Fiddler’

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

John Hickey/Buffalo News

Richard Manuel, 16, center, plays Tevye at a rehearsal for an allrefugee student production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Crossword ......... B8, B10 Entertainment .......... D3 Horoscope ................... D5 Letters .......................... A9

Life & Arts ................... D1 Lotteries ...................... B2 Obituaries ................... B4 Opinion ........................ A8

Picture Page ............... D6 Scoreboard ................. B5 Sports ............................. B1 Television .................... D3

On the first Saturday of the new year, a chorus of young voices floated down from a second-floor classroom next to Our Lady of Hope Catholic Church on Lafayette Avenue.

If you pressed your ear to the door, you could just make out a slow, plaintive melody of a song about a fictional village in western Russia: “A-na-tev-ka, A-na-tev-ka. Intimate, obstinate Anatevka, where I know everyone I meet,” they sang.

“Soon I’ll be a stranger in a strange new place, searching for an old

WEATHER Mild, periods of rain. High 45, low 35. Details on Page C6.

On the Web: See a photo gallery of rehearsals for “Fiddler on the Roof.” at BuffaloNews.com

familiar face.”

The members of Our Lady of Hope’s youth choir, who escaped as small children from small villages or refugee camps in Africa and Asia, used to be strangers in a strange new place called Buffalo.

See ‘Fiddler’ on Page A5

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A5

The Buffalo News/Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Continued from the Cover “... This investment will rebuild and improve our regional infrastructure, while supporting a stronger, healthier New York for generations to come.” – GOV. ANDREW M. CUOMO

Changes would have positive impact on local economies WATER • from A1 falo Niagara Riverkeeper.

“It’s just as important to protect where water is generated – where it comes from,” Jedlicka said.

The governor’s proposal includes: • Constructing wetlands that capture runoff and filter contaminants beforetheymakeitintothesewagesystem.

• Putting into practice techniques that keep contaminants like manure, phosphorus and pesticides – as well as road salt – from running off the land into creeks and streams and leading to bigger problems like algal blooms, bacteria proliferation and other water quality problems.

• Bolstering the state’s Superfund to speed up emergency cleanup of contamination that could impact water supplies.

The proposal follows a report released by two State Senate committees earlier this month detailing water quality and contamination issues around the state.

The report by the State Senate’s standing committees on Health and on Environmental Conservation provided a summary of public hearings and written testimony about water contamination. It highlighted five areas around the state – none in Western New York – where tainted water supplies were found, including in Hoosick Falls and on Long Island.

No one knows which projects

“It’s just as important to protect where water is generated – where it comes from.”

Jill Jedlicka, executive director of Riverkeeper

Sharon Cantillon/News file photo

and municipalities would get funding through the governor’s proposed Clean Water Infrastructure Act of 2017, but proponents said the funds would go a long way toward cleaning up pollution and improving water infrastructure in the Buffalo Niagara region and elsewhere.

Any money for local water infrastructure projects would offer the following payoffs: • More access to Lake Erie and Lake Ontario during beach season.

• A quicker revival for polluted Scajaquada Creek.

• Replacement of lead pipes in Buffalo, Dunkirk or Jamestown.

• Prevention of phosphorus runoff that lead to hazardous algal blooms on inland lakes and ponds.

“This proposal from the governor is a potential game-changer,” said Bri-

an Smith, associate executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “We know the solutions. It doesn’t require magic. We just need the leadership and investments to fix our water quality problems.”

“We need to take immediate action,” Cuomo said during his speech.

“Investing in water infrastructure is critical to fostering growth in our communities and our state. This investment will rebuild and improve our regional infrastructure, while supporting a stronger, healthier New York for generations to come.”

The governor’s announcement came less than a month after President Obama signed the roughly $10 billion federal Water Infrastructure Improvements Act for the Nation.

Like Cuomo’s proposal, the federal act provides funding for watershed

restoration, flood control measures and drinking-water infrastructure improvements.

It also provides $300 million annually for continuing the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, a program that has been used to clean up the Buffalo River, restoring lake sturgeon to Buffalo Niagara’s waters and improving recreational opportunities for beachgoers.

Under Cuomo’s plan, communities would recommend ways to protect water sources. Conservation and green infrastructure projects would be pursued, along with improved land management policies.

“That’s the sort of visionary investment that our communities can make for generations to come,” State Sen. Timothy M. Kennedy said. “Oftentimes, we fail to appreciate how important these wetlands are to protecting our drinking water.”

In addition to protecting water at its source, the governor’s plan calls for advancements and improvements in municipal drinking water and wastewater systems.

Those are the sorts of things that could help places like Buffalo, Cheektowaga and West Seneca upgrade their systems.

All three municipalities are under consent orders to fix aged and inadequate wastewater systems that often discharge raw, or partially treated, sewage into area creeks and streams during heavy rains or rapid snow melts.

Despite differences, they became ‘family’ ‘FIDDLER’ • from A1 But after years together as members of one of the city’s most diverse congregations, they’re now close friends. And they have staked their claim on this multicultural corner of Buffalo.

Under director Jennifer Serniuk, choir members have spent months rehearsing a production of the classic refugee musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” They will perform the show at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 18 in the Maxine and Robert Seller Theatre in Amherst.

As Buffalo works to burnish its reputation as a welcoming home for international refugees, this act of cross-cultural fusion is a symbol of the city’s refugee-driven renaissance.

“If you want to see African and Asian kids be Jewish,” Serniuk said about this Catholic church’s production of a Jewish musical classic, “you should come.”

Each voice in the choir represents a different refugee story.

One belongs to Florence Ndayishimiye, a freshman at ECC who came to America with her family from a camp in Tanzania when she was 9. Another belongs to Lay Lay Too, 13, whose family fled Burma for a camp in Thailand and came to Buffalo when he was 3 years old.

Still another, the forceful baritone of the show’s lead character, Tevye, belongs to high school sophomore Richard Manuel. The 16-year-old came to Buffalo with his family in 2013 after fleeing Burma for a temporary home in Malaysia and finally a new life in the multiethnic bastion of Buffalo’s West Side.

Together, those voices have merged together to put a unique stamp on one of the most popular American musicals in the canon.

More than that, they have demonstrated the speed with which young people from diverse backgrounds can integrate themselves into the life and culture of a new city.

“They have dealt with some hardships in their life and they didn’t grow up in the nicest of circumstances, but they’ve really blossomed here,” said Serniuk, a longtime parish member and doctoral student in the University at Buffalo’s education program. “And they’ve embraced show tunes. What more can I ask for?”

The villages many of the choir members hail from in Asia and Africa, like Anatevka, are often small, tight-knit communities subject to frequent and unpredictable violence.

But most of the choir members came to the United States too young to remember the trauma of their journey. They are fluent English speakers, most with little trace of an accent.

“I actually felt a lot at home in Buffalo, and in America,” Manuel said when asked if he felt the same sense of dislocation as the characters in “Fiddler” who were driven out of their village.

But there were other parts of the show that reminded him of his own

That’s what plagues waters of the Scajaquada, Cazenovia, Buffalo and Rush creeks, among others.

Besides the odor, the overflows cause bacteria levels to spike in the water – a threat to wildlife and swimmers – and also lead to the release of “floatable” debris like tampons and condoms into the waterways.

The contamination floats downstream, eventually ending up in the Buffalo or Niagara rivers, or Lake Erie.

Closed beaches, floatable debris and sewage flows make it harder to attract visitors to recreational spots at Woodlawn Beach, Canalside or the Erie Basin Marina.

“Our tendency is to deal with infrastructure we see, not infrastructure we don’t see,” said Rep. Brian Higgins, DBuffalo. “We’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up the Buffalo River, but because of combined sewage overflows and the like, we’re repolluting those waterways.”

“Our local and regional economies are dependent on our water systems,” Jedlicka added.

Higgins called Cuomo’s proposal “forward-looking” and “pre-emptive” in its approach, and he hopes an even bigger $1 trillion to $2 trillion bipartisan federal bill for infrastructure projects will supplement work done in New York State.

“Nobody argues there’s a need,” Higgins said. email: tpignataro@buffnews.com

Cold War jitters return as U.S. forces go to Norway

By Dan Bilefsky and Henrik Pryser Libell N EW YOR K T I MES

Photos by John Hickey/Buffalo News

From fourth left: Richard Manuel, 16, plays Tevye; Florence Ndayishimiye plays Golde; and Agnes Nininahazwe, 15, plays Hodel in an all-refugee student production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The play features children and young adults from third grade to college.

“This church is like your family. We’re all different, but at the same time similar.

Even if we don’t really talk, you can kind of see the similarities.”

Agnes Nininahazwe, 15, who came to Buffalo from Burundi via Tanzania, and plays the role of Hodel. life, especially “Rich Man,” in which Tevye muses about how his life would be different if he had money.

“It relates to my father a lot,” he said. “At home, he’s always talking about how he’s going to start his own business one day, just sitting there on the couch and telling me all these stories about Burma and his father. It reminded me of ‘Rich Man,’ because one day we’ll be rich. We’ll build up a home again.”

Asked if he was surprised about the similarities between his culture and that of the Russian Jews depicted in “Fiddler on the Roof,” Manuel nodded.

“We all face the same problems,” he said. “We all face the same joys.”

For Ndayishimiye, whose memories of her journey to America are more fully formed than most of her peers in the choir, the sense of nostalgia for a distant place is more acute.

The musical, she said, brings up memories of her old home.

“Just leaving my country, all that I’ve known, the way we used to do things in the house,” she said. “Here, it’s not the same. But there, everywhere you go, there’s people saying hi to you, talking to you.”

Sort of like the song: “Intimate, obstinate Anatevka, where I know everyone I meet.”

But nostalgia for lives left behind is not what defines the lives of the youth choir members.

They are just like any American teenagers and are hardly defined by the “refugee” label, though they are perhaps more acutely aware of how unique their community is.

With the help of Serniuk and many others in the church, they have helped to turn their parish and their community into a comfortable enclave – a new village filled with familiar faces.

“This church is like your family,” said Agnes Nininahazwe, a 15-yearold with a beautiful singing voice who plays the role of Hodel. Like Ndayishimiye, she came as a child from Burundi by way of Tanzania. “We’re all different, but at the same time similar. Even if we don’t really talk, you can kind of see the similarities.”

Sometimes singing works better.

Serniuk, who began working with the members of the choir about six years ago, said it almost immediately helped to connect kids from seemingly disparate cultures.

“When we started, all the Karen

kids would sit together and all the African kids would sit together, but now they’re all friends and they hang out with each other outside the church,” she said.

That rings true for Lay Lay Too, who had a difficult time summing up his feelings about the musical, but was resolute about the sense of inclusion fostered by the parish and the choir.

“It’s like a huge family,” he said.

“There’s one family at home, but this is our second home.”

In addition, through projects like “Fiddler,” the young choir members have an opportunity to learn about other cultures not represented in their parish. In this project, for example, they worked with UB Law School faculty member Judith Binder, who taught them classic Israeli folk dances and also filled them in on the cultural history of the Jewish people.

“The kids were very interested in everything she had to say,” Serniuk said. “All of the kids had a very strong idea of the themes of the musical.

Even though it’s set in a culture and tradition that’s not theirs, they could really identify with the characters and a lot of the themes.”

Serniuk said the task of honoring Jewish culture and history with this production is very much on her mind, as she explained in a conversation with one of her Jewish instructors at UB. “She said that ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ is very near and dear to our hearts because it’s a musical about our culture and our traditions. And I said, ‘I’m sure you’ve never seen it like this before.’” email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

OSLO, Norway – For Norwegians, the sight of dozens of U.S. Marines traipsing through the snow in military fatigues – the first time foreign troops have been posted to their country’s territory since World War II – may have brought a welcomed sense of security, but it also harked back to a dark era of the Cold War that many had hoped to forget.

A U.S. military plane Monday delivered most of the 330 Marines to a garrison in Vaernes, central Norway, a deployment that Norwegian officials said had been carried out by the United States as part of a bilateral agreement.

It was the latest effort by the United States and its European allies to buttress their defenses against a resurgent Russia, which condemned the move.

Despite being generally welcomed across the political spectrum, the arrival of the Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C. – shown on Norwegian television dragging their suitcases through the snow – also provoked some jitters in Norway.

A wealthy oil-rich country that is a member of NATO, but not the European Union, the Nordic state has long prided itself on its independence. But the deployment recalled a Cold War era in which Russian intrigue grabbed headlines and Norwegians lived in fear of Soviet hegemony.

Neuroses about Russia continue to exert influence in Norwegian popular culture. The political television thriller “Okkupert” depicts a future in which Norway is occupied by Russia, and with the backing of the EU, takes over the country’s oil production.

Such fears have been magnified in recent years with murky sightings of submarines across the region.

In October 2014, an unidentified vessel noticed off the Stockholm archipelago spurred Sweden’s largest mobilization since the Cold War and accusations that Russia was spying on the country. The episode included unsubstantiated reports of a man in black wading near the vessel. It deeply unsettled the nation, even as the Kremlin issued strenuous denials.

Then, in April 2015, the sudden appearance of an underwater vessel in Finland prompted the navy to fire depth charges – the first such warning in more than 10 years.

After plans for the U.S. deployment were confirmed in October, Frants Klintsevich, a deputy chairman of Russia’s defense and security committee in the upper chamber of Parliament, was quoted by Russian news media as saying that the Kremlin viewed the Marines as a direct military threat. He also said the deployment made Norway a potential target for Moscow’s powerful arsenal.

GustoSunday:Books The Buffalo News

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Best sellers Compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide.

FICTION 1. Edge of Eternity.

Ken Follett. Dutton, $36.

Page C5

Stunning bio recalls tortured soul of Tennessee Williams

2. Personal. Lee Child.

Delacorte, $28.

3. Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good.

Jan Karon. Putnam, $27.95) 4. Festive in Death. J.D. Robb.

Putnam, $27.95.

5. The Eye of Heaven.

Cussler/Blake. Putnam, ($28.95).

6. Raging Heat. Richard Castle.

Kingswell, ($26.99).

7. Mean Streak. Sandra Brown.

Grad Central, $26.

8. The Bone Clocks. David Mitchell.

Random House, ($30) 9. The Children Act. Ian McEwan.

Doubleday/Talese, ($25).

10. The Golem of Hollywood.

Jonathan Kellerman. Putnam, ($27.95).

NONFICTION 1. Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success.

Steve Harvey. Amistad ($25.99).

2. 13 Hours. Mitchell Zuckoff.

Hachette/Twelve. ($28).

3. Jesus on Trial. David Limbaugh.

Regnery, ($27.99) 4. Zero to One. Peter Thiel.

Crown Business, $27.

5. What If? Randall Munroe HMH, $24.

6. Unphiltered. Phil Robertson.

S&S/Howard, $25.99.

7. Guinness World Records 2015.

Guinness World Records.

Guinness World Records, ($28.95).

8. What I Know for Sure.

Oprah Winfrey. Flatiron ($24.99).

9. The Forks Over Knives Plan.

Matt Lederman.

S&S/Touchstone, ($24.99) 10. World Order. Henry Kissinger.

Penguin Press ($36)

Editor’s choice American Cornball: A Laffope­ dic Guide to the Formerly Funny

by Christopher Miller, Harper, 529 pages, $35. An uncommonly brilliant idea launched this book. To wit, that humor, like everything else, ages.

Anyone who has lived a little knows that things in America that were once considered riotously funny (or, at least, mildly risible) wind up to be perfectly symbolic of just how clumsy and blockheaded past generations could be compared to us eternally hip contemporaries.

Take, for instance, a topic or two from the Afterword of Christopher Miller’s extremely clever “laffopedia” of things that our ancestors either pretended to laugh at or actually did.

For instance, “Dandruff” says Miller “is the quintessential trivial affliction, harmless but embarrassing, and wholly unheroic. Most old dandruff humor features people taking the affliction too seriously. In ‘Dizzy Doctors,’ a Three Stooges Short from 1937, one of the bedridden patients has been hospitalized for dandruff.”

“Goats” says Miller are “still funny but nowhere as funny as they used to be. In 1905, there were at least two comic strips … whose daily punch line was somebody being butted by a billy goat.”

With that understanding of Miller’s utterly brilliant encyclopedia of things that were “formerly funny” in America, find the often serious essays in his “laffopedia” proper, such entries as “absentminded professors” (beginning the book) to “zealots” (to end it) with stops in between at the likes of beans, beatniks, ducks and chickens, gum, plumbers, toothaches and dentists, traveling salesmen etc.

Some of this couldn’t be more serious. Miller’s tale of the racism once “funny” in America’s attitude toward “Black People” is a scholarly treatise on the “large and sickening topic” from the still funny (to many) “Amos and Andy” to the former “humor” magazine “Captain Billy’s Whizbang,” which in 1926 offered a prize for “best colored joke” in the “common knowledge that there is no other form of humor in the whole wide world that explodes into humor as easily as that supplied by the colored folk.” Little tells more about America than what it used to laugh at. And what it often tells couldn’t possibly be worse.

– Jeff Simon

NON F IC T ION

Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh

By John Lahr Norton 784 pages, $39.95

By Colin Dabkowski

F

N E WS BOOK R E V IE W ER

or Tennessee Williams, every act of creation was also an act of self-destruction.

Across his charmed and tortured life, Williams bit off little pieces of himself and spit them up onto the stage. A “Glass Menagerie” here, a “Streetcar Named Desire” or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” there, each one a still-pulsing piece of connective tissue between his outer relationships and inner demons.

When there was nothing left to destroy, no more strangers on whose kindness he could bring himself to depend, Williams washed down a fistful of Seconal with some wine in his room at the Hotel Elysée in New York City and drifted off into history and legend.

That long and slow self-sacrifice upon the altar of the American theater was a source of constant revelation for Williams’ audience and near-constant despair for the playwright. And now, 31 years after Williams’ death and at a time when his genius and his incalculable effect on the art form has never seemed clearer, that sacrifice finally has biography it deserves.

John Lahr’s “Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh,” the product of some 12 years of painstaking writing and research, presents a crisp and harrowing portrait of Williams from several angles at once.

At 784 pages, it’s a doorstop of a book that reads like a playbill, an exquisitely balanced compendium of personal anecdotes and incisive analysis so deftly intertwined that it’s often difficult to tell one from the other.

Lahr, the former chief drama critic of The New Yorker and no slouch at dramatic interpretation, weaves his close readings of Williams’ major and minor works with personal details that reveal the playwright’s unique and uniquely self-destructive approach to his art.

This is no chronological account, one of its great strengths. It dispenses with most of Williams’ early childhood and teens, opening instead with a riveting description of the Broadway opening of “The Glass Menagerie” in 1945.

In Lahr’s account of that opening, for which the stage and silent film actress Laurette Taylor had been dragged out of retirement to give what many regarded as the best performance of her career, it was clear that a blinding talent had arrived and that Broadway would

Books in brief C H I L DR E N ’ S

Nuts to You by Lynne Rae Perkins; Greenwillow Books, 272 pages ($16.99) Ages 8 to 12.

...

Part entertaining romp and part environmental fable, “Nuts to You” tells the story of Jed the squirrel’s narrow escape from a hawk and the two friends TsTs and Chai who set out to find him. In the meantime, something terrible is happening to the trees along the “buzzpaths,” squirreljargon for utility lines. Perkins won the Newbery for “Criss Cross” and here she offers a marvelous tale (in the form of a story told by an older Jed to the author on a park bench) full of sly humor, marvelous descriptions of the squirrel life, squirrel philosophy and fables (tales of relatives lost

Illustration by Adam Zyglis/Buffalo News

never be the same again.

The glimpses Lahr provides into Williams’ working process, which always mined his personal experiences and cast light on some tortured part of his soul, are invaluable. Here he is, for example, on the almost tangible sensation of absence that gave “Glass Menagerie” its ineffable draw: “Williams, who often complained of feeling ‘like a ghost,’ grew up in not one but two haunted households where secrets and the unsayable suffused daily life with a sense of masquerade, creating an emptiness as palpable, elusive and corrosive as it was to the Wingfields,” Lahr writes, referring to a poem that was the basis for the play. “Haunted restless, guilt-ridden, searching for a truth that keeps him in perpetual motion, he is released by the luck of talent into the world, no longer earthbound but airborne by his imagination.”

The book shines brightest when it comes to Elia Kazan, with whom Williams formed what Lahr called, with some authority, “the most important theatrical collaboration of twentieth-century American theater.”

Without Kazan, Lahr makes clear, we would have no Williams as we know him. We learn that Williams’ best and most enduring plays were the result of arduous and often exhausting battles between playwright and director that turn what might otherwise have been brief flashes of brilliance into commercial powerhouses.

Kazan was blessed with a keen eye not only for what would make money at the box office, but for how to achieve emotional transference

from the performer to the audience.

He wasn’t always right, as in his illadvised change to the ending of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which Williams later returned to its superior original form. But when he was right, he was dead right. And Williams, with dollar signs in his eyes and sometimes to his eventual shame, went along with Kazan’s suggestions more often than not.

In page after page, Lahr delivers a riveting account of their creative relationship, which resulted in productions that defined the middle of the century: “A Streetcar Named Desire,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Sweet Bird of Youth” and, the least successful, “Camino Real.”

If you had no interest in the details of Williams’ life but simply wanted to learn something invaluable about the process of creating and producing a great play, Lahr’s exploration of the Williams-Kazan relationship alone justifies the price.

“Thesis and antithesis must have a synthesis in a work of art but I don’t think all of the syntheses must occur on the stage, perhaps about 40 percent of it can be left to occur in the minds of the audience,” Williams wrote to Kazan when he was considering directing his 1951 play “The Rose Tattoo,” which he later declined.

“MYSTERY MUST BE KEPT! But I must not confuse it with sloppy writing which is probably what I have done a good deal of in Rose Tattoo.”

The details of Williams’ great successes and crashing theatrical failures rightly take up the bulk of the narrative here, but his personal relationships also loom large – if only because they provided fodder

to bobcats, a raccoon, flattened by vehicles) and some rare instances of squirrel-human communication.

Here is one memorable line offering insight into the squirrel’s view of the universe. “Cautiously they crept to the chewed-off edge of the livable world.” The lesson is about the value of trees, to both squirrel and human.

Perkins is also an accomplished artist and her illustrations here are wonderful.

– Jean Westmoore

end, that house is in ruins and its inhabitants are dead. Set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, “Little Stranger” suggests that the house of England itself is coming apart.

“The Paying Guests” also unfolds in the aftermath of a war and also involves a house as a central character. Set in 1922 London, it opens as 26-year-old Frances Wray and her mother – having lost the family’s three men during World War I – find themselves forced to accept lodgers to keep their stately London townhouse.

Enter Leonard and Lilian Barber, members of the striving “clerk class” – one step up from working class and downstream on the social scale from the Wrays. Waters’ Leonard is familiar and flirty; given that Frances is gay, he leaves her cold.

Meanwhile, Lilian fills the Barbers’ room with tacky knickknacks –“as if,” Frances reflects, “a giant mouth had sucked a bag of boiled sweets and then given the house a lick.”

For all their differences, Frances and Lilian’s physical proximity soon

F IC T ION

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters; Riverhead, 576 pages, $28.95)

...

True to her gothic roots, Sarah Waters knows that a house is never just a house; true to her English roots, the cracks in the facade often involve issues of class.

In “The Little Stranger” (2009), Waters’ immediately preceding novel, a man whose mother had been a servant haunts the house in which she had worked; by novel’s

for his work. We meet a series of companions, starting with the physically violent Pancho Rodriguez and ending with the emotionally violent writer Robert Carroll. Violence is a major theme.

From each of his lovers, Williams drew something he could use on the stage. Williams’ first love Kip Kiernan, a physical beauty who died of a brain tumor in 1944, echoed through his male characters for the rest of his career.

Rodriguez’s temper and physical intimidation manifested itself in Stanley Kowalski from “A Streetcar Named Desire.” And Frank Merlo, with whom Williams carried on a tortured, 13-year relationship he likened to “the longest war on record,” loomed large in later work that considered the soul-effacing terrors of playing second-fiddle to a great talent.

Perhaps not surprisingly, many of the most searing insights about Williams’ abuse of his own souls and those of his friends and lovers come from Gore Vidal, who had the playwright’s number from the start.

He’d begin, Vidal said, with a sexual desire. Out of that desire he’d write a story. If he remained unsatisfied, “he would make a play of the story and then – and this is why he was so compulsive a working playwright – he would have the play produced so he could, at relative leisure, like God, rearrange his original experience into something that was no longer God’s and unpossessable but his.”

Lahr put it this way: “Rather like an actor who stays in character offstage in order not to lose the reality of his performance, Williams had begun to intuit the utility of his masochism, to become a connoisseur of his own collapse …

He was prepared to destroy himself for meaning. He took himself right up to the precipice, so that he could stare into it.”

The only drawback to the book is Lahr’s occasional tendency to cast himself as an amateur psychoanalyst in an effort to peer into the souls of Williams’ characters and thus into his own, or vice versa.

Some otherwise clear-eyed passages suffer from Freudian analysis – he speculates in one passage that Williams’ lover Pancho Rodriguez was searching for “the mother he never had” – but they’re few enough to gloss over.

The final 200 pages are utterly painful to read, as Williams tries to sustain himself through a series of commercially unsuccessful ventures.

After being institutionalized by his brother, Dakin Williams, he takes a long slow slide into misery that finally ends in that New York City hotel room on Feb. 25, 1983.

“For awhile the theater loved him, and then it went back to searching in its pockets for its soul,” Arthur Miller said of Williams at his funeral, reducing the playwright’s life to its terrible, beautiful essence. “He chose a hard life that requires the skin of an alligator and the heart of a poet. To his everlasting honor, he persevered and bore all of us toward glory.”

Colin Dabkowski is The News’ Art and Theater Critic.

becomes intimacy.

Midway through this long novel, a gruesome act of violence wrenches the story into a new channel. A budding romance makes way for a plot-driven police procedural and its legal aftermath – some of it surprisingly clunky, coming from a novelist whose lots are usually so strong.

As a result of this twist, Frances and Lilian are physically separated – even though the two now share a corrosive secret that binds them even more closely together.

One might read that secret and its crippling isolation as a metaphor for what it means to have a lesbian relationship in 1922 England, where it’s nearly impossible to express one’s self and one’s love within the larger world and its prescribed conventions. Frances and Lilian must make their own path; it’s little wonder there are stumbles along the way.

One might say the same for shellshocked, postwar England, a parallel Waters draws in her characteristically understated fashion.

– Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

movieS: Mobsters and more in ‘Black Mass.’ ◊ Page 4 radio: A celebration for Alternative Buffalo 107.7. ◊ Page 15 diNiNG: Enjoy favorite Italian dishes at Orazio’s. ◊ Page 18

What kind of theatergoer are you?

with 24 companies in town, there’s something for everyone. find out which theater is right for you. page 20 plus a complete list of theaters and opening shows. pages 11 & 22

The Buffalo News

T h e

w e e k

o f

S e p T e m b e r

17– 2 4 ,

2 015

21

Cover story

Slow down buddy!

Both!

Looking for a theater? Let’s play

By Colin Da Bkowsk i /

Ne ws Ar t cr iti c

David Lynch

shot­and­ a­beer

Dry martini or shot-and-a-beer?

Both!

A nice cream soda, maybe?

Michael Moore

Jewish re pertory th eatre

Dry martini

Undecided

To be or not to be?

eh … what else you got?

How do you feel about kick lines?

“c apitalism”

irish cl assical th eatre

Buffalo United Artists Dan savage

th eatre of Youth

“The Wire” or “The Birdcage”?

“Into the Woods” or “Rent”?

“into the wo ods”

Lancaster Opera House

“t he wi re”

surprise Me!

alternate connections

Buffalo’s

James Baldwin

Patti Lupone or Elaine Stritch?

Patti Lupone MusicalFare th eatre

wh y pick?

John Murphy or Al Michaels?

ty ler Perry

Al Michaels

Ujima th eatre

Paul ro beson th eatre

settlers of ca tan

New Phoenix th eatre

el aine stritch Buffalo ch rysalis th eatre

O’co nnell & co mpany

Not a real person.

John Murphy

James Baldwin or Tyler Perry?

second Generation th eater shea’s Performing Arts ce nter

Ann Landers

Settlers of Catan or Trivial Pursuit?

i could not possibly decide.

“r ent”

Ann Landers or Dan Savage?

“t he Birdcage”

Dan Landers?

Gene Kelly Both!

Kavinoky th eatre

No

How do you know if you haven’t tried?

Gregory Hines

Brazen­Faced Varlets

subversive th eatre co llective

What are you even doing here?

No

Gene Kelly or Gregory Hines?

“sicko”

“t he Graduate”

“Downton Abbey”

shakespeare in the Park

Neither!

Buffalo Laboratory th eatre

“Downton Abbey” or “The Graduate”?

Are you 7?

Yes Good? i guess?

American re pertory th eatre

“t win Peaks”

“Capitalism: A Love Story” or “Sicko”?

th ey make me feel uncomfortable.

Yes

“Mulholland Drive” or “Twin Peaks”?

David Lynch or Michael Moore?

Great question!

Do you like theater?

to rn space th eater

“Mulholland Drive”

Both!

Kaleidoscope th eatre Productions

tr ivial Pursuit

Alleyway th eatre

Alemaedae 710 Main th eatre

Related:

• A preview of Curtain Up! openings. Page 11 • Reviews of “King o’ the Moon” and “Speed of Light.” Page 12 • A list of theater companies’ opening shows. Page 22

Gusto Thursday, September 17, 2015

Gusto Thursday, September 17, 2015

20

SLIM BUDGET PUTS NFTA UPGRADES ON HOLD | PAGE D1

.

BUFFALONEWS COM

Monday, March 23, 2015

Copyright 2015

Serving Western New York since 1880

Should you insure your identity? PAGE C1

IRISH COACH DEALS WITH TRAGEDY

Mike Brey

JERRY SULLIVAN, PAGE B1

Ethics light directed at Cuomo-Lee

Senate GOP seeks disclosure of household’s financial data

By Tom Precious N E W S A L B A N Y B U R E AU C H I E F

ALBANY – The ethics battle here is getting personal.

Like his predecessors, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo does not take kindly to those who try to drag family members into the politics of Al­ bany.

And that goes for his partner, Sandra Lee, the television food show host with whom the governor lives in a Westchester County home

Getty Images file photo

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and TV food show host Sandra Lee live at her home in Westchester.

W N Y EDITION

owned by her.

But her name became embroiled in a dis­ pute last week between Cuomo and Senate Re­ publicans.

The ethics issue is this: Should someone co­ habiting with a state official, as Lee is with the governor, be required to disclose income on that official’s annual public financial­disclo­ sure filing with an ethics agency?

That’s what Senate Republicans want in a provision that Capitol hallway whisperers were calling Sandra’s Law. Lee owns the Town of New Castle home she shares with the governor, and if the law were enacted, it would require her to release a slew See Cuomo on Page A2

Hepatitis A in server at restaurant stirs alert County offers customers vaccine as precaution

By Nancy A. Fischer and Joseph Popiolkowski N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER S

A confirmed case of hepatitis A was reported in a food server at Casa­di­ Pizza, 477 Elmwood Ave., and custom­ ers who dined at the Buffalo restaurant from March 9 to 19 may be at risk, Erie County health officials said Sunday.

Takeout and bar customers are not af­ fected, they said.

Dr. Gale R. Burstein, county health commissioner, said that between 1,500 and 2,000 people may be at risk but em­ phasized that the risk of transmission is very low. Anyone who has had a vacci­ nation for hepatitis A or has previously been infected is not at risk, she said.

“The risk of transmission is very low, but it is not zero,” Burstein said. “It’s very rare for someone in the United States to contract hepatitis A from a food han­ dler. Typically we don’t see many or even any infections, but we want to offer Erie County residents an opportunity to be fully protected from hepatitis A if they have been exposed.”

To avoid an outbreak, the county De­ partment of Health will offer a precau­ tionary vaccine to those who may have been exposed. The vaccine will be of­ fered during a clinic from noon to 8 p.m.

Monday and from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tues­ day in the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center, 153 Franklin St.

Bright prospects for Albright-Knox Art gallery officials on Monday will reveal key takeaways from public input sessions and unveil their ambitious wish list for the complex’s proposed expansion

See Hepatitis on Page A2

A N A LY S I S

Politics finds confidence of public at ebb

By Dan Balz WA S H I N G T O N P O S T

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

By Colin Dabkowski

A

N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

lbright­Knox Art Gallery wants to double its gallery space, reduce or eliminate its surface parking lot along El­ mwood Avenue and potential­ ly allow pedestrians to walk from its campus on the west side of Elmwood to the Burchfield Penney Art Center on the east side “uninterrupted by traffic.”

These are just a few of the items on the gal­ lery’s architectural wish list, which is coming into clearer focus after the initial public input phase of its expansion project ended earlier this month.

Albright­Knox Director Janne Sirén said he wants to double the exhibition space to show more of the permanent collection at the same time as temporary exhibitions, introduce a way to move art safely in and out of the build­ ing and create a visitor entrance that is “more generous in the way it invites the public in.”

He also said the gallery wanted to create “a more hospitable public space experience, ad­

INDEX

City & Region ............. D1 Classified .................... B8 Comics ......................... C6 Crossword ........ B8, B10

Daily Dish .................. C5 Entertainment ......... C8 Horoscope ................... C7 Letters ......................... A9

“Where we are now is at a point where we can solidly say that this campus needs attention. We cannot allow it to fall to a state of benign neglect.”

Jann Sirén, director, Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Lotteries ..................... D2 MoneySmart .............. C1 Obituaries .................. B4 Opinion ....................... A8

Picture Page ............ C10 Scoreboard ................ D5 Sports ............................ B1 Television ................... C4

dress the question of the parking lot that none of us that I have spoken with likes, and work hard to find solutions, in terms of the land­ scape, to create an east­west dynamic that ac­ tivates the two sides of the park.”

“And wouldn’t it be wonderful,” he added, “if the landscape on the west and east side of Elmwood Avenue would somehow be a bit more contiguous? That you could actually walk from that side, uninterrupted by traffic, to this side, and beyond?”

In a meeting in the gallery’s auditorium at 6 p.m. Monday, Albright­Knox officials will an­ nounce the results of public meetings and focus groups, in which more than 300 residents and community stakeholders offered wide­ranging opinions on the future of the gallery and sug­ gestions for its expansion process. The gallery plans to launch a website where residents can continue to offer suggestions throughout the expansion and fundraising process.

The upshot from the public meetings: 82 percent said they were in favor of expanding on the current campus, while 18 percent advo­ See Expansion on Page A2

WEATHER

Sunny, very cold. High 26, low 17. Details on Page D6.

WASHINGTON – The Gallup organi­ zation recently recorded another dreary milestone in American politics. For the first time since the polling organization began tracking public impressions of the Republican and Democratic parties back in 1992, neither party has a favorability rating above 40 percent.

Whether this is now the rough new normal or an aberrational moment isn’t the issue. What’s most interesting is the degree to which the public now registers sizable disapproval of both major parties that represent them. That reflects anoth­ er turn in the downward spiral in public See Candidate on Page A5

Inside The News Apple executives favor latest Jobs biography NEW YORK – Unhappy over the last major biography of Steve Jobs, the Walter Isaacson portrait they thought was unduly negative, Apple executives are publicly praising the latest chronicle of the visionary’s life. Story on A10.

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A2

The Buffalo News/Monday, March 23, 2015

Continued from the Cover “You could have a man and a woman, two women living together, two men living together. If it’s basically a household, then they should have to disclose like other households have to disclose.” Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos

Ethics agency defines Lee as part of first family Cuomo • from A1 of information about her personal fi nances.

“This is not anything that is per­ sonal,” Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos, R­Rockville Centre, said last week.

It might not be personal for Skelos, but it is hitting close to home at the Capitol. “The administration is glad to negotiate disclosure of all girlfriends,” Cuomo spokesman Richard Azzopardi tweeted in a not­so­subtle suggestion about the private lives of some law­ makers.

The governor has mostly used sur­ rogates to address this dust­up.

Asked to provide a policy explana­ tion of why the Senate GOP position would be faulty, Azzopardi referred a reporter to comments by Alphonso B. David, Cuomo’s counsel, made after Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie, D­Bronx, announced pro­ posed rules to increase disclosure and address other ethics matters.

The Cuomo counsel said fi ancial­ disclosure requirements for domestic partners of state offi ials were not on

the negotiating table.

Why not? “Actually, it doesn’t go to the source of the problem,” he said.

Effort is needed to bring more sun­ shine to the outside employment activ­ ities of state lawmakers and to ensure that there is no confl ct between those sources of income and their state jobs, he added.

But Senate Republicans say Cuo­ mo’s ethics package targets too heavily the activities of lawmakers, and does not go far enough in addressing em­ ployees under Cuomo’s control in the executive branch.

The fact that transparency does not apply to offi ials with unmarried part­ ners, as it does to married offi ials, is troubling, they add.

Why? “My wife has to disclose.

That’s my answer,” Skelos said in an interview.

The annual disclosure process for thousands of state employees requires fi ancial information about an offi cial’s spouse on everything from jobs to real estate and stock holdings.

“You could have a man and a wom­ an, two women living together, two men living together. If it’s basically a household, then they should have to

disclose like other households have to disclose,” Skelos added.

New York State would not break new ground if it required the domestic partner of a state employee to disclose fi ancial information. New York City requires it, and the National Confer­ ence of State Legislatures says it’s also the case in Alaska and Maine.

In 2007, Alaska expanded its ethics laws to become one of the most rigor­ ous in the nation. The provision requir­ ing domestic partners of state offi ials to fi e fi ancial­disclosure statements spawned no controversy at the time, according to a state lawmaker and leg­ islative staff member there.

There was nothing that drove it as an issue per se,” State Rep. Mike Hawker, R­Anchorage, said of the do­ mestic partner provision in the ethics law. “We’re a small state with a citizen Legislature, and … we want informa­ tion fully disclosed,” Hawker said.

It is uncertain how many people might be covered if the New York eth­ ics law expands to require fi ancial in­ formation about domestic partners.

If the state workforce mirrors the general population, there are thou­ sands of state employees in this situa­

tion. Domestic partner households in New York stand at 6 percent, and that about matches the national fi ure.

In New York, there were 430,518 “un­ married­partner” households in 2013, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Senate Republicans insist they are not making Lee the issue.

They say that many state employees in the Cuomo administration, as well as in the Legislature, are in domestic partner relationships and that their fi ancial information should be dis­ closed just as for married offi ials.

The state ethics agency has define Lee as a member of the governor’s fir t family, giving her the right to fl with him on state aircraft for offi ial state business.

No one has suggested any confl ct of interest between Cuomo’s job and Lee’s business dealings. There have been controversies in other states involv­ ing the domestic partner of an offi ial.

The most recent occurred in Oregon in February, when John A. Kitzhaber resigned as governor after allegations that he steered state contracts to his live­in fi ncée and that she sought to tap into the infl ence of his offi e to boost her private consulting business.

In New York, Republicans note that Lee, a Food Network and entertain­ ment celebrity, recently signed a deal for her own line of margarita products with alcohol beverage giant Diageo, a compa­ ny that last year reported having six lob­ byists working on alcohol­related issues in Albany, including representation be­ fore Cuomo administration agencies.

Lee’s relationship with the compa­ ny predates Cuomo taking offi e. She has had various dealings with Diageo since 2004, according to a recent news release by the company, which makes Johnnie Walker whiskey, Ketel One vodka, Baileys, Guinness and other al­ coholic beverages.

Over the last week, Skelos pointed several times to a 2009 deal that Cuo­ mo brokered when he was attorney general that required new ethics dis­ closures by wind companies in deal­ ings with municipal offi ials. That agreement on a code of conduct, which Cuomo then called a “new standard of transparency,” required disclosure of any ties that a local offi ial – or their “spouse or domestic partner” – might have to a wind energy company. email: tprecious@buffnews.com

New book calls Cuomo a controlling but distant politician

By Susanne Craig N E W YOR K T I ME S

ALBANY – In the fir t few pages of “The Contender,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is portrayed as a “brilliant tac­ tician” and a presidential hopeful, even if not in 2016. But the tone of the un­ authorized biography quickly chang­ es, positioning Cuomo as a control­ obsessed politician who showed no tolerance for criticism or retail politics.

The book, scheduled for release March 31, comes just months after Cuomo released a largely positive nar­ rative of his life in the autobiography “All Things Possible.”

“The Contender” is far more mea­ sured in its appraisal of the Demo­ cratic governor of New York, espe­ cially in the passages dedicated to his high­profile marriage to Kerry Ken­ nedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Douglas Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy’s brother, called Cuomo a “bully,” saying he did not fi in with the Kennedy clan.

Douglas Kennedy was the only member of the Kennedy family to speak to Michael Shnayerson on the record; other people close to the fam­ ily spoke to the author but remained anonymous. Cuomo, these people said, forbade toasts at his wedding to ensure there were no off­color stories told about him. During his marriage to Kerry Kennedy, these people de­ scribed Cuomo as emotionally distant, and they said he came to shun Kenne­ dy family events unless they involved a photo opportunity.

A spokesman for the governor, John P.L. Kelly, said the book sounded like the boring work of a gossip writer who sen­ sationalized information to sell copies.

The book covers the requisite parts of Cuomo’s life from his early days smoking Kool cigarettes and driving a red Pontiac Trans Am in Queens to his battle with Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, who is inves­ tigating Cuomo’s much­criticized deci­ sion to shutter the Moreland Commis­ sion that was tasked with rooting out

Lack of exhibition space was among chief concerns Expansion • from A1 cated for an off­site location. No one suggested things stay as they are.

“Where we are now is at a point where we can solidly say that this cam­ pus needs attention,” Sirén said. “We cannot allow it to fall to a state of be­ nign neglect. We need to do something.

What that something is, is an ongoing process. Our thinking about it has been impacted by the public discussions.”

Among the chief concerns of those who attended sessions was the lack of exhibition space for the gallery’s rap­ idly growing collection – Sirén said the gallery needs to double what he calls its 20,000 square feet of “prime exhibi­ tion space” – a desire for longer hours and more social spaces, and a frustra­ tion that favorite works are often not on view. The gallery’s function as a point of civic pride was also a major takeaway from the sessions, Sirén said.

For the fir t time, the gallery Mon­ day also will share limited excerpts from the master plan and space study it commissioned from the architec­ ture fi m Snohetta and consultant Brightspot and has kept tightly under wraps since its completion in 2013.

That plan includes rough outlines for how the gallery might transform itself under various scenarios: labeled “life support,” “sustainable growth,” and “expanded program.” Without proposing specifi designs, the mas­ ter plan’s most ambitious scenario suggests extending the Albright­ Knox’s original 1905 building west to­ ward Elmwood Avenue and the reno­ vation or replacement of Clifton Hall with a structure that would consoli­ date the museum’s disconnected ad­ ministrative offi es.

Sirén warned, however, that the shape and scope of the expansion is entirely contingent on how much money the gallery can raise in its coming capital campaign and on the request for architectural proposals it hopes to send out by the fall of 2016.

Within a month, he said, the gallery expects to hire a fi ancial consultant

to determine how much money it can raise for expansion and by what means.

After that capital campaign plan is complete, potentially by fall, the gallery will offi ially launch its campaign com­ mittee, create a timeline for the project and fi ally write a request for architec­ tural proposals. That request for pro­ posals, preceded by a more informal “request for qualifications,” is expected to be ready by next fall.

The presentation Sirén will make to the public at Monday’s meeting suggests that public input “had a sig­ nificant impact on our thinking” by pushing the gallery to consider its con­ tribution to the larger museum dis­ trict and its function as driver of civic pride. The desire for more “social spac­ es,” Sirén said, was also paramount.

“The city is different today than it was in the ’50s and ’60s. Ameri­ can civic society is different. There’s a move back to city,” he said. “In some respects, the ideas of public space that we seek today are more analogous to the civic spaces that were built circa 1900 than they were in the 1950s.”

Among major North American art museums, the Albright­Knox is the only one that has not “done an inter­ vention that integrates old and new in the last fiv decades,” Sirén said.

When it comes to the Albright­ Knox’s own expansion, the gallery will have to contend with three titans of ur­ ban design who are responsible for the gallery as it exists today: E.B. Green, who designed the original 1905 build­ ing and the Clifton Hall satellite space; Gordon Bunshaft, who designed the gallery’s 1962 addition; and Frederick Law Olmsted, on whose fl gship pub­ lic park the institution sits.

“If we move forward with the pro­ cess, whoever works in this context must honor each of those individuals and their work,” Sirén said. “This is not an empty slate. This is not a piece of clean real estate where you come with an expressionistic brush and make your signature stroke.” email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

“He came from a higher class than Tony Manero, with some vague hopes of being a lawyer or a politician, not a standout on a disco dance floor.” corruption in Albany.

Shnayerson compared the young Cuomo to Tony Manero, the swaggering main character played by John Travolta in the 1977 fi m “Saturday Night Fever.”

“He came from a higher class than Tony Manero, with some vague hopes of be­ ing a lawyer or a politician, not a stand­ out on a disco dance fl or,” Shnayerson wrote. “But like Tony, he was a brash in­ nocent with an outer­borough accent and youthful ambitions.”

Cuomo quickly became an unstop­ pable Albany insider, and the book ex­ plores Cuomo’s complicated relation­ ship with his father, three­term Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, as well as his days managing his father’s campaigns, and then running his offi e in Albany after his father became governor in 1983.

Shnayerson’s work was based on in­ terviews and news accounts. Cuomo did not talk to him for the book.

In 1993, Cuomo moved to Wash­ ington to work at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, fir t as assistant secretary and later as housing secretary. Kennedy and Cuomo, only recently married, moved into Hickory Hill, the Kennedy es­ tate in McLean, Va. Shnayerson de­ scribed the house as “a bright, happy place, still echoing with the voices of an era.” Douglas Kennedy said Cuomo changed all that. He limited who could visit, and even insisted on keeping the curtains drawn, Shnayerson wrote.

At work, Cuomo was full of big ideas, and his ascent to housing secretary

wasn’t slowed by what the author de­ scribed as an “all­out war” with Susan Gaffney, the agency’s inspector general, who is quoted at length in the book.

In 2001, Cuomo left HUD and moved back to New York to mount what would become an unsuccess­ ful bid for governor. Around the same time, Shnayerson said, Kennedy de­ manded a divorce, the details of which quickly became tabloid fodder. “He had hit bottom, and had no one but himself to blame,” Shnayerson said.

Shnayerson concluded that despite Cuomo’s resurrection in political life, he had ultimately suffered because of the people he had surrounded himself with, essentially advisers who were “less wise men than wise guys.” It was an environment where “ideas are tol­ erated but not criticism.”

Still, Shnayerson wrote that Cuomo is still very much a White House con­ tender. “For now, despite his setbacks, Andrew Cuomo remains the most powerful and prominent governor in the country, a prince in waiting.”

Feb. 27-to-March 8 diners also get advice HEpatitis • from A1 To expedite the process, any resi­ dent who feels he or she may have been exposed may preregister for an appointment at health.ny.gov/goto­ clinic15. Walk­ins are also welcome.

Burstein said the unidentified wom­ an worked in the dining room and ban­ quet room as a server and food handler who made salads. This person did not have any contact with takeout foods.

She said the restaurant found out Friday that the person was infected and immediately sent county health inspectors to the restaurant.

“Casa­di­Pizzahasbeenverycooper­ ative working with us. We ensured that all food that may have been contami­ nated was disposed of and any viola­ tions we noticed were corrected on site or are in the process of being corrected,” Burstein said. “We do know this food server and others at Casa­di­Pizza are very vigilant about hand­washing prac­ tices, so that will probably help mini­ mize the transmission of hepatitis A.” Restaurant manager Jeffrey J. Ja­ cobbi said Sunday, “We follow the strictest policies set by Erie County.

They did come in and check us and they gave us a very clean bill of health.”

“They really didn’t fi d anything,” he said. “It was really kind of a pat

on our backs. We were really kind of proud of that.”

During Casa­di­Pizza’s most recent routine inspection, on Sept. 12, offi ials found one “critical” violation and fi e “noncritical” violations, according to Food Facility Inspection reports on the county Health Department website.

The department defi es “critical” as a violation that “could directly con­ tribute to or imminently cause illness or injury.” Inspectors found that pizza in a display case in a side dining room was kept at 120 degrees when it should have been kept at 140 degrees or high­ er, according to the report. The viola­ tion was corrected during the inspec­ tion. No violations were found during a follow­up inspection Sept. 26.

Burstein said that as part of the normal monitoring of restaurants, the server had gone to a doctor and was found to have symptoms. It was determined that this was the only em­ ployee infected, she said.

Laboratories automatically for­ ward any positive tests for hepatitis A to the state Department of Health, Burstein said.

Burstein said that the investiga­ tion is continuing.

She said symptoms of hepatitis A do not typically appear until a person has had the virus for a few weeks. “The incubation period is about a month,

but it can range from two weeks to two months,” Burstein said.

Customers who ate at the restau­ rant between Feb. 27 and March 8 – before the period in question– should watch for symptoms, County Execu­ tive Mark C. Poloncarz said, although they are not eligible for the vaccine because it is effective only within two weeks of exposure.

Burstein said, “There’s nothing we can do for people who may have been infected in that (Feb. 27 to March 8) time period, and we want them to ed­ ucate themselves about the signs and symptoms and if they do develop any of them they should be evaluated by their primary care physician or at an urgent care center.”

“Usually younger children, under the age of 6, don’t develop any symp­ toms,” she said, adding that the vac­ cine is approved only for persons over 12 months old, but most infants have been vaccinated.

Burstein said hepatitis A is not very common in the United States, because of immunizations, and it is more com­ monly contracted when people travel outside the country when on vacation.

More information is available at erie.gov. email: nfischer@buffnews.com and jpopiolkowski@buffnews.com

Facts about hepatitis A for those who might be at risk What is hepatitis A? Hepatitis A is a viral infection of the liver, usually spread when a person ingests food or drink con­ taminated by an infected person.

...

What are the symptoms?

Symptoms can be similar to those of the fl and may include fatigue, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, low­grade fever, abdominal discomfort, dark urine, joint pain, clay­colored bowel movements, and yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice).

Symptoms typically do not ap­ pear until the individual has had

...

vention Center, 153 Franklin St., to receive vaccine or immune globulin.

...

Who else might be at risk?

Customers who ate at the res­ taurant between Feb. 27 and March 8 – before the targeted period – also should watch for symptoms.

However, they are not eligible for the vaccine or immune globulin because those treatments are only effective within two weeks of ex­ posure to the virus. If those people notice symptoms, they should visit their doctor or an urgent care clinic.

the virus for a few weeks.

Who are health officials tar­ geting?

Between 1,500 and 2,000 peo­ ple who dined at the Casa­di­Pizza restaurant, 477 Elmwood Ave., between March 9 and 19. Takeout customers are not at risk.

What should those people do?

Check their immunization sta­ tus. If not immunized they should visit Erie County Department of Health clinics from noon to 8 p.m.

Monday and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tues­ day in the Buffalo Niagara Con­

...

Source: Erie County government

UP TO

Taste of Buffalo is the talk of the town

$2,102

Best dessert? Best seafood? Here’s a list of the winning dishes. | PAGE A12

I N S AV I N G S

It’s time for some baseball trivia!

Columnist Jerry Sullivan gets readers’ help in devising annual test of knowledge Page B1

J

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9, 2017 • W

e s t e r n

n

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d i t i o n

Preservationists react to plan for Albright-Knox

BEHIND THE CELLINO & BARNES BREAKUP

Outcry over proposed expansion echoes 1957, when critics got their way

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

In the summer of 1957, the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy announced plans to expand the Albright Art Gallery by plopping a modernist box onto the east steps of its original building.

Public reaction to the plan, conceived by architect Paul Schweikher and approved in secret by the board, was damning. The gallery changed course, enlisting the Buffalo­born architect Gordon Bunshaft to design a new building on a separate site.

Bunshaft’s austere and respectful addition, a sleek modern counterpoint to the neoclassical architecture of E.B. Green’s 1905 building, opened to near­unanimous praise in 1962. In its fir t year of operation, Bunshaft’s building helped draw a record 782,815 people through the gallery’s doors.

But now, after Albright­ Knox offi ials announced plans to replace the galleries and courtyard of Bunshaft’s addition with a grand public space, local and national preservationists, critics and defenders of the architect’s legacy are hoping for a repeat of history.

Reaction in local preserva­ tionist circles to the renderings released by architecture fi m

Clients, peers describe Cellino as down-to-earth, likable, ‘warm and fuzzy’ partner

Legal community views Barnes as a hard-nosed, work-driven businessman stressed by lawsuit

By Phil Fairbanks

By Dan Herbeck

N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

See Cellino on Page A9

INDEX

Automotive ..................E1 Books ............................ D4 Business ....................... G1 Crossword ................... F5

S

By Hiroko Tabuchi N EW YOR K T I MES

NEW YORK – Over the past six years, rooftop solar panel in­ stallations have seen explosive growth – as much as 900 per­ cent by one estimate.

That growth has come to a shuddering stop this year, with a projected decline in new in­ stallations of 2 percent, accord­ ing to projections from Bloom­ berg New Energy Finance.

A number of factors are driv­ ing the reversal, from satura­ tion in markets like California to fi ancial woes at several top solar panel makers.

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funded lobbying campaign by traditional utilities, which have been working in state capitals across the country to reverse in­ centives for homeowners to in­ stall solar panels.

Utilities argue that rules al­ lowing private solar customers to sell excess power back to the grid at the retail price – a prac­ tice known as net metering – can be unfair to homeowners who do not want or cannot af­ ford their own solar installa­ tions.

Their effort has met with considerable success, dimming the prospects for renewable en­ ergy across the United States.

Prodded in part by the util­ ities’ campaign, nearly every state in the country is engaged in a review of its solar energy See Solar on Page A7

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tephen E. Barnes, the multimillionaire lawyer, hard­nosed businessman and risk­taking adventurer who co­founded the Cellino & Barnes law fi m, has survived some harrowing challenges and scares in the past.

When he was fi hting in the Desert Storm war of 1991, a land mine blew up a military vehicle right next to Barnes’ vehicle near the border of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The explosion killed two of Barnes’ Marine Corps buddies.

In 2005, state court offi ials censured Barnes and suspended his law partner, Ross E. Cellino Jr., for six months after an investigation showed their Cellino & Barnes law fi m improperly loaned thou­ sands of dollars to clients in personal injury cases.

In 2007, Barnes became extremely ill while at­ tempting to climb to the summit of Mount Everest in Nepal. He had to make his way back down the mountain after falling just short of his goal.

Obituaries .................. C4 Picture Page ............ A12 The Region ................. C1 Scoreboard................ B11

See Gallery on Page A8

Rooftop solar growth falls by 2 percent

See Barnes on Page A9

GustoSunday ............. D1 Home & Style ..............F1 Letters .......................... H5 Lotteries ..................... C2

OMA was generally negative, prompting a strongly worded letter from Buffalo’s Preserva­ tion Board warning the gallery about the building’s status as a landmark protected from radical renovations.

And while Buffalo’s preservation community some­ times plays the role of vocal minority on major projects such as this, criticism of the plan is also mounting from national experts who consider Bunshaft’s 1962 building to be one of the architect’s greatest achievements.

“Let’s be clear: This is a disaster for the City of Buffalo,” wrote Nicholas Adams, a professor of architectural

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ifteen years later, Mark and Judy Rappold look back on their hills­and­valleys relation­ ship with Ross M. Cellino and admit that, yeah, they still like the guy.

Even now, more than a decade after the West Seneca couple accused Cellino of misconduct, they remember the lawyer who also won them a record­ setting $47 million jury verdict.

“Ross is not a phony,” Mark Rappold said last week. “He’s a good man and, one on one, he’s a real nice guy. He also did a lot of good things for my son.”

In a career that made Cellino both wealthy and famous, the Rappolds and their son David, a law stu­ dent left brain injured after a road­range incident on the Thruway, make up an important chapter.

Their case, after all, helped catapult Cellino and partner Stephen E. Barnes into the public spotlight and earn them a reputation as aggressive attorneys willing to go to trial on behalf of injured clients.

News fi e photo

Architect Gordon Bunshaft’s Albright-Knox design was lauded in 1962.

A8

The Buffalo News/Sunday, July 9, 2017

Continued from the Cover

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s courtyard, designed by Gordon Bunshaft and shown here in a News file photo from Jan. 19, 1962, is slated to be reconfigured in the gallery’s planned expansion. Below left, the opening-night audience for the first concert performed in the Albright-Knox auditorium in 1962 settles into its seats for a performance by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. Below right, Gordon Bunshaft contemplates Gustave Courbet’s painting “La Source de la Loue,” in the gallery he designed on Jan. 19, 1962.

News fi e photos

OMA architect vows to respect Bunshaft’s legacy GALLERY • from A1 history at Vassar College and an expert on Bunshaft’s work, in an email to The News.

“Buffalo needs to repeat its history here, reject an insensitive proposal, and avoid the destruc­ tion of an important work of architecture.”

Adams, whose biography of Bunshaft is due out in 2018 from Yale University Press and who co­curated the Central Library’s current exhibi­ tion “Building Buffalo,” placed the 1962 addition among Buffalo’s architectural gems: Louis Sulli­ van’s Guaranty Building; Richard Upjohn’s St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral; the H.H. Richardson complex; Frank Lloyd Wright’s Darwin Martin House; and Eliel and Eero Saarinen’s Kleinhans Music Hall.

“There is no good reason to alter the building other than to appear hip and contemporary or else to be large enough to warrant adding Mr. Gundlach’s name to the building,” said Carol Herselle Krinsky, a New York University art history professor and author of the 1988 book “Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.” She was referring to megadonor Jeffrey Gundlach, whose name will adorn the new museum when it opens in 2021.

OMA’s Shohei Shigematsu, who is leading the design of the project with a team of archi­ tects based in New York City, said he views the landmark status of the Bunshaft building and the limitations that come along with it as one of the “essential drivers of the design, rather than impediments to the design.”

“We’re certainly sensitive to respecting this important component of the campus, just as we’re sensitive to respecting the 1905 E.B. Green Building and Olmsted’s Delaware Park,” he wrote in an email to The News while traveling in Asia. “It’s an honor to be invited to continue in the legacy of these esteemed designers, who have already proven that innovation and preservation can coexist on the Albright­Knox Campus.”

Shigematsu noted that OMA has considerable experience with historic preservation, having completed four cultural projects in sensitive historic contexts. These include transforming a gin distillery into a cultural space for the Prada Foundation in Milan; renovating a “Soviet­era canteen” into a contemporary art museum in Moscow; placing a new building next to a historic church on protected parkland in Quebec City; and renovating a landmarked art deco building for the Shigematsu­designed Faena Arts District in Miami.

Closer to home, at Cornell University in Ithaca, OMA added a new building to the campus linking two landmarked buildings. That building, featuring a prominent cantilever, has earned mixed reviews.

“Like it or not, Bunshaft’s 1962 addition did attempt to respect the existing structure and the landscape. Today, modern buildings of that time and the landscapes within and outside of them are regularly undervalued and endangered,” said

OMA

OMA architect Shohei Shigematsu designed the new Pierre Lassonde Pavilion in Quebec, which ties a new building to a historic church. He is leading the Albright-Knox redesign.

A 1957 plan to expand the Albright Art Gallery by architect Paul Schweikher was roundly criticized by the public and eventually shelved by the gallery.

Michael Tomlan, the director of the graduate program in historic preservation planning at Cornell’s College of Architecture, Art and Plan­ ning. “The cantilevered ‘floating observation gallery’ is too large and imposing for the site, simply an attempt to create an ‘architectural icon.’”

Shigematsu said OMA is “currently monitor­ ing all of the conversations around the concept, positive and negative,” but will hew to what it called the “project desirables” the gallery laid out after a series of public meetings.

“I’m personally interested in using architec­ ture to reveal layers of history,” he said. “With all these projects, having an open dialogue – with the local community, state and federal boards, and a dialogue between the old and new – has been critical to the success of the project.”

Albright­Knox Art Gallery director Janne Sirén characterized the outcry of critics and

preservationists as premature because the renderings the gallery and OMA released do not represent fi al designs.

He also noted that the gallery is under no obligation to share its process with the public.

“Our process has been premised, for better or for worse, on a degree of openness and a sort of democratic principle,” said Sirén, whose museum receives about $500,000 annually from Erie County taxpayers in addition to $20 million in public funding for the expansion project from state and local sources. “This is a private foundation, so there’s nothing forcing our arm on this. There is no obligation for us to do what we have done.”

Sirén also promoted a utilitarian view of architecture sure to further rankle preservation­ ists, for whom the gallery’s existing buildings are as sacrosanct as its Picassos and Pollocks.

“We are also not in the business of collecting

buildings. We are an art museum and our service is to our public and to the artworks in our custody,” Sirén said. “The buildings are here to serve us, and not us as the staff, but the public and the art. That is our foremost responsibil­ ity. The buildings are the utilitarian tools, in some respect, that allow us to accomplish our mission.”

Buffalo architect Mike Tunkey, of the Grand Island­based fi m Cannon Design, called for a calm and open dialogue between critics and supporters of OMA’s plan.

“I tend to believe that there’s a version of the scheme that OMA is looking at that could respect the integrity of the Bunshaft building,” Tunkey said. “If both sides participated honestly in a process where we discuss the concerns about the integrity of the building and also looked openly and with a creative spirit at what OMA and the Albright­Knox are trying to do, I believe that at least there’s a possibility that we could come to some creative solution.”

Buffalo­based preservationist and architect Barbara Campagna echoed Tunkey’s hope for a more open process, and said the gallery should have included preservation experts earlier in the design process.

“They’re just not doing the process right,” said Campagna, a preservation consultant. “They need to have a really good preservation consultant who knows how to interpret what character­defin ng features mean, to assist them.”

Concerns from Bunshaft fans recall the controversy of 1957­58, when Buffalonians expressed opposition to Paul Schweikher’s plan to modify the gallery’s original building.

After releasing the plans, the gallery received a torrent of complaints. The plans called for the construction of a new building on the Hoyt Lake side of the gallery, eliminating E.B. Green’s grand east steps and installing a low­lying glass structure running the length of the 1905 building.

The reaction was furious and negative. And it infl enced the gallery’s subsequent selection of Buffalo­born architect Bunshaft to design its 1962 building, the conservatism of which emerged as much from the public outcry of 1957 as from Bunshaft’s austere style.

“The addition has the air of a compromise,” said Buffalo artist Hugh Laidman at the time of Schweikher’s proposal in a story by News critic Larry Griffi , “an attempt to placate the lovers of (the) traditional by hiding the addition in the guise of a pedestal, while at the same time using enough contemporary architectural clichés to appease those who favor (the) modern.”

Griffi , in a 1957 story criticizing Schweikher’s plan, seemed to anticipate the concerns of today’s preservationists.

“A completely modern building with its own purpose and character would be an outstanding contribution to the culture of Buffalo,” Griffi wrote. “It might in the future command the same protective interests being expressed by our citizenry today for the present gallery.”

CHESTNUT TREES MAY BE RETURNING TO CHESTNUT RIDGE PARK | PAGE C1

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RESTAURANT NOTES, PAGE B1

SPORTS, PAGE D1

Strain expressed as Percoco jury’s deliberations stall

At Albright-Knox, a tug of war over gallery expansion plans

Notes indicate physical, emotional toll as judge is informed ‘we cannot agree’

By Tom Precious N E W S A L B A N Y B U R E AU C H I E F

Photos by Derek Gee/Buffalo News

The future of Gordon Bunshaft’s sleek 1962 addition to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery is being debated as the gallery finalizes its expansion plans.

‘Beautiful’ Bunshaft is not functional

some of the most important paint­ ings in the history of art.

When those totes arrive at the crampedloadingdockonthewest side of the gallery’s 1962 building, they share space with piles of linen waiting to be washed, the exposed guts of dated mechani­ cal systems and crated artworks waiting to be installed in the gal­ lery or carried off on trucks.

“Ideally, in a contemporary art museum, trash and visitors don’t mix,” said Albright­Knox Deputy Director Joe Martin Lin­ Hill, venting one of many frustra­ tions gallery leaders have with the limitations of Gordon Bun­ shaft’s 1962 building.

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

In most contemporary muse­ ums, taking out the trash is a sim­ ple and discreet endeavor.

But at the Albright­Knox Art Gallery, which is embarking on a $155 million expansion to add gal­ lery space and renovate its aging buildings,it’sabitmorecomplicat­ ed. When workers at the gallery’s café need to get rid of waste or transport food, they must roll gar­ bage totes through narrow corri­ dors, carefully navigating around priceless pieces of sculpture and

The art prep team moves a piece of artwork out to a waiting truck for shipment in the cramped loading dock at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

ALBANY – Seven weeks after the Joseph Percoco cor­ ruption trial began, and in the midst of Day Four of delibera­ tions, some of the jurors want out and indicated Tuesday morning that they are dead­ locked.

Three jurors sent notes Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni in Manhat­ tan saying they want to be dis­ missed from the trial. “I physi­ callyandemotionallycannotdo this anymore,” one wrote.

The tone and timing of the notesappeartoraisetheprospect ofamistrialasaveryrealpossible outcome to the closely watched trial that has given jurors, and the public, a not­so­pretty look into how their state government and the Cuomo administration does its work in Albany.

The judge Tuesday after­ noon offered her sympathies but rejected calls by several ju­ rors to be dismissed. She sent themhomefortheday,assched­ uled, in midafternoon, gave them the day off today in antici­ pation of a snowstorm, and told them all to return again Thurs­ day morning to continue delib­

erations.

“I appreciate that you’re workinghard,(but)you’veactu­ ally only been deliberating two days. And two days for a trial that had seven or eight weeks of testimony is not unreason­ able, and it’s not excessive,” the judge told jurors. Caproni told them that she recognized the personal burdens, but that the prosecution and the defense “are entitled to the jury’s best efforts to reach a verdict in this case, and that requires all 12 of our jurors.”

After the jury left for the day, Caproni told lawyers that “hopefully” all 12 jurors will show up Thursday. “If not, we will assess, at that point, next steps,” the judge said.

Thejurybegandeliberations Thursday afternoon, but this week are scheduled to break each day at 2 p.m. under a time­ table that the jury asked the judge to approve. In all, delib­ erations have lasted a bit more than 21 hours since Thursday.

Even with the part­time de­ liberations, some jurors said that enough is enough for a tri­ al they’ve been involved with since its Jan. 22 start.

See Percoco on Page A6

ANOTHER TOP AIDE LEAVING TRUMP

Gary D. Cohn, President Trump’s top economic adviser, who opposes tariffs, is the latest in a string of Trump aides who says he’s leaving. Story on Page A4.

See Expansion on Page A10 A N A LY S I S

On N. Korea, Trump is in a familiar box

Energy utilities rank high in customer response Cable, wireless providers fare worse on index

By Stephen T. Watson N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

New data from state regulators con­ fi ms what some consumers suspected all along: The companies that provide cable and wireless service aren’t very good at re­ sponding to customer complaints.

Who does the best? Gas and electric companies – a result that may come as a surprise to some customers.

But those are the general fi dings from a Public Service Commission index that tracks how well utility companies in New York respond to consumer complaints.

The agency’s customer service re­

INDEX

Business ...................... C6 City & Region ............. C1 Classifi d .................... D7 Comics ......................... B4

Gas and electric companies are best

Tantalizing prospect of nuclear deal proved elusive for 3 predecessors.

Customer Service Response Index and state rank National Fuel

National Grid

NYSEG

Rank: 1

Rank: 5

Rank: 7

9.75

9.32

sponse index takes into account the av­ erage age of all pending complaints, how long it took the provider to close an initial complaint or an escalated complaint and whether the company generated escalat­ ed complaints – those that customers tell the commission weren’t resolved.

Crossword ........ D7, D10 Dear Abby.................... B2 Horoscope.................... B5 Letters ...........................A9

Lotteries ..................... C2 Obituaries .................. C4 Opinion ....................... A8 Picture Page .............. B6

9.23

Spectrum Buffalo

By Mark Landler and David E. Sanger

6.85

N EW YOR K T I MES

Rank: 26

National Fuel had the best custom­ er service response index score for 2017 among every utility company reviewed by the commission, a 9.75 on a scale where 10 is the highest.

See Rank on Page A6

Scoreboard ................ D6 Sports ............................ D1 Taste .............................. B1 Television ................... B2

WASHINGTON – From the day he took offi e, President Trump has vowed not to repeat what he regarded as the cardi­ nal mistake of his predecessors in dealing with North Korea.

He would not get drawn into a lengthy negotiation in which the United States offers con­ cessions that keep the North Korean regime alive, while the

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NorthKoreansretainthekeyel­ ements of their nuclear arsenal.

“Whether you look at the Clinton administration, or the Bush administration or the Obama administration, it nev­ er worked out,” he said in the Oval Offi e on Tuesday. “That was the time to have settled this problem – not now.”

Whatever one thinks of Trump’s version of history, he now faces a prospect uncanni­ ly similar to that confronted by Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

North Korea’soffer to put its nu­ See Korea on Page A6

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A10

The Buffalo News/Wednesday, March 7, 2018

Continued from the Cover

Tight loading dock inadequate for large works of art EXPANSION • from A1 Those challenges, which go far deeper than the co­mingling of art and trash, are at the cen­ ter of a controversy over a plan the gallery announced last year to convert Bunshaft’s galleries and courtyard into a grand en­ try hall.

As gallery offi ials, preser­ vationists and others debate the shape and form the expansion will take, a question lingers in the minds of gallery fans: Aside from the cramped quarters and the obvious need for more space to show the gal­ lery’s collection, what’s so bad about the Bunshaft?

Visual beauty, practical problems

Architecture as function On a recent afternoon, the Albright­Knox’s Lin­Hill talk­ ed about the challenges of the building in the gallery’s café as snowfellintothedesertedcourt­ yard outside the café’s windows.

The Bunshaft building, Lin­ Hill admitted, is an “exquisite sculpture” and a “beautiful, minimalist gesture.”

But, he said, “architecture as form is different from architec­ ture as function.”

While the beauty of Bun­ shaft’s form is uncontested, it struggles to perform many functions required by 21st cen­ tury museums.

Among the most serious is­ sues: The gallery’s claustrophobic loading dock, on the west side of the Bunshaft building, is in­ adequate for large works of con­ temporary art and serves as the onlypointwherethetransportof waste materials and other build­ ing functions normally separat­ ed from art can take place.

As a result, large works of art – such as Jackson Pollock’s famous painting “Convergence” – must be craned into the 1905 building’s sculpture court and then carted to other parts of the building. This comes at enor­ mous expense – in staff time, crane rental, and insurance – in addition to the increased risk to works of art that often must be moved by hand through a series of narrow doorways and down vertiginous staircases.

Its understated entrance, facing Elmwood Avenue, cre­ ates a bottleneck during busy times, with nowhere for visitors

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

The gallery’s claustrophobic loading dock, on the west side of the Bunshaft building, is inadequate for large works of contemporary art.

Below, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s renovation included a large, plaza-like public space between its original and new buildings.

“The goal here is not to embalm the museum and its collection. It’s to bring them to life.

People want this building to be vital.

To make this building vital, some of its challenges have to be mitigated.”

– Joe Martin Lin-Hill, Albright-Knox deputy director John Hickey/News fi e photo

to congregate except in the al­ ready cramped vestibule.

As a result, the building’s cli­ mate control system is unable to maintain the proper temper­ ature and humidity near the en­ trance, which means that, espe­ cially in cold months, precious wall space must remain empty or hung with works that can stand up to fl ctuations in tem­ perature.

There are also serious issues with low ceilings, fi ed lighting that cannot easily be renovat­ ed, a multi­level fl or that cre­ ates challenges for accessibility and the transport of art, and a circulation plan that requires food and trash to be transport­ ed through corridors hung with Picassos and Van Goghs.

Lin­Hill said the majority of incidents that endanger art­ works, such as people bumping into paintings and sculptures, happen in the cramped corri­ dors of the 1962 building rath­ er than the comparatively spa­ cious 1905 galleries.

But the courtyard, which Bunshaft designed as a con­ templative space, is perhaps the most emblematic of the chal­ lenge the Albright­Knox faces at ittriestoreinventitselfforanew generation of museum fans.

“It’s this sacred internal space that is meant to be looked into, but maybe not ventured into,” Lin­Hill said. “This is a lot of space right at the very, very heart of our campus. It needs to read as a space that belongs to the public.”

‘We operate in the public trust’ The secretive posture of the courtyard, the relatively un­ adaptable galleries that sur­ round it and the cramped entry­ way that greets visitors, Lin­Hill andothergalleryleadersbelieve, send a message that is at odds with the gallery’s public mission.

“We operate in the pub­ lic trust. The broad public, not the exclusive public,” Lin­Hill said, citing the gallery’s popu­ lar “Freedom Wall” public mu­ ral project on the East Side as an example of its expanding role in the community. “It would be great if this museum had that

kind of participatory vitality at its very center in the future. …

This is what the museum sector as a whole is doing because it wants to have a more vital role.”

Since Bunshaft’s addition opened in 1962, the art world has grown exponentially, di­ verging into countless themat­ ic streams and mediums, from monumental sculptures de­ manding monumental spaces to purely conceptual art requir­ ing no space at all.

The unpredictability of the art world and its growth into countless new disciplines de­ mands a different kind of muse­ umthanBunshaftorhiscontem­ poraries could have conceived.

This uncertainty, coupled with a desire to reconnect with segments of the public long alien­ ated from the art world, has driv­ en expanding museums to favor vast public spaces and highly adaptable galleries over the more intimate spaces of the past.

Each of those recent proj­ ects, from the Cleveland Muse­ um of Art’s $320 expansion to the $50 renovation of the Speed Museum in Louisville, Ky., has attempted to satisfy the public’s desire for more welcoming civic spaces, museums’ desire to earn revenue from those spaces and artists’ demands for more fl x­ ible exhibition spaces.

OMA’s original concept, whichwouldhaveconvertedthe lower part of Bunshaft’s build­ ings into educational space while blowing out its courtyard and gallery into a large entry hallaccessiblefromtheeastand west sides, was of a piece with these projects.

‘Change is a constant’

Louis Grachos, who served as director of the Albright­Knox from 2003 to 2013 and now heads the Contemporary Aus­ tin, made the most out of Bun­ shaft’s building during his ten­ ure. His “Remix the Collection” series constantly shuffl d what was on the walls of the building, which had remained mostly static for decades before Gra­ chos arrived.

Though he declined to cri­ tique the way it functions, Grachos said it does not offer enough room for the gallery’s

growing collection.

“The 1962 Gordon Bunshaft building is an exquisite build­ ing,anditwasapleasuretohave worked with it during my ten­ ure,” he said in an email. “The only downside to the Bunshaft building was that it did not pro­ vide enough physical space for the Albright­Knox’s outstand­ ing collection.”

Albright­Knox mega­donor Jeffrey Gundlach, who has criti­ cized critics of OMA’s original conceptas“NYCelitists”onTwit­ ter, did not respond to an email requesting a comment on the Bunshaft building’s limitations.

John Massier, the longtime visual arts curator of Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center and a frequent gallery visitor, hailed the intimate experience of be­ ing in the 1962 building, but said he was open to changes.

“I love that style of architec­ ture, but I also understand that maybe that’s not entirely use­ ful to the future,” Massier said.

“But change is a constant, and even in our physical structures, change has to be acknowledged onceinawhile,hastobeaccom­ modated.”

Others, like Buffalo­born ar­ chitect Richard Gluckman, fall somewhere in the middle.

Gluckman, whose fi m Gluckman Tang Architects submitted a proposal to expand the gallery to the east during Grachos’ tenure, acknowledged problems with visitor circula­ tion and art loading in Bun­ shaft’s design. While he was op­ posed to OMA’s fir t concept, he urged a solution that does not capitulate to the complaints of preservationists by building on the north side.

He compared that solution, which the gallery fl ated last fall, to “putting one of those pre­ fabricated garden sheds in the backyard.”

“If the administration and the architects have to take a bow to the preservationists, then they abrogate their re­ sponsibility to the institution, to the Albright­Knox, to the City of Buffalo and to the pro­ fession,”Gluckmansaid.“There are ways to create a strong tri­ partite composition, just like it had to have been a challenge for

Gordon Bunshaft to create that incredible binary composition.”

Many advocates of OMA’s original concept at the gallery and in the community contend the 1962 building is a rigid em­ bodiment of a rigid era that will not yield to 21st century de­ mandswithoutradicalchanges.

For his fi rcest advocates, Bunshaft’s achievement is an inviolable product of its time whose functional shortcomings pale in comparison to its impor­ tancein thehistoryof American architecture.

Right now, behind closed doors at the Albright­Knox

and in the Manhattan offi es of OMA, the demands of histo­ ry and the needs of the future – of visual beauty and practi­ cal problems – are facing off. A compromise is likely to emerge in a matter of months.

Until then, Lin­Hill suggest­ ed, the gallery will continue to pursue its mission and push for asolutionthatsatisfieseveryone.

“The goal here is not to em­ balm the museum and its col­ lection. It’s to bring them to life,” Lin­Hill said. “People want this building to be vital. To make this building vital, some of its chal­ lenges have to be mitigated.”

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From a distance, the Al­ bright­Knox Art Gallery’s cam­ pusattheedgeofDelawarePark appearstobeinperfectbalance.

E.B. Green’s 1905 building, a neoclassical marvel hailed for its airy galleries and exqui­ site symmetry, dissolves into the simple grace of Gordon Bunshaft’s low­slung, modern­ ist jewel­box to the south. The dark glass wall of Bunshaft’s auditorium refl cts the marble colonnade on the south side of Green’s building, each architect addressing the other in the lan­ guage of their time.

But look a little closer – into the cramped loading dock of the 1962 building, into its narrow corridors, walled­off courtyard and the artless walls of its bot­ tlenecked entrance – and this image of visual perfection gives way to practical problems.

This contrast – between a desire to preserve the visual beauty of the gallery’s campus and the need to add exhibition space and correct the shortcom­ ings of its existing buildings – is at the heart of the debate over the expansion.

Last year, the architectur­ al fi m OMA released a con­ cept that would have converted the building’s cramped galler­ ies into a grand entry hall and placed a large new exhibition space between Green’s building and Bunshaft’s auditorium. But many preservationists and ar­ chitectural historians decried theapproachasaninsulttoBun­ shaft’s building and his legacy.

After the controversy, the gallery hired two preservation fi ms to guide them through a possible alternative solu­ tion. That process is ongoing.

Though the gallery announced in September it was exploring an alternative expansion on the north side of the campus, nei­ ther the gallery nor the fi ms would offer any comment on where the design is heading or when a revised concept would be released.

Buffalo Niagara housing market on a roll

Sellers gain the upper hand as buyers compete for homes in best areas | PAGE G1

He still reigns as king of courts

The Cavaliers’ LeBron James just turned 33, but he seems even better with age Page B1

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End of ‘net neutrality,’ bad service roil voters Internet speed, access spur complaints across region

By Jerry Zremski N E W S WA S H I N G T O N B U R E AU C H I E F

Photos by Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Linda Lazzaro interacts with the wall of beads in the installation “Untitled (Water)” by Felix Gonzalez-Torres during a program for the visually impaired at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery last week.

Participants experience gallery’s collection through multisensory tours and activities B y C ol i n Da bkow sk i

L

N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

inda Lazzaro is in love with painting. ¶ Her descriptions of the oils and acrylics at the Albright­Knox Art Gallery brim with emo­ tion, cutting straight to the heart of an artist’s intention. ¶ “One picture moved me to tears because it described want, poverty and neglect,” Lazzaro said of a painting in the gallery’s collection, likely a 19th­ century piece by Honoré Daumier. “I felt a physical feeling of real sadness. I wanted to reach into that painting, snatch everybody and take them home with me.” ¶ For Lazzaro, the color purple evokes “a depth of passion and coolness.” Red reminds her of “the warmth of cooked apple, tomato soup or sauce.” And blue brings to mind images of “picking blueberries on a cool, summer day.” ¶ But here’s the impressive part: Lazzaro has never seen a color. She’s never seen a painting or a sculpture. Or, for that matter, a bowl of tomato soup. She is blind. | S E E A R T O N P A G E A 9

Still smoking? A robot might help you quit

By Karen Robinson N E W S BU S I N E S S R E P O R T E R

You’ve smoked for years. You know you should quit. Your doctor, relatives and friends have begged you to do so, to no avail.

But what if a robot zipping around the Buffalo Niagara Medi­ cal Campus read you the riot act?

Maybe the robot could also pick up discarded cigarette butts and squirt water at people if they give it a hard time.

That’s what Matthew K. Enstice, head of the BNMC Inc. nonprofit organization that oversees the 120­ acre campus, is thinking about.

“This would be like a giant Roomba. It’s like a Roomba that might look like a human,” said En­ stice, BNMC president and chief

INDEX

Automotive ..................E1 Books ............................ D4 Business ....................... G1 Crossword ................... F5

executive offi er. “I don’t know what they can do, but we’ve been in talks with people to fi ure out how to do it.”

To some, it may sound a bit far out there. An internet search found no references to robots being used to help people quit smoking.

Joseph S. Baschnagel, chair­ man of the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Health and Addic­ tions Research Center, expressed some doubts about whether it would work.

Enstice acknowledged he fi st thought of it “half­seriously.”

But he remains undeterred.

“I’m totally serious about this,” said Enstice, who hatched the idea after a recent summer trip to San See Robot on Page A9

GustoSunday ............. D1 Home & Style ..............F1 Letters .......................... H5 Lotteries ..................... C2

Obituaries .................. C4 Picture Page ............ A12 The Region ................. C1 Scoreboard................ B11

Linda Lazzaro uses her hands to examine a foam bust during an art class at the gallery.

WASHINGTON – People inundated the offi es of Rep. Brian Higgins in recent weeks with complaints about a fir t­world problem: a federal agency’s decision to end “net neutrality,” an Obama­era policy aimed at forcing internet service providers to allow the same access to all websites without play­ ing favorites.

Meantime, in poorer parts of Buffalo and rural swaths of Erie County and the nation at large, residents still cope with third­world internet service that’s far slower than what the modern economy de­ Inside: Map shows mands.

Those two issues may areas that seem to be unrelated, but aren’t lucky at least one fact appears enough to tie them together.

“I think the thing that to have gets people upset about high-speed losing net neutrality is internet. that there’s a distrust of Page A8 the providers” – the com­ panies that offer internet service, said Mark Bartholomew, an associate professor and communications law expert at the University at Buffalo School of Law. “People are upset about companies they don’t have a lot of faith in getting even more power,” he said.

Millennials, in particular, don’t want the big internet providers to have more power to control content and maybe charge more for some of it, several sources said.

“I think it raises a big concern for a lot of consumers,”saidSeanMyers,chiefoperating offi er for VETRO FiberMap, a mapping soft­ ware product engineered in part by a team in downtown Buffalo.

Proof that people distrust their internet providers can be found in a survey of more than 2,000 Erie County residents conduct­ ed as part of a larger county study on local broadband access. Some 71 percent of the people who respondedto the survey said they were not satisfied with their internet service.

Perhaps it should be no surprise, then, that more people complained to Higgins’ of­ fi e last year about the loss of net neutrality See Internet on Page A8

‘Is this the end of my life?’: In Hawaii, false missile alert causes mad scramble

By Amy B Wang, Dan Lamothe and Greg Miller WA S H I N G T O N P O S T

For 38 harrowing minutes, resi­ dents and tourists in Hawaii were left to believe that missiles were stream­ ing across the sky toward the Pacifi island chain after an erroneous alert Saturdaymorningbythestate’semer­ gency management agency.

The episode underscored the al­ ready heightened level of anxiety at the western edge of the United States amid mounting tensions with North Korea over its nuclear arsenal and the menacing social media exchang­ es between President Trump and its leader, Kim Jong Un. “Ballistic missile threat inbound

Sports ............................ B1 Travel ........................... F8 TV Topics ..........................

Viewpoints ................ H1

Getty Images

A screen shot taken by Hawaiian citizen Alison Teal shows the alert on her mobile phone Saturday.

WEATHER

Cloudy, bitterly cold. High 16, low 2. Details on Page C8.

to Hawaii,” warned an 8:07 a.m. mes­ sage transmitted across the state’s cellphone networks. “Seek immedi­ ate shelter. This is not a drill.”

Only after an inexplicable delay by the state agency – during which residents scrambled to seek shelter and contact relatives – was a subse­ quent message sent describing the missile warning as a “false alarm.”

The frightening mistake, which Democratic Gov. David Ige later at­ tributed to a state employee’s errant push of a button, prompted outrage and calls for an investigation into how such an error could occur and take so long to correct.

On the island of Oahu, Adam Kurtz of Palolo woke up four min­ See Hawaii on Page A5

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A9

The Buffalo News/Sunday, January 14, 2018

Continued from the Cover

Program is well-suited to â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Art of the Sensesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; exhibit A creative outlet

ART â&#x20AC;˘ from A1 The last thing she remem­ bers seeing was a fl sh of light­ ning through her dorm room window at the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia in the spring of 1962.

Her descriptions of artwork at the Albright­Knox Art Gal­ lery are pieced together from tour guidesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; descriptions, her own memories and the occa­ sional privilege of slipping on a pair of white gloves and run­ ning her fin ers across Picassoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s signature on a sculpture.

She shared her impressions of the art during a recent guid­ ed tour of the Albright­Knox for the visually impaired. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve never seen a color. But I associate it with fl wers that I love, or feelings,â&#x20AC;? said Lazzaro, 64.

Her sight was damaged when she was an infant. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s favorite color was turquoise, so when I think about turquoise, I think of my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;svoiceandIthinkofjust how much I loved her,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have any visual sense, but I feel emotional depth with color that I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t describe.â&#x20AC;?

A hands-on experience

Since 2008, the Albright­ Knox has hosted guided â&#x20AC;&#x153;mul­ tisensoryâ&#x20AC;? tours and group art activities for the blind and visu­ ally impaired. Its current tour program, led by the galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Accessibility and Community Programs Coordinator Karen Duval, runs on the fir t Satur­ day and second Wednesday of every month.

The program mixes descrip­ tions of works on view with opportunities for visually im­ paired to touch certain art­ works and participate in an art­ making activity based on one or more of the works theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve expe­ rienced. And it is particularly well­suited to the galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cur­ rent exhibition â&#x20AC;&#x153;Art of the Sens­ es,â&#x20AC;? which features installations all viewers are able to touch, hear, smell and even taste.

Three visually impaired women and one service dog named Omni met Duval in the lobby of the gallery Wednesday afternoon. After a brief intro­ duction, Duval led the group into the galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bright, glass­ walled auditorium, where they sat in the front row and listened

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Participants in the Albright-Knox Art Galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s program for the visually impaired stop to experience the piece â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cinemaâ&#x20AC;?

by George Segal. The program takes place on the first Saturday and second Wednesday of every month.

to a meditative 2012 sound in­ stallation by the Scottish artist Susan Phillipz.

Titled â&#x20AC;&#x153;The River Cycle,â&#x20AC;?

Phillipzâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s calming sound instal­ lation emanates from six speak­ ers positioned on the east and west sides of the auditorium.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s based on a character from James Joyceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book â&#x20AC;&#x153;Finnegans Wakeâ&#x20AC;? and is meant to describe the journey of a leaf along the River Liffey in Dublin and to re­ fl ct the natural surroundings of Delaware Park. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It seems like thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the life of that leaf,â&#x20AC;? said tour member Kathy Lyons, 72, accompanied by her service dog, Omni, after contemplating the meaning of the pieceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plinking piano notes. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It hits the water and twists and turns.â&#x20AC;?

Later, the group huddled around a square pile of bright­ ly colored candies â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an unti­ tled work by the late artist Fe­ lix Gonzalez­Torres â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as Duval

explained to their surprise that visitors are allowed to pick up a piece of candy and eat it.

After listening to Duvalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s description of gallery staff re­ plenishing the candy supply to maintain the shape of a perfect square, tour member Audrey Divita got an idea. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I just have this feeling Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d love to mess it all up,â&#x20AC;? Divita, 86, said with smirk. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Like a kid.â&#x20AC;?

For Divita, who has some pe­ ripheral vision but no central vision, the program provides insight into artworks that most gallery visitors donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a wonderful program, and opens up vistas to you when you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see and you feel shut off,â&#x20AC;? said Divita, who was accompanied by her sighted friend Paul Kennedy. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We put on white gloves and felt a Picas­ so piece, and could feel where he carved his name. Probably if I was sighted and I came to see that, I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even notice it.â&#x20AC;?

During the tour, the group also took in George Segalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pop­ ular installation known as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cin­ ema.â&#x20AC;? The bright piece incor­ porates an illuminated movie theater marquee and a plaster sculptureofamanpausedinthe act of removing the fi al letter from the sign.

To give the group a better understanding of the materi­ als involved in the piece, Duval passed around a plaster cast of a human face made from a sim­ ilar material to Segalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s plaster sculpture, as well as a wooden block letter â&#x20AC;&#x153;Râ&#x20AC;? resembling the one on the marquee.

Upstairs, in the galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s stately 1905 building, Divita, Lazzaro and Lyons reveled in a large­scale piece by Gonza­ lez­Torres: A towering curtain of hanging beads visitors must part to enter the â&#x20AC;&#x153;Art of the Sensesâ&#x20AC;? exhibition.

Lyons, who could barely make out the twinkling of the

beads, said it reminded her of Niagara Falls.

And for Lazzaro, who mar­ veled at the rare ability to move through a piece of art and listen to the sound it makes, the piece evoked something close to pure joy. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Oh, my God, I love this,â&#x20AC;? she exclaimed as she let the beads fall over her face on her way from one side of the curtain to the other and back again.

In a nearby room, the group made its way through an instal­ lation by Ernesto Neto made of macrame­style netting with ringing bells and seedpods at­ tached. Lazzaro, again draw­ ing on personal memories, said the sound of the piece reminded her of the bells she used to tie to her childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s shoes so she could track their movements around the house.

After the tour, the group made its way through one of the galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s claustrophobic cor­ ridors to a subterranean activ­ ity room. There, Duval laid out strips of plaster cloth next to a clear plastic tub of water. She passed out four foam heads to the participants, with instruc­ tions to wet the plaster and ap­ ply it to the foam faces â&#x20AC;&#x201C; much like the technique Segal used to create â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cinema.â&#x20AC;?

As they worked on their projects, the participants group chatted about experiences with art in the galleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collection and their struggles with losing their sight. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Ilikethecombinationofsee­ ing art, getting to know whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s out there, and making art,â&#x20AC;? said Lyons, who skipped the plaster strips and instead applied col­ orful pieces of yarn to decorate her foam head. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Because the creative needs an outlet.â&#x20AC;?

Duval, who joined the gal­ lery in April, said she tries not to be heavy­handed with her descriptions of works so partici­ pants can use their other senses, memories and imaginations to fi l in the gaps. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A lot of people think, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Why would a visual art museum be a draw for anyone whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blind or has low vision?â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? Duval said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;But it is because youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re access­ ing all sorts of different topics and subjects. It triggers things in people. People make emo­ tionalresponsesortheydrawon other areas of their experience.â&#x20AC;?

For Lyons, whose sight has become progressively worse, the tours connect her to a time when she could tell the differ­ ence between different colors.

For Divita, it provides a chance to engage intellectual­ ly with artwork in ways others arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t able to.

And for Lazzaro, it offers a space to indulge a creative im­ pulse that has always been look­ ing for a way out. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been a source of joy and healing for me. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very affi m­ ing to have a new window for your intellect that opens,â&#x20AC;? Lazza­ ro said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I feel so uplifted when I come here. And when I leave, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve gotten a deep compres­ sion massage for the soul.â&#x20AC;?

Francisco where he saw a guy walking behind a moving box, holding a remote control. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It was just walking down the street.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;What are you doing?â&#x20AC;? En­ stice recalled asking the man. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I was thinking, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Either this guy has a bomb, or heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s doing something really cool.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x153;He said, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Oh, this is a ro­ bot,â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? Enstice said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He said he was testing it out because it was a part of a food delivery program. It did not look like a human robot.â&#x20AC;?

Though his robot idea is just in the conceptual stage, Enstice is hopeful it can lead to the real thing. He said he is in talks with a scientist at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center to see what could be designed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re working with a pro­ fessor at Roswell to fi ure out how you build this, and fund building a prototype of a robot going around the campus to work on smoking cessation,â&#x20AC;?

Enstice said, declining to elabo­ rate on who is involved or spe­ cifi s necessary for it to hap­ pen. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We could see if we could program it to get out informa­ tion on smoking cessation, talk to people, send a message.

It could be one robot, maybe more. We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know.â&#x20AC;?

Enstice said maybe a robot could distribute anti­smoking literature to people on the cam­ pus, which in 2012 declared itself a tobacco­free zone.

The campus spans a neigh­ borhood stretching from Goodell Street to North Street, and from Michigan Avenue to Main Street. The smoke­free policy applies to all Medical Campus employees, visitors, pa­ tients, vendors and contractors on campus­owned properties.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are a tobacco­free cam­ pus, but it is a challenge to en­ forceâ&#x20AC;? with so many different employers, patients and vistors, said Kari Root Bonaro, BNMC communications director.

People still smoke on the Medical Campus, with the Spirit of Life tree at the corner of High and Ellicott streets a favorite spot. Maybe a robot is the answer.

More and more, robots are fi ding their way into real­life situations to perform a wide variety of tasks.

Consider â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chip,â&#x20AC;? the robot butler that has been deliver­ ing amenities such as towels, toothpaste, candy, cocktails and newspapers to hotel guests at the Westin Buffalo on Dela­ ware Avenue since last March. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He is alive and well, and serving guests,â&#x20AC;? said Russ Pa­ pia, the hotelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s director of sales and marketing. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going ex­ tremely well. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hugely popu­ lar with our children, and is an attention­getter and a conver­ sation starter.â&#x20AC;?

Geared to the service indus­ try, Papia said â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chipâ&#x20AC;? is the only robot butler in the Westin Ho­ tels globally and was the only one in a New York State hotel when he was launched last year.

Docked at a charging station by the hotel front desk, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Chipâ&#x20AC;? has been programmed with the layout of the hotel and knows where the guest rooms are. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When we program him to deliver an amenity, within a few minutes, he is at the door,â&#x20AC;?

Papia said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;He calls them from outside the door, announces his presence, his top opens up and his amenity is waiting for you.

And he goes on his merry way.â&#x20AC;?

When it comes to the Medi­ cal Campus, some type of robot with a special purpose may work depending on its design, said a local expert on robotics.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Everyday service robots, such as trash collecting and material moving units, are a growing industry, and there is an exciting momentum right now in their commercial de­ velopment and deployment in various sectors all over the world,â&#x20AC;? said Souma Chowd­ hury, a University at Buffalo as­ sistant professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering, in an email to The News.

However, he said the focus in academic research is â&#x20AC;&#x153;mostly on developing enabling new­ generation technologiesâ&#x20AC;? for service robots that can learn new skills on the go, or perceive tasks without being exclusively instructed. Other examples include robots that work as a team as well as soft robots that can effi iently navigate differ­ ent environments.

But can a robot help a person break such an addictive habit? â&#x20AC;&#x153;From one perspective, it would make people think about their behavior. If theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re trying to implement this between the hospitals, I think it would be a novelty,â&#x20AC;? said Baschnagel, who is also chairman of the Psychol­ ogy Department at Rochester Institute of Technology.

However, Baschnagel said that for a robot to help deter addictive behavior, it has to be around a person all the time.

Baschnagel said the robot could provide counseling in a medical setting: â&#x20AC;&#x153;If someone is in a waiting room, the robot could go around and talk to people, asking, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Hey, do you smoke?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; It could take the place of the health provider asking the questions. It could help with screening and then pro­ vide that information to health care providers if it could iden­ tify the patient and add that to the records. That part certainly is not far­fetched.â&#x20AC;?

â&#x20AC;&#x153;But drastically help­ ing people to quit, might be stretching it a bit,â&#x20AC;? he said.

Baschnagel is working with RIT students to design a mobile app aimed at helping people quit smoking. The app will â&#x20AC;&#x153;learnâ&#x20AC;? a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smok­ ing behavior and then predict when a person might be about to smoke, and use that predic­ tion to present some treatment â&#x20AC;&#x153;in the moment,â&#x20AC;? he said. In the works for a year, Baschnagel said he hopes a prototype will be ready by the end of summer. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We really need â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;just in timeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; treatment â&#x20AC;&#x201C; something that intervenes just as youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re about to place a cigarette in your mouth. A robot would work maybe at a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home, saying, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;It looks like you want to grab a pack of ciga­ rettes,â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? he said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It could inter­ ject (by saying) â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Here are some things you could do instead.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;?

That doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t help smok­ ers as they drive, sit in a bar or take a break at work, he said.

Still, Enstice is so pumped about the Medical Campus ro­ bot idea that he talked it up to local students in eighth grade and high school who were part of a pilot coding camp last summer on the campus. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Some were on a robotics team. I jokingly said to them, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Can you build me that robot to pick up cigarette butts and squirt water at people if they yell at you?â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;? he recalled. â&#x20AC;&#x153;They told their robotics coach, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;We love this idea. Can we build it?â&#x20AC;&#x2122;â&#x20AC;?

How, if and when it might be built, and funded, is un­ known for now. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know how long it takes to do something like this.

This is an idea I just threw out there,â&#x20AC;? Enstice said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about fi uring out what the business model is.â&#x20AC;?

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BU-1213936

ROBOT â&#x20AC;˘ from A1

BU-1386776

Robot butler â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;alive and wellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; at Westin hotel

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FILMED BY: WESTMOOR

ON 8/11/111

AT 14:40:21

PAGE NAME: f1/14 (#68161) OUTPUT DEVICE: PSDX OUTPUT LOCATION:NEWS DATE Last Justified:8/11/2011 <<-8/14/1911 /=/ PAGE=F xyzz 1/EDITION=NOFO->>

( CYAN( )YELLOW )

AUTHOR: WESTMOOR

The Buffalo News AUGUST 14, 2011 » SECTION F

Illuminating the arts, style, people + ideas.

Humor: Radio’s Garrison Keillor brings his offbeat brand of humor to Artpark. Page F3.

People Talk: Cruise captain reflects on summers spent piloting the Miss Buffalo. Page F5.

Books: ‘America Walks Into a Bar’: New book explores the central role of the saloon. Page F9.

Travel: Glacier National Park offers spectacular vistas, wintry chills and summer heat. Page F14.

spotlight

FORGET ABOUT SILVER­BULLET SAVIORS: COMMUNITY­BASED SOLUTIONS ARE PROVIDING A NEW PATH TO SUCCESS ACROSS BUFFALO

Dream big build small

By Colin Dabkowski NEWS ARTS CRITIC

There’s a great big hole in downtown Buffalo, and it’s filled with a great big concept.

The 600­by­350­foot chasm in the dirt, once the site of the city’s storied Memorial Auditorium, was meant to be the centerpiece for the redevel­ opment of Buffalo’s waterfront.

In 2004, it was decided that the region would invest large sums of public money there to draw a new outlet for Bass Pro Shops, a national pur­ veyor of sporting goods and fishing equipment.

Local leaders scraped together $65 million in promised tax breaks, infrastructure improve­ ments and other public subsidies to speed its ar­ rival and to catalyze a new era of growth and com­ merce on the waterfront.

It was all for nothing. Their grand hopes were slowly crushed over the course of an anguished, six­year courtship, which finally flamed out last year. “Bass Pro” has since become a regional punch line.

But in the post­Bass Pro months, an extraordi­ nary about­face has occurred. The search for a wa­ terfront messiah appears to be abandoned, along with plans to invest a large number of the region’s proverbial eggs in a single precarious basket.

Instead, prodded by community activists (identified both as progressive saviors and regres­ sive obstructionists), the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. turned its attention to anoth­ er philosophy.

See Smaller on Page F2

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, August 14, 2011

Continued from Spotlight Cover

A shrinking city aims for the achievable SMALLER • From F1 That philosophy goes by many mantras: “Sustainable development.”

“Lighter, quicker, cheaper.”

“Strategic investment.”

“Shrinking to greatness.”

Since the Bass Pro deal collapsed, the harbor development corporation has shifted its focus on some com­ paratively tiny, piecemeal projects, such as the multicolored Adirondack chairs that dot the waterfront park, a new small restaurant that dispenses ice cream and veggie burgers, Jason Mendola’s fledgling kayak rental business and the relocation of the free Thursday at the Square concerts to Canalside’s Central Wharf.

None of those improvements re­ quired huge investments. None were heralded as keystone projects for fu­ ture growth. But together, they have begun to transform the phrase “wa­ terfront development” from an oxy­ moron into a reality.

Meanwhile, that yawning hole in the ground nearby continues to gape as a testament to the failure of the Bass Pro fever dream. To many Buffalonians it remains an ugly re­ minder of the empty promise of the quick fix, an open grave for the sil­ ver­bullet solution that will finally set our region straight.

The idea of applying small­scale solutions to large­scale problems has long been germinating and gaining traction in communities across the city.

It’s in the apartments where Buffalonians live and the spaces where they work. It’s in tiny commu­ nity gardens springing up in the city’s blighted neighborhoods, at bus shelters in Allentown and in two­ man graphic design firms.

Its advocates promote it – with characteristic sobriety – not as the sole solution for the region’s problems or a replacement for dreaming big and aiming high, but as an important piece of Western New York’s future.

Bill Wippert/Buffalo News

Photo courtesy Jim Bush

Small, creative and busy

B

Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News

Small project, big impact

A

s commutes go, Brad Wales and Beth Elkins have it easy.

They live with their two young children in a 500­ square­foot apartment that is at­ tached to Elkins’ state­of­the­art Pilates studio and an architectural firm headed by Wales, a professor in the University at Buffalo’s School of Architecture and Planning.

“Beth commutes from here to there,” Wales said, pointing through a doorway that separates their com­ pact living space from Elkins’ busi­ ness, known as the Pilates Loft. “And I commute about 18 steps down to my office.”

“We’re very close with our kids,” Wales added, as any couple whose tub and shower are in their master bedroom would have to be.

With their compact setup, the couple has managed to gain back many of the 100 or so hours the typi­ cal American spends commuting to and from work every year. That’s a tough trick for Buffalonians who don’t happen to be self­employed or architecturally gifted, but clearly something Wales and Elkins made a conscious decision to incorporate into their lives.

The design of the home, made with materials from local sources, is all about verticality and smart use of space. Sitting at a table in one of the apartment’s two main rooms, Wales noted that the space serves as the liv­ ing room, dining room, family room, playroom and kitchen.

Wales’ dedication to small­scale thinking goes beyond his unique work/home setup into areas more widely applicable to the city’s devel­ opment struggles.

In the mid­’90s, Wales spent some 2,000 hours leading a successful ef­ fort to overturn a plan by the Peace Bridge Authority to ban bicycles and pedestrians from the bridge. After in­ vesting so much time and effort try­ ing to stop something, Wales said, he wanted to try the proactive approach.

“The idea was to take those thou­ sands of hours and do small things that could get done. Exactly what Mark [Goldman] proposed” on the waterfront, he said.

So, in 2001, Wales launched the ongoing Small Built Works program, in which UB architecture students construct small, piecemeal architec­ ture projects around the city as part of their course work. The project is rooted in the philosophy of achiev­ ing the achievable and putting small projects in spaces where they’re like­ ly to have an outsized impact.

Small Built Works’ efforts have in­ cluded the construction of bus shel­ ters and the repair of blighted cor­ ners throughout Allentown in the early 2000s; Wales credits them with helping to attract renewed attention and development to the now­ bustling neighborhood. “It was

Hardware over those on Chippewa has less to do with the obvious differ­ ences of location or clientele than with smarts, sustainability, and, above all, size.

“Most of those rooms down there [on Chippewa Street] are enormous.

They’re 3,000, 4,000 square feet, which means that you have to have a lot of people in them to make it feel busy or to even make any money,” Goldman said. “If you look at more successful arts districts that are mixed­use, that are high­density, you’re going to find much, much smaller spaces. And a smaller space gives the operator more flexibility in a way. You can create an intimate setting. It doesn’t have to be oriented toward ‘I gotta get everything I can out of Friday night.’ “

Bill Wippert/Buffalo News

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

Among the visionaries who are moving Buffalo forward in increments, are, from top, Beth Elkins and Brad Wales with son, Riley, 3, and daughter, Valerie, 10, in their 500-square-foot Allentown apartment; Lou Jean Feron and Sam Magavern, directors of Partnership for the Public Good, looking out from their office high above Main Street; graphic designer Brian Grunert, left, of boutique design firm White Bicycle, and Mark Goldman, who kicked off the revitalization of Chippewa and then downsized with Allen Street Hardware.

strategic,” he said, “to build small pieces that would have the maximum kind of pebble­in­the­pond effect.”

Ripple effect

T

he “pebble­in­the­pond ef­ fect” also applies to the Partnership for the Public Good, a self­described “think and do tank” that carries the flag for sustainable development in Western New York.

From the organization’s 12th­floor headquarters in the local office of Cornell University’s IRL School on Main Street, co­directors Sam Magavern and Lou Jean Fleron have a bird’s­eye view of Buffalo’s strug­ gles. The partnership has partnered with more than 90 Buffalo nonprof­ its, each working in some small way to improve the city’s socioeconomic stature.

Their philosophy: Add up those efforts and pair them with smart and strategic public investments, and demonstrable change will follow.

A case in point is PUSH Buffalo’s Green Development Zone project, which is already revitalizing a 20­ block area of the West Side with community gardens, urban farming, affordable housing development and some incipient alternative energy projects.

According to PUSH Director Aaron Bartley, the zone now boasts 20 separate landscaping projects, ranging from a 3/4­acre community garden used by 14 neighborhood res­ idents and a large tree farm to small­ er lots where residents are growing squash and beans with the help of the Massachusetts Avenue Project.

So far, Bartley said, seven units of formerly vacant buildings have been rehabbed into “green, affordable housing” and are occupied; six other properties have been rehabbed and sold at affordable prices to new home­ owners, with 15 additional housing units now undergoing construction.

Concentrating the project in a 20­ block space, Bartley said, was partly an effort to demonstrate that invest­ ment in targeted, community­based

development works.

“The underlying philosophy is that community control of resources and community­driven planning processes can be catalytic if they demonstrate success and demon­ strate to residents, first and fore­ most, that change is achievable if people work together,” Bartley said.

The project won an international sustainable development competi­ tion in April and has attracted public investment from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development’s neighborhood stabi­ lization project (via New York State’s Office of Housing and Community Renewal) and the City of Buffalo – a sign that the sustainable develop­ ment bug may be starting to catch on in the halls of government.

Magavern, a lawyer and poet who moved back to Buffalo six years ago after working in Minneapolis, stressed that working small­scale doesn’t mean limiting the imagination.

“I think the PUSH green develop­ ment zone is the single best example that targeted smaller­scale projects can be combined with thinking big,” he said. “And the fact that they won an international competition is kind of the perfect grace note for that: OK, this is big thinking. It won an in­ ternational competition. But it’s tar­ geted in a 20­block area of Buffalo.”

The Partnership for the Public Good is also advocating for a citywide program to “green” many of Buffalo’s 14,000 vacant lots. Its proposal, mod­ eled after a successful greening pro­ gram in Philadelphia, estimates a cost of $1,250 to clean and landscape each lot and about $150 to maintain yearly thereafter. To green and main­ tain 400 lots, for instance, would cost about $500,000 plus $60,000 per year for maintenance.

The program, Magavern said, could also provide jobs for the city’s economically depressed communi­ ties, where unemployment rates hover far above the national average. And, he said, the benefits don’t stop there.

“Greening vacant lots is one of the most cost­effective ways for Buffalo

to improve its neighborhoods,” the proposal reads. “At a bare minimum, Buffalo can combat blight, raise prop­ erty values, raise property tax rev­ enue, lower crime rates and improve residents’ quality of life with a simple program to clean up, green up and maintain vacant lots.”

Not too big to fail

O

n the East and West sides, Buffalonians worry about vacant lots. But on the Chippewa Strip, they worry about vacant bars.

At quarter to 10 on a sweltering Thursday night in late July, the Chippewa entertainment district was largely devoid of people. On a stretch of sidewalk outside of PURE, a 10,000 square­foot nightclub now closed six nights a week, a young employee dragged black stanchions across the concrete sidewalk to prepare for the rush of underage patrons who would filter into the space around midnight.

But there was just one problem: PURE has lost its liquor license. Its owners, who have been relying ex­ clusively on cover charges collected from the bar’s under­21 patrons and their purchases of Red Bull and soda, are in the process of selling or leasing the place to yet another operator – an­ other bar changing hands in a district with already head­spinning turnover.

Meanwhile, a half­mile up the street in Allentown, the patio outside of Allen Street Hardware, a small bar opened in 2004 by local writer, ac­ tivist and restaurateur Mark Goldman, was jammed with people.

Inside, twenty, thirty and fortysomethings knocked back craft beers and bobbed their heads to the bluegrass­infused blues of Down to the Roots. Adam Weekly, a local artist, leaned against the wall, taking in the bustling scene. “This isn’t even crowded,” he said, noting that all the Thursday night regulars haven’t yet trickled in.

For Goldman, who kicked off the revitalization of Chippewa with his since­shuttered Calumet Cafe, the success of bars like Allen Street

rian Grunert, a veteran local graphic designer whose work is in increasing de­ mand, has a more nuanced view of small versus big.

For more than a decade, he plied his trade in some of Western New York’s largest advertising firms, pick­ ing up insights on the competitive ad business as he went.

In 2000, after productive stints at big agencies like Travers Collins and Crowley Webb, Grunert took a full­ time gig with Righteous Babe Records, Ani DiFranco’s small but successful indie music label, where he worked on record packaging for the label’s artists. His work includes the packaging design for DiFranco’s “Evolve,” which won a Grammy in 2004.

Grunert eventually went out on his own. He now runs the boutique design firm White Bicycle, a two­ man operation that occupies five small rooms on the second floor of a former Courier­Express paper depot on Main Street and Burton.

The modest White Bicycle office is something out of the dot­com boom, with walls painted to look like brown cardboard, exposed duct­work and blue­painted steel beams lined with Grunert’s extensive collection of Simpsons figurines. A bubble­hockey table sits in the entryway and serves as a stress­reliever for Grunert and White Bicycle partner Kyle Morrissey between increasingly frequent jobs.

With clients like the Burchfield Penney Art Center, the University at Buffalo Art Galleries, the Olmsted Parks Conservancy and, most recent­ ly, Ted’s Hot Dogs, Grunert and Morrissey focus their attention on smaller outfits often more attuned to their creative approach.

Among other benefits, that means White Bicycle’s work isn’t subject to the often labyrinthine channels of ap­ proval that larger companies require.

And that, Grunert said, allows him and Morrissey to enjoy a more direct relationship between the creative side of the business and its clients.

“We liken it to executing field ex­ periments as opposed to laboratory experiments,” Grunert said in what sounded like a half­explanation, half­ sales pitch. “Being smaller and being more directly involved in both ends of it allows you to go to the clients and create, in a sense, on the spot.”

The approach is clearly visible in White Bicycle’s work, which often has a hand­hewn, organic look and al­ ways seems entirely of a piece. White Bicycle’s work on “Hadestown,” a re­ cent album by Anais Mitchell, re­ leased by Righteous Babe and nomi­ nated for a Grammy last year, is a good example. It features the stark woodcuts of artist Peter Nivens and type that Grunert hand­set in the Western New York Book Arts Center with the help of Richard Kegler – an­ other small­scale local entrepreneur whose efforts have created ripples in the design and music worlds.

For Grunert, the idea of striking out on his own was never about just thinking small (in fact, he said he wouldn’t be opposed to adding a few employees to the very busy White Bicycle) but in taking control of his own destiny.

Reflecting on his big­agency days, Grunert recalled feeling stifled and wondering whether he had hit a kind of creative ceiling.

“Are the people who work here going to see unlimited potential in what they’re doing every day? I did­ n’t feel it. And I figured other people didn’t, and that was sort of the prem­ ise of White Bicycle,” Grunert said.

“It’s a sum­greater­than­the­parts mentality, that if you create a situa­ tion where everybody is contributing to the whole, then they’re going to be determined to make it as cool as pos­ sible. It’s sort of intuitive, I suppose, but business doesn’t work that way.”

Except, at White Bicycle – and in more and more places and projects across the city, from the West Side to the waterfront – it does. email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

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Books • Advice • Lifestyle • Movies • Music • Travel

SPOTLIGHT Elizabeth Kahn, Assistant Managing Editor 849­5576 • ekahn@buffnews.com

The Buffalo News

SECTION

F

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Photos by Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News

Ingrid Calame says her work – including numbers from the floor of the ArcelorMittal plant – is meant “to point people in a direction that is more about a human thing rather than a necessarily overarching documentary thing.” The piece has a particular poignancy for Eric Smith, left, who lost his job when the plant closed. His voice can be heard on an audio tour of the exhibit.

Traces of the past

Los Angeles artist Ingrid Calame finds an abstract beauty in the floor of a Lackawanna steel plant, the basin of a crumbling wading pool. Her work, based on ground markings and commissioned by the Albright­Knox, preserves a slice of Buffalo’s history.

By Colin Dabkowski

W NEWS

ARTS

WRITER

hen the ArcelorMittal steel company ended production at its Lack­ awanna plant in May, one of the last function­ ing remnants of Western New York’s once­ thriving steel industry ground to a halt.

The plant’s closure and the painful dis­ missal of its 260 employees was the latest in a series of blows to the region’s slowly disintegrating manufacturing economy – one more notch on the Rust Belt.

Ingrid Calame, a Los Angeles­based artist whose exhibition “Step on a Crack…” opened at the Albright­Knox Art Gallery last week, can’t do anything to stop the en­ croaching rust. But her work, based on enormous tracings from Western New York sites including the ArcelorMittal plant, keeps a significant slice of Buffalo’s history alive on the gallery’s walls.

In late 2007, the Albright­Knox commis­ sioned Calame to create a body of work based on ground markings in and around Buffalo, a process that began with a three­ week residency last summer. With a cadre of local artists and students as assistants, Calame traced huge sections of floor mark­ ings at the ArcelorMittal plant – then still in operation – along with parts of a wading

“I got there by thinking about the whole world being a skin and that each place I’m tracing is like a tiny fragment of that skin.

And if I could trace everywhere it would be a complete picture, but of course that’s impossible, which I like, because you never have a complete picture.” – Los Angeles artist Ingrid Calame

What’s inside

pool on Louisiana Street and large swaths of the Albright­Knox parking lot.

The resulting works include one room­ encompassing wall drawing based exclu­ sively on the steel plant tracings and 10 vi­ brantly colored drawings and paintings that combine Calame’s sources into ab­ stract amalgams. She calls them “constella­ tions of an event.”

Before Calame’s residency began, Nancy Spector, Albright­Knox associate curator of education, led gallery staffers in scouting more than a dozen locations in and around Buffalo. Potential sites ranged from the Erie Canal locks in Lockport to a former barrel factory in downtown Buffalo. “She was very picky about her marks,” Spector said.

Calame settled on the ArcelorMittal plant – part of the once­mighty Bethlehem Steel Corp. until it folded in 2003.

“We thought they would laugh. But they didn’t,” Spector said of the ArcelorMittal management’s reaction to her request for access. “They all thought there was this beauty in their workplace that they wanted to show us and share with us and that they felt was important. And it obviously ener­ gized their lives to think somebody would be interested in it.”

Shortly after her arrival, Calame decided to trace a dilapidated wading pool in Buffa­ lo’s old First Ward, as well as sections of the See Calame on Page F2

Flipside: Today’s back cover

Music

People

Books

Travel

Keith Urban muses on the music that fuels his passion. Page F3.

When it’s time to deliver, doula Pati Matlock is there. Page F5.

Nick Hornby’s latest is a cousin to “High Fidelity.” Page F9.

An Oktoberfest tour of Germany’s beer gardens. Page F14.

One-tank trip. Page F13.

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, October 4, 2009

F2

Continued from Spotlight Cover Ingrid Calame’s drawings and paintings combine the meticulous tracings from the wading pool, the parking lot and the steel plant into layered abstractions that give little hint about their source.

‘Making a larger picture of the world’

Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News

Nancy Spector, associate curator of education, helps Ingrid Calame install the exhibit. Spector helped scout locations for the project. “She was very picky about her marks,” Spector said.

CALAME • From F1

Making art: Volunteers trace the original ground markings

Albright­Knox parking lot. In terms of scope, the residency and year of studio work that followed, Calame said, was her biggest project yet.

Spector stressed the educational potential of the show – about the conceptual challenges of the art it­ self and in terms of what it can re­ veal about the history and land­ scape of Western New York.

“From an educational point of view, the connection of art and the community is a really natural one,” Spector said. “The expression and the creativity that goes along with art are the kinds of skills that people need to have good lives. They need to, I think, look at something beyond what’s right in front of your nose.”

‘We could compete’

For Eric Smith, one of the 260 workers who lost their jobs when the plant closed, that connection be­ tween art and community couldn’t be clearer. Sitting in a gallery whose walls are painted with numbers and patterns traced from the floor of the place where he worked for 11 years, Smith reflected on the exhibition.

“It might be a dead industry, but I’m lookin’ at … it’s still got memo­ ries,” said Smith, whose father also worked in the Lackawanna plant for 30 years. “And I’m glad they brought it here, where I can actual­ ly come and see it, bring my kids and show them what I did.”

Smith’s memories of his time at the plant are part of the exhibition’s oral history component. He and other Western New Yorkers con­ tributed reminiscences and reflec­ tions that provide context to Calame’s work. They can be heard through the show’s audio guide.

After a stint in the armed servic­ es, Smith took a job at Bethlehem’s coke oven facility in 1998. He worked his way up through the ranks until the oven was shut down in 2001. Undaunted, he put in for a transfer to the galvanizing plant across the street, where he finally worked his way up to the top posi­ tion in the mill – called the “roller” – in March. One week later, he was let go.

“All that I went through to learn the job, and I liked it,” Smith said.

“We did a lot, because they’d been wanting to close that part of the mill down for a long time, and we showed ‘em we could compete against anybody. That’s what hurt, when they closed us down.”

Because of the plant’s sudden clo­ sure, the exhibition took on an unan­

At top, volunteers in hard hats do floor tracings in the ArcelorMittal “skid mill” for Calame’s project.

She was surprised management granted access: “They all thought there was this beauty in their workplace that they wanted to show us,” she said. At left, Calame and assistants trace the cracks and bumps of the empty pool at the Commodore Perry project. At right is a detail of a finished work.

ticipated role in capturing not just the culture of a city, but a pivotal mo­ ment in the death of an industry.

‘A pinprick in time’

That idea isn’t lost on Calame, whose systematic but highly person­ al approach to art­making has as much to do with her own whims and curiosities as with the city from which she drew her inspiration.

Her drawings and paintings combine the meticulous tracings

from the wading pool, the parking lot and the steel plant into layered abstractions that give little hint about their source. Several of the pieces look like color­coded topo­ graphical maps of otherworldly landscapes; others have the look of more traditional abstract painting.

All of them are infused, in ways that are anything but obvious, with Calame’s ideas about mortality, her own family history and her interest in the perceptions of abstraction

and representation. Part of that comes from Calame having her mother and daughter stay with her for her residency in Buffalo.

“I had a really intense time trac­ ing these things, and it involved my whole family. My mother came to watch my daughter while I was here, so I lived here for three weeks with my daughter and my mom, and that was very intense,” she said.

The exhibition title, “Step on a Crack…” is meant to evoke ideas

about motherhood and mortality.

“I wanted to point people in a di­ rection that is more about a human thing rather than a necessarily over­ arching documentary thing,” Calame said.

The result is an exhibit that com­ bines Calame’s personal curiosities with the marks she traces in a way that renders both strains happily ambiguous and largely indistin­ guishable from one another.

“In the paintings, I’m definitely making a new place that’s not Buf­ falo and not my daily life,” Calame said. “It’s just sort of based on mem­ ory and thought.”

Still, Calame said, she wanted to create one piece for the show in which audiences could see a clear connection between her art and the community.

That piece, the room­sized draw­ ing “Mittal Steel No. 1 Shipping 192­ 209,” is drawn from the numbers on the floor of the plant’s so­called “skid mill,” where completed orders of steel waited to be shipped off to cus­ tomers throughout North America.

“I really wanted to take a thread out from the whole tracing experi­ ence and leave one tracing shape vis­ ible, so that people could relate to it in a more documentary way,” Calame said. But, she added, “It’s not really ‘about’ Buffalo, it isn’t about the steel factories. It’s about making a larger picture of the world.”

Calame sees the marks on the Earth’s surface as records of human and natural activity, or, as she put it, “collisions between life and death.”

She came to tracing as a way to record that activity and, in that process came to an important real­ ization about her artistic outlook.

“I got there by thinking about the whole world being a skin and that each place I’m tracing is like a tiny fragment of that skin. And if I could trace everywhere it would be a com­ plete picture, but of course that’s im­ possible, which I like, because you never have a complete picture,” Calame said. “I would never have a complete picture of Buffalo no mat­ ter how much I researched it. So this is like a pinpricked place in time.”

People who have long been im­ mune to the allure of abstract art may find the exhibit challenges their preconceptions about abstrac­ tion’s connection to real life.

“It can teach us about the pres­ ent, where we are. It can teach us about the past,” said Spector, the ed­ ucation curator. “And it can sort of point a little way to think about how a better community might be in the future.” e-mail:cdabkowski@buffnews.com

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Advice • Books • Lifestyle • Movies • Music • Travel

SPOTLIGHT Elizabeth Kahn, Assistant Managing Editor 849­5576 • ekahn@buffnews.com

SECTION

F

The Buffalo News

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Things are looking

‘UP’ Curtain Up! kicks off a banner theater season with Terkel’s ‘Working,’ world premieres of ‘Cant,’ ‘Mookie’ and more

By Colin Dabkowski NEWS ARTS WRITER

See Curtain Up! on Page F2

TOM BURROWS: “It’s not a very exciting story. There was a lot of resistance to this place

at the very beginning. People didn’t see the necessity for it and they didn’t want it. They had to be worn down.”

Center for the Arts: From ugly duckling to a swan

I

Colin Dabkowski COMMENTARY

t’s true that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

But try telling that to the hun­ dreds of people who streamed into the University at Buffalo’s Center for the Arts on a sunny late August afternoon to scarf up complimentary hot dogs and cookies. The perform­ ance venue’s annual “Center Celebra­ tion,” which marks the kick­off of its season of music, dance and comedy performances and literary readings, has become an annual fixture on the university’s North Campus.

Of course, Center for the Arts staff

were hoping all those free Sahlen’s dogs would result in a bump in ticket sales, revenue from which fuels the center’s increasingly impressive array of services and initiatives. Under its director, Tom Burrows, the organiza­ tion has been handing out the artistic equivalent of a free lunch to Western New York’s students and community members for the past 14 years.

The Center for Arts model, exam­ ined up close, mirrors that of many successful arts organizations in larger and more economically vibrant regions. Since Burrows took over

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

Tom Burrows funds community-focused programs with money from big name touring acts.

What’s inside Music The long journey to Buffalo of a lost symphony by Holocaust victim Marcel Tyberg. Page F3

operation of the venue in 1996 (it opened in 1994), he and the center’s staff have been drawing a series of big­name touring acts, from Ray Charles to Wynton Marsalis to David Byrne.

With earned revenue from these events, the center has been able to fund deeply substantive and commu­ nity­focused programs like its annual dance residency, which brings major dance companies to town for a week of free performances at local schools, See Dabkowski on Page F2

Today’s back cover People

Books

Travel

She’s up at dawn, delivering precious cargo. Page F5.

New translation of ‘Second Sex’ introduces new generation to Simone de Beauvoir. Page F9.

New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument tells the story of the pueblos. Page F14.

One-tank trip. Page F13.

Illustration by Daniel Zakroczemski/Buffalo News

Y

ear after year, the dividing line between one theater season and the next gets a little bit harder to see.

Western New York sum­ mers, once flecked with the odd pro­ duction at Artpark and Shakespeare in Delaware Park, now sustain a far more constant stream of theatrical activity. But fortunately for those who still like to separate their theatergoing into neatly divided seasons, we have Curtain Up!, an annual rite of fall that delivers a shock­and­awe campaign of musicals, comedies and dramas, and caps it all off with a glitzy street party in Buffalo’s Theater District.

This year, continuing the trend of unmitigated growth the theater scene has been experiencing over the past two decades, the Curtain Up! lineup boasts more options than at any point in the event’s long history. Sixteen separate performances – some full productions, some limited engage­ ments – will usher in the theater season Friday night.

The evening gets started at 5 p.m.

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, September 5, 2010

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Continued from Spotlight Cover

UB center has evolved into a suburban temple of the arts DABKOWSKI • From F1 workshops with the university’s own dance program and often to work with the center’s lauded Arts in Healthcare program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Women and Chil­ dren’s Hospital.

It’s the familiar old philosophy espoused for most of his career by Neal DuBrock, onetime visionary director of the extinct Studio Arena Theatre: Strike a workable balance between bankable attractions and your own personal artistic vision, but never sacrifice quality in the name of profit.

Burrows has overseen the center’s slow but steady evolution from an unloved venue that many once feared would sound a death knell for Buffalo institutions like Shea’s Performing Arts Center and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra to a suburban temple to the arts that’s become

vital to the cultural life of Western al Buffalo Dance Festival proved.

New York in some surprising ways.

Its Arts in Healthcare program, “It’s not a very exciting story,” adapted from a similar project in Burrows said, with typical modesty.

Florida, continues to bring artists, “There was a lot of resistance to this dancers and writers into Roswell place at the very beginning. People and Women and Children’s Hospi­ didn’t see the necessity for it and tal, picking up accolades as it goes. they didn’t want it. They had to be And this year, the center is enter­ Marketing director worn down.” ing new territory: involving itself di­ David Wedekindt Now, even the most obstinate of rectly in the creative process by fos­ says: “We didn’t cut culturally conscious Western New back on anything... tering workshops of “The Paul Si­ Yorkers would be hard­pressed to We believe in what mon Project,” a new collaboration argue against the center’s impact. between MusicalFare Theatre and we’re presenting.”

In a region not especially known LehrerDance whose world premiere for its offerings in dance – though is slated for next April at the center. that’s beginning to change – the Center for the Its coming season has offerings as varied Arts has been ground zero for dance in West­ as The Acting Company’s production of Shake­ ern New York since Burrows came on board. speare’s “The Comedy of Errors” in February Its slow but assured work toward fostering a 2011, Dame Edna in April 2011, its typically il­ local audience and appetite for dance is begin­ lustrious lineup of 10 dance companies (in­ ning to pay off, as this summer’s second annu­ cluding Savion Glover, Suzanne Farrell Ballet

and Parsons Dance) and a reading by author Augusten Burroughs in October.

And all this amid an economic climate that could hardly be less hospitable to arts entre­ preneurs.

“We’re dealing with the reality that all arts organizations are dealing with: tighter fund­ ing, decline in sponsorships and donations, and ticket sales are down, too,” said David Wedekindt, the center’s marketing director.

“I think lesser organizations may have said, we’re going to scale back. We didn’t. We didn’t cut back on anything. We said, we believe in what we’re presenting, the public believes in it.

Let’s just keep it up, and we can only believe things are going to improve once we get out of this recession. We feel a very big responsibility.”

From the looks of things, it’s a responsibility the Center for the Arts is living up to. e-mail: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

Newworks,time-testedshowsonprogram CURTAIN UP! • From F1 Friday with a preshow cocktail reception at Shea’s Performing Arts Center followed by a gala dinner on the Shea’s stage at 6 p.m. After the theaters let out, the Theater District will host an array of activities, featur­ ing music by Theresa Quinn & Friends, the 12/8 Path Band, the Latin Jazz Project and others, along with strolling magicians, puppeteers and balloon artists. The event will be chaired by Stephen McKinley Hen­ derson, the well­known actor and University at Buffalo professor who was recently nominated for a Tony Award for his role in the August Wilson play “Fences” on Broadway.

The packed Curtain Up! lineup includes a significant number of world premieres, from the Irish Classical Theatre Company’s much­ anticipated production of Irish play­ wright Shay Linehan’s drama “The Cant” to the Alleyway Theatre’s more lighthearted premiere of Joseph Pal­ ka’s “Mookie Cranks a Tater!” There are also plenty of time­tested pro­ ductions on the Curtain Up! slate, along with a few special engage­ ments. Here’s a breakdown of what’s on offer. (All Curtain Up! perform­ ances begin at 8 p.m. Friday): “Mookie Cranks a Tater!” in Alleyway Theatre (1 Curtain Up Alley), Thursday through Oct. 2.

852­2600 or alleyway.com. This whacked­out new comedy by Washington­based playwright Joseph Palka aims to make Augusten Burroughs look like Wally Cleaver.

Fraught with sexual overtones and neurotic personalities, the show peers into the frenzied world of one particularly dysfunctional family.

“Cheapjack Shakespeare: The Non-Musical” in the ALT Theatre (255 Great Arrow Ave.), Friday through Oct. 10. 868­6847 or www.alttheatre.com. Television writer and comic book artist Shaun McLaughlin has adapted his online comic serial about the trials and travails of a college Shakespeare company (www.cheapjackshake­ speare.com) into a play. McLaughlin, now based in Amherst, has extensive experience writing for outfits like DC Comics (“Aquaman”), Disney and Dark Horse Comics and working on television shows like “Batman Beyond” and “The Justice League.”

“Terra Nova” at Buffalo Labora­ tory Theatre in Hilbert College’s Swan Auditorium (5200 South Park Ave., Hamburg), Friday through Sept. 25. 202­9033 or www.buffalo­ labtheatre.com. Sometime in the winter of 1912, Robert Falcon Scott, along with four fellow explorers, died in a failed attempt to be the first humans to reach the South Pole. The journal he left behind is the basis for “Terra Nova,” a drama by Ted Tally that opens the Buffalo Laboratory Theatre season, in a production starring Ray Boucher and directed by company founder and artistic director Taylor Doherty.

“The Cant” in the Irish Classical Theatre Company’s Andrews Theatre (625 Main St.), Thursday through Oct. 3. 853­4282 or www.irishclassicaltheatre.com.

Winner of the Irish Classical’s first­ ever McGuire International Playwrit­ ing Competition (and of the $20,000 purse that went along with it), this play by Ireland’s Shay Linehan looks into the lives of Irish Travellers, a nomadic people misunderstood in some circles and reviled in others, both in their native Ireland and in the United States.

“Art of Murder” in Kaleido­ scope Theatre Productions’ home at the Medaille College Theatre (18 Agassiz Circle), Friday through Sept.

25. This play by Joe DiPietro (“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change,”

The diverse offerings of this year’s theater season include, at top, local playwright Donna Hoke’s suburban sex comedy, “The Couple Next Door” (starring, from left, Natalie Mack, Matt Witten, Kelly Meg Brennan and Luke Wager); at left, Joseph Palka’s “Mookie Cranks a Tater,” a comedy about a dysfunctional family starring Joyce Stilson and David C. Mitchell; and Neil LaBute’s unsettling drama, “It’s a Dark Dark World” starring Richard Lambert, left, and Drew Kahn as brothers.

“All Shook Up!”) is an art world send­up in the guise of an American murder mystery. Keith Wharton plays the eccentric painter Jack Brooks, who has unsavory plans to do away with his art dealer (Tom Owen). Tom LaChiusa directs.

“Forever Plaid” in the Kavinoky Theatre (320 Porter Ave.), Friday through Oct. 10. 829­7668 or www.kavinokytheatre.com. This tried and tested crowd favorite by Stuart Ross takes audiences on a nostalgic tour through the close­har­ mony music of the 1950s, as filtered through the story of a fictional quartet known as The Plaids.

They’re played by Marc Sacco, Paschal Frisina III, Andy Herr and Nicholas Lama.

“The Fantasticks” in the Lan­ caster Opera House (21 Central Ave.), Sept. 10 Friday to Sept. 19. 683­1776 or www.lancopera.org. Billed as the longest­running theater production

in the world (it’s now running on London’s West End), this war horse of a musical, with music by Harvey Schmitt and book and lyrics by Tom Jones (yes, that Tom Jones), tells the story of a long and fraught love affair between two neighbors. It stars local musical theater veteran John Fredo, a fixture at MusicalFare and other professional theaters, and a major get for the Lancaster playhouse.

“Shout! The Mod Musical” in MusicalFare Theatre (4380 Main St., Amherst), Sept. 8 Wednesday to Oct. 17. 839­8540 or www.musical­ fare.com. The swinging ’60s in Eng­ land serve as the setting for this mu­ sical revue, much in the vein of “For­ ever Plaid” but subbing in a quintet of women and focusing on blue­eyed soul (“Son of a Preacher Man”) and other popular music of the period.

“In a Dark Dark House” in New Phoenix Theatre (95 Johnson Park), Sept. 9 Thursday to Oct. 9.

853­1334 or www.newphoenixthe­ atre.com. This unsettling play by Neil LaBute explores a brotherly relationship plagued by abuse, es­ trangement and mining of a sordid collective past. It stars Drew Kahn and Richard Lambert, with Joseph Natale directing.

“Working” in O’Connell and Company’s home in Erie Community College’s Gleasner Hall (6205 Main St., Amherst), Thursday through Oct. 3. 848­0800 or www.oconnelland­ company.com. This adaptation of oral historian Studs Terkel’s seminal book of the same title takes a look into the lives of America’s undersung working class. With music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (“Wicked,” “Pippin,” “Godspell”), among several others, the show puts a musical spin on Terkel’s trademark ability to draw compelling stories out of the everyday.

“The Couple Next Door” in the Road Less Traveled Theatre (639

Main St.), Friday through Oct. 3.

629­3069 or www.roadlesstraveled­ productions.org. This world pre­ miere “adult comedy” by local writer and journalist Donna Hoke explores one Grand Island couple’s rocky en­ try into the swinging lifestyle. Road Less Traveled co­founder and artistic director Scott Behrend directs Kelly Meg Brennan, Matt Witten, Luke Wager and Natalie Mack.

“The Furies of Mother Jones” in the Subversive Theatre Collective’s Manny Fried Playhouse (255 Great Arrow Ave.), Thursday through Oct. 9. 408­0499 or www.subversivethe­ atre.org. In addition to O’Connell and Company’s production of “Working,” fans of that rarest of genres – the working­class musical – can also check out Subversive’s sel­ dom­produced version of this piece

by Maxine Klein that considers the life and times of the revolutionary labor leader Mary Harris Jones.

“Bring on the Men!” in Theatre Plus’ Main Street Cabaret (1 Curtain Up Alley), Thursday through Sept.

25. 852­2600 or alleyway.com. This cabaret of comedy and music organ­ ized by maestro of camp Todd Warfield promises to be shocking, raunchy and not a little bit flamboy­ ant. The piece, as Warfield writes, is “unofficially dedicated to the Bea Arthur in us all.”

Special Engagements

“Basil and the Broad” in Buffa­ lo United Artists Theatre (119 Chippewa St.), Friday through next Sunday. 886­9239 or www.buf­ falobua.org. The veteran cabaret duo performs a special Curtain Up! set.

“Frank & Ella: Together Again” in Theatre of Youth’s Allendale Theatre (203 Allen St.) 884­4400 or www.theatreofyouth.org. A musical tribute to Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald starring Paul Maisano and Joyce Carolyn.

Eclectic Improv Company in Shea’s Smith Theatre (625 Main St.), Friday. Buffalo’s longtime comedy troupe performs its trademark brand of interactive improv for a special Curtain Up! show. e-mail: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

( MAGENTA ) ( BLACK )

Meet the 5 finalists for the Albright-Knox expansion

ALBRIGHT-KNOX CHARTS BOLD EXPANSION PLAN

PAGE A8

C OL I N DA BKOW SK I ON PAGE A 8

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BUFFALONEWS COM

Albany gets act together on SolarCity

Eases cash-flow problem on late pay for workforce

By Tom Precious

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Copyright 2015

FINA L EDITION

Serving Western New York since 1880

Clinton, Trump keep rolling with Super Tuesday victories

N E W S A L B A N Y B U R E AU C H I E F

ALBANY – Cuomo administration officials have worked furiously since last Thursday evening trying to find a fund­ ing source to pay SolarCity contractors who have not been paid since late Octo­ ber and are owed more than $82.5 mil­ lion.

On Tuesday, they found the money, though a key question nagged the Capi­ tol all day: Why, on something that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo describes as one of his signature projects statewide, did this occur in the first place?

State officials chalked it up to a sim­ ple problem: cash flow.

Sources say Cuomo administration officials were warned of the looming problem back in December, and Tues­ day, more than 110 workers remained off the job at the SolarCity project at Riv­ erBend in South Buffalo.

Empire State Development Corp., the governor’s main economic­develop­ ment agency, had been funding the So­ larCity project, but inexplicably in Feb­ ruary pulled back on its commitment to provide another $100 million for con­ struction costs at RiverBend.

That led the Cuomo administration last week to think about pushing the funding responsibility – at least in the short term – onto the Research Founda­ See Funding on Page A2

UB campus hit hard by athlete’s death Jackson remembered as wonderful teammate

By Mark Gaughan

New York Times

Getty Images

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton exults at an event in Miami on Tuesday, while Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses supporters in Louisville, Ky. Both were the big winners in Super Tuesday primary contests.

Sweep of South expands her lead in Democratic duel with Sanders

By Evan Halper

N E WS SPORTS R EPORT ER

LOS A NGELES TIMES

UB football players remembered Solomon Jackson on Tuesday as one of their most enthusiastic, hardworking and unselfish teammates.

“Me and him had a conversation where we were talking about how sometimes he felt like he was going to die on the field, like I love you all that much that I’d die on the field before I quit,” UB running back Anthone Tay­ lor said from his home in Ohio. “It’s un­ believable that he went through condi­ tioning and he wound up in the hospital

WASHINGTON – With polls closed in seven Su­ per Tuesday states, Hillary Clinton headed for a sweep across the South, projected to carry Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama, according to exit polls and ear­ ly returns.

The projected victories in those states put Clinton on a path to substantially expand her lead in delegates for the Democratic presidential nomination, showing that she continues to demonstrate strength among the black voters who make up a major part of the party’s elector­ ate.

Among African­American voters in Georgia and Vir­

See Jackson on Page A2

See Democrats on Page A5

∆∆∆∆∆∆∆∆

What’s next Saturday:

• Kansas caucuses • Kentucky Republican caucuses • Louisiana • Maine Republican caucuses • Nebraska Democratic caucuses

Sunday:

• Maine Democratic caucuses • Puerto Rico (Republican)

Trump wins big, but fails to give his GOP foes a knockout punch

By Mark Z. Barabak and Michael Finnegan LOS A NGELES TIMES

WASHINGTON – Donald Trump won primaries in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and Massachusetts on Tuesday as he looked to shut down the Republican pres­ idential contest and turn to the general election fight against Democrats.

But he was locked in competitive battles with Marco Rubio in Virginia, Ted Cruz in Oklahoma and John Ka­ sich in Vermont, based on early returns, giving hope to rivals they keep can thwart the billionaire insurgent and keep the GOP race alive heading into a series of big­state contests starting next week in Michigan.

The cross­country Super Tuesday balloting, from See Republicans on Page A5

6 3 3 1 4 2 9 9 8 5 5 2 3 6 4 3 1 7 0 787 27 3 292 MILLION 8 5 9 7 8 7 03 7 23 2 1 625 83 7 9 5 5 7 7 1 6 4 8 8 1 3 2 2 7 4 Business ....................... B7 City & Region ............. B1 Classified .................... D8 Comics ......................... C6

Crossword ........ D9, D11 Daily Dish .................. C5 Entertainment ......... C8 Letters ........................ A11

Lotteries ..................... B2 Obituaries .................. B4 Opinion ..................... A10 Picture Page ............ D12

Scoreboard ................ D7 Sports ............................ D1 Taste .............................. C1 Television ................... C4

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BU-1209390

INDEX

A8

The Buffalo News/Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Albright-Knox Expansion Plan Architectural finalists / Five firms are among the most respected designers in the world

Bjarke Ingels Group

OMA – Rem Koolhaas

Snohetta

wHY

Allied Works Architecture

Headquarters: New York City and Copenhagen, Denmark Founded: 2005 Recent museum work: Kistefos Museum, Scandinavia (in progress, above); Kimball Art Center, Park City, Utah (in progress); Danish National Maritime Museum, Helsinger, Denmark (2013) Philosophy: “A pragmatic utopian architecture that steers clear of the petrifying pragmatism of boring boxes and the naïve utopian ideas of digital formalism.”

Website: big.dk With a series of graceful and often wildly ambitious buildings that seem to embody the organic flow of natural elements and phenomena, BIG has established itself as one of the most buzzed­about and sought­after international architecture firms of the 21st century. Its founder, Bjarke Ingels, is known as much for thinking outside the box as for drawing from the environment at hand. In addition to its museum work, the company is respon­ sible for designing a power plant that doubles as a ski slope (to be completed next year in Copenhagen) as well as the rising staircase of a skyscraper at 2 World Trade Center, now on hold, to replace the South Tower that was destroyed in 2001. Its design for the Danish National Maritime Museum takes the shape of a ship in motion in a space formerly occupied by an empty dock – a project that fused art with adaptive reuse.

Headquarters: Rotterdam, Netherlands Founded: 1975 Recent museum work: Fondazione Prada, Milan (in progress); National Beaux Arts Museum expansion, Quebec City (2016); Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015, above) Philosophy: “OMA’s buildings and master plans around the world insist on intelligent forms while inventing new possibilities for content and everyday use.”

Website: oma.eu With decades of design experience, the Rotterdam­born Rem Koolhaas is the most seasoned and accomplished of the individual architects on the gallery’s shortlist. A widely published theorist as well as the leader of his multifarious practice, Koolhaas won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2000. His most­recognized building of recent years is the Beijing headquar­ ters of China’s state television network, an imposing and controversial form that New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote “may be the greatest work of architecture built in this century.” His master plan for the Euralille mini­city in Lille, France, along with his published thoughts on the architecture of New York City in “Delirious New York,” establish Koolhaas as an architect who relishes difficult challenges requiring the delicate fusion of many different urban elements.

Headquarters: Oslo, Norway, and New York City Founded: 1989 Recent museum work: San Fran­ cisco Museum of Art expansion, San Francisco (2016, above); Lillehammer Art Museum and Cinema expansion, Lillehammer, Norway (2016) Philosophy: “When interested parties come together as equals, we create a place to mutually understand each other’s objectives and interests.”

Website: snohetta.com With a wealth of experience design­ ing buildings that seem to emerge naturally from their environments and a particular focus on the human experience, Snohetta was chosen by Albright­Knox leaders to execute a master plan for the gallery’s campus in 2013. That might seem to give Snohetta an advantage over the competition, as master plan authors are regularly chosen to execute their designs (see: Daniel Libeskind’s 2002 master plan for the World Trade Center and his subsequent enlistment to design 1 World Trade Center), but it’s by no means a sure bet. Snohetta’s widely praised designs for the Oslo National Opera House and surround­ ing public spaces and its redesign of pedestrian traffic flow through Times Square in New York City, however, seem to dovetail with the gallery’s desire to create a new and indispens­ able public space that gallery director Janne Sirén called a “Canalside for North Buffalo.”

Headquarters: Los Angeles and New York City Founded: 2004 Recent museum work: Speed Art Museum, St. Louis (in progress, above); Harvard Art Museums gallery space design (2014); Worcester Art Museum Master Plan (2013) Philosophy: “wHY eschews iconic form­making in favor of solving functional problems and representing multiple identities without compro­ mising the whole.”

Website: why­site.com With a shorter resume than some of its competitors but perhaps the most resolute focus on collaboration, wHY is best known for its designs for the Bibliotheca Alexandria in Cairo and, perhaps more relevant to Buffalo, the expansion and renovation of the Speed Art Museum in St. Louis set to open later this month. The firm was founded by Kulapat Yantrasat, a disciple of the accomplished Japanese architect Tadao Ando, and prides itself on designing buildings “to look like they’ve been there forever, that they belong to the site,” according to an Architects Newspaper interview with wHY buildings workshop director Andrija Stojic. Also relevant is wHY’s experience in collaborating with go­to museum expansion firm Renzo Piano Building Workshop – notably absent from this shortlist – to reconfigure 100,000 feet of gallery space in the recently expanded Harvard Art Museums.

Headquarters: Portland, Ore., and New York City Founded: 1994 Recent museum work: Clyfford Still Museum, Denver (2013, above); Seattle Art Museum expansion (2007); Museum of Arts and Design, New York City (2008) Philosophy: “Guided by principles of craft and innovation, Allied Works creates designs that resonate with their specificity of place and purpose.”

Website: alliedworks.com In the shadow of Daniel Libeskind’s massive, angular Denver Museum of Art in the city’s Golden Triangle Museum District sits a quiet two­story museum with an unostentatious profile, walls of cast concrete and huge skylights. Inside, the already luminous paintings of Clyfford Still are further enhanced by a meticulously calibrated mix of natural and artificial light, which adjusts automatically as the sun rises and sets. It is the site­ and artist­specific work of Brad Cloepfil, an architect who has given concrete a new lease on life and helped to remove it from its brutalist connotations, though he is by no means bound to the mate­ rial. His 40­person practice has also created high­profile renovations of New York City’s Museum of Art and Design on Columbus Circle, the Seattle Art Museum and the University of Michi­ gan Museum of Art. The firm seems to have a knack for finding museums that want to double their existing space, as the Albright­Knox does.

1905: E.B. Green’s neo­ classical Albright Art Gallery opens to the public.

1900

1956-7: A proposed eastward expansion by architect Paul Schweikher is pilloried in the Buffalo press.

2001: Gallery authors a strategic plan mandating a “major architec­ tural project.”

2008: Gallery announces formation of an architecture committee to spearhead the project, but momentum fizzles during the Great Recession.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery

1962: Gordon Bunshaft’s modernist addition opens, institution is renamed Albright­Knox Art Gallery.

1950

2012-13: Architecture firm Snohetta com­ pletes a master plan for growth, diagnosing and prioritizing the gallery’s needs.

October 2014: Gallery announces project, saying expan­ sion is “no longer an option; it is a necessity.”

2014-15: Gallery conducts series of meetings with public and Museum District neighbors, hires Zubatkin Owner Representation to oversee architect selection process.

Late 2017: Drawings and renderings for expansion project completed.

Expansion through the years

November 2015: Fundrais­ ing officially begins at Albright­Knox annual gala.

September 2015 to January 2016: Expan­ sion committee narrows list of potential architects from 50 to five.

2018 or after: Construction begins, pending funding.

2000

March 2016: Architectural shortlist announced.

June 2016: Winning architect announced.

June 2016-June 2017: Architect works with gallery and community to produce design.

Gallery seeks to create space rivaling Canalside

By Colin Dabkowski

T

N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

he Albright­Knox Art Gallery wants to create a public space that could rival Canalside while expanding and remak­ ing one of the city’s most recognizable institutions.

And gallery offi ials are looking to some of the most­respected architects in the world to make it happen.

They have narrowed the list of potential architects for the gallery’s upcoming expansion project to fiv fi ms with experience building in challenging urban environments.

They plan to announce the winning fi m in mid­June, after which the gallery and the chosen company will spend a year researching and produc­ ing a fi al design.

The gallery also has given the proj­ ect an “aspirational” price tag of $80 million and estimates that ground­ breaking is not likely until at least 2018.

Collectively, the fi ms on the Al­ bright­Knox’s list have designed some of the most high­profile internation­ al building projects of recent years, from the rising skyscraper at 2 World Trade Center to the jaw­dropping CCTV Headquarters in Bejing. Their museum work ranges from the $305 million build­out of the San Francis­ co Museum of Modern Art to the $29 million Clyfford Still Museum in Den­ ver. The fi ms are: • Snohetta, based in New York and Oslo.

• Bjarke Ingels Group, based in New York and Copenhagen.

• OMA – Rem Koolhaas, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

• wHY, based in Los Angeles and New York City.

• Allied Works Architecture, based in Portland, Ore., and New York City.

The fi ms were chosen for their “design intellect” and ability to col­ laborate rather than for their individ­

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s campus, shown in this aerial view provided by the gallery, includes E.B. Green’s original 1905 building (foreground), Gordon Bunshaft’s modernist addition and Green’s disconnected Clifton Hall (upper right). The buildings include about 12,178 square feet of prime exhibition space and 24,237 of space considered mediocre or poor, which the gallery intends to renovate.

ual styles or specific past designs, Al­ bright­Knox director Janne Sirén said.

“None of them has a fin erprint style,” Sirén said. “All of them, almost, specialize in an ability to build for a given context.”

Sirén also said the expansion he en­ visions could entail not only the gal­ lery’s substantial needs for new exhi­ bition space, but the creation of a new public urban space he called “the Ca­ nalside of North Buffalo.”

The winning fi m will contend with a particularly challenging urban space.

The Albright­Knox campus sits at the edge of Delaware Park, one of Fred­ erick Law Olmsted’s masterworks. It includes three buildings of historic import: the Beaux­Arts 1905 build­ ing by E.B. Green, with its command­

ing neoclassical facade and imposing stairs leading to Hoyt Lake; Gordon Bunshaft’s 1962 modernist mirror­box, complete with sculpture garden, glass­ walled auditorium and narrow exhibi­ tion corridors; and Green’s much­mod­ ified Clifton Hall, which houses the gallery’s curatorial staff.

What’s more, the gallery’s potential expansion could be affected by the fu­ ture reconfi uration of Route 198, the Scajaquada Expressway, which could impact the shape of the campus’ north­ ern border.

Sirén said the gallery’s objective is to have “50,000 square feet of prime exhibition space,” which could both accommodate the large­scale pieces now commonplace in contemporary art and viewing distances adequate

to appreciate those works. Its cur­ rent buildings contain about 19,000 square feet of space that meets mod­ ern standards. The target of 50,000 square feet, Sirén added, would put the Albright­Knox on the same level as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Muse­ um and the new Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.

As for the placement of a new build­ ing, Sirén declined to speculate, but said it would make sense for new ex­ hibition space to be “adjacent” to the 1905 building’s current space, adding that the east side of the original build­ ing facing Hoyt Lake was the gallery’s original entrance and “in many ways the most delicate side” of the campus.

The gallery is conducting its archi­ tectural competition in an unusual

way. Rather than asking fiv archi­ tects to submit concrete proposals and choosing one to execute, Albright­ Knox leaders have built in a yearlong period after the winning fi m is select­ ed to arrive at a fi al design, likely to be completed by the end of 2017.

“We’re not in a design competition to choose a design and then build it.

We’re in a process of choosing a part­ ner,” Sirén said. “They should not ex­ pect the proposal and the renderings that they provide us to be what actu­ ally gets done.”

Fundraising for the project offi cially began in November during the gallery’s annual gala, though Sirén declined to say how much money has been raised. He said funds will come from a mix of public, private and foun­ dation sources, and that the winning architectural fi m will be involved in the fundraising process.

The scope and length of the gal­ lery’s capital campaign will not be­ come clear until after a fundraising study is complete this spring. The campaign committee is chaired by M&T Bank CEO and Chairman Rob­ ert Wilmers, who called the expan­ sion “an exciting and most important project for the gallery, and, indeed, for Western New York.”

Sirén already is working on his pitch to public offi ials, pegging the project’s potential economic impact at $100 million – about three times the gallery’s current impact.

“There are only two reasons why a person in Paris or in London will get on an airplane and fl to Buffalo,” Si­ rén said. “They will come to see the Al­ bright­Knox and its collection, and the architectural legacy of the city.”

In this project, one that Albright­ Knox board president Thomas Hyde has termed of “generational impor­ tance,” those two defin ng aspects of Buffalo’s identity will converge. email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

Photo rule eased on some firearms licenses

Bill eliminates picture ID for Amish, Mennonites, other religious sects | PAGE D3

THE REGION

SECTION

The Buffalo News

Sunday, September 3, 2017

‘Freedom Wall’ turns heads and hearts on East Ferry

D

Judge bars talk of terror in trial for benefits fraud Suspect was targeted, charged by FBI after inflammatory Facebook posts

By Phil Fairbanks N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

When FBI agents searched Ari Elias Baum’s Facebook page, they were looking for evi­ dence of a terrorist in training.

They already knew about Baum’s posting of a photo de­ picting a couple dressed in mili­ tary garb and holding weapons, with the caption, “Husband and wife fi hting for Islam. The most beautiful photos I have ever seen.”

The FBI also knew about the Buffalo man’s travels to Yemen and Facebook friendship with a manwhoseinfl mmatoryposts had come to the attention of ter­ rorism investigators.

Baum was never charged with any terrorism crime but he will stand trial later this month for Social Security fraud, and the government would like to resurrect the terrorism claims as part of its prosecution.

That was until a federal judge said no.

“The terrorism allegations are baseless,” said Brian P. Com­ erford, Baum’s defense lawyer.

“This is just a Social Security case, and he’s prepared to de­ fend himself.”

It’s no secret the govern­ ment’s prosecution of Baum began as an investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Buffalo and that he was eventually placed on the nation’s no-fly list.

It’s also no secret Baum is bipolar and that many of the initial allegations against him were unsubstantiated, recant­

Photos by Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News

Edreys Wajed works on a portrait of Dr. Lydia T. Wright, Buffalo’s first black pediatrician. The mural at the intersection of East Ferry Street and Michigan Avenue features 28 local and national civil rights leaders.

Artists overwhelmed by reaction to mural of civil rights leaders

By Colin Dabkowski

F

N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

or the past month, a daily spectacle has been unfold­ ing near the intersection of East Ferry Street and Michigan Avenue.

Traffi often slows to a crawl.

Drivers honk their horns, crane their heads out of their windows and yell two­ word phrases at the top of their lungs.

The cause of the slowdown is a happy one: A community­driven mural project featuring portraits of 28 local and national civil rights leaders arrayed across a 300­foot concrete wall. The two­word phrases are “thank you,” “bless you” and “good job.”

The mural, called “Freedom Wall” and sponsored by the Albright­Knox Art Gallery, is still weeks from completion.

But it is already the most buzzworthy public art project in Buffalo since “Shark Girl” appeared in 2014, prompting an outpouring of community support, hundreds of social

“If you do something that’s repre­ sentative of the commu­ nity, they will support it and they will turn out for it.”

Artist John Baker

media posts and countless honks, high-fives and hugs.

The four Buffalo painters work­ ing on the wall – John Baker, Julia Bottoms­Douglas, Chuck Tingley and Edreys Wajed – have been overwhelmed by the community’s reaction to the piece.

“It’s people stopping every fiv minutes, either to honk or pull over and say thank you to us,” said Bottoms­Douglas during a break from working on her portrait of former Assemblyman Arthur O. Eve. “I wasn’t expecting that kind of outpouring. I know art has the power to reach people in that way, but I didn’t realize it was going to become as big a deal as it has become.”

The project, originally planned for Buffalo artist Chuck Tingley to execute on his own, was the subject of controversy earlier this year. After listening to the concerns of neigh­ bors and others from across the East Side, the Albright­Knox expanded the project to include three black artists: Bottoms­Douglas, Baker and Wajed.

Now, in a near­constant show of support, that community has taken ownership of the See Mural on Page D2

On the Web: To view more photos of the mural, go to BuffaloNews.com

ed or otherwise unproven.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge William M. Skretny, which came just four weeks before Baum goes on trial, will force federal prosecutors to avoid any reference to the ter­ rorism investigation in front of the jury.

“Any mention of terrorism, religious extremism or terror­ ist ideology would be extreme­ ly prejudicial to Mr. Baum and has no relevance to the crimes charged in the indictment,” Comerford, an assistant fed­ eral public defender, said in his court papers.

Skretny agreed and, in his ruling, said his concern is that a jury would view Baum’s beliefs and actions as controversial and punish him for something other than the crimes he’s ac­ cused of committing.

He ordered prosecutors to stay away from any mention of the terrorism investigation but allowed them to get into Baum’s travels overseas, as well as make general references to his religion.

“That background has no bearingonthecrimescharged,” Skretny said of the terrorism in­ vestigation into Baum.

Baum is charged with So­ cial Security fraud and making false statements, and the evi­ dence against him was uncov­ ered as part of the FBI’s terror­ ism investigation. The evidence includes an alleged Facebook conversation between Baum and his stepfather while Baum See Baum on Page D2

Greg Kopacz and his wife, Carrie, and three of their four children, from left, Gwendolyn, 8, and twins Jacob and Abigail, both 6, stand in front of their damaged home.

For Lewiston native, family is tougher than Houston’s flood The hardest fi led with photos of choice was what to their wedding and bring upstairs. their children. They At fi st, Greg gave up on the new Kopacz and his furniture, which family fi ured suddenly carried they had some little meaning.

Sean Kirst time. They live in Put to the test, the Champions they did their COMMEN TA RY area, a commu­ best to save what nity within the sprawling really matters. boundaries that come together They couldn’t. Not to form Houston. They had everything. witnessed two fl ods in their Not once water started neighborhood before, when pushing through cracks in the the water barely crept past the walls and the fl or. curb in front of their house.

Greg, 33, was born in For a while they hoped Lewiston in Niagara County. it would be the same with He spent most of his childhood Hurricane Harvey. They kept in Wilson. When he was 13 watch on the fl od. They tried or 14, his parents, John and to wait it out.

Robin Kopacz, took a January A moment came when they vacation to visit relatives in couldn’t wait anymore.

Houston.

Then they were running In Niagara County, it was up and down the stairs, and See Kirst on Page D2 they were grabbing albums

D2

The Buffalo News/Sunday, September 3, 2017

Continued from the Cover

Mural hailed as a powerful example of public art MURAL • from D1 mural. It’s drawing tourists from outside the city. And fans are hailing it as a powerful example of community­based public art and an argument for diversity and inclusion at a time of rising racial tension.

“This wall is so important, especially now, because we have so many problems nationwide when it comes to race,” said long­ time Buffalo activist and writer Eva Doyle, who is featured on the wall in a portrait by Bottoms­ Douglas. Doyle, who is retired from a teaching career in the Buffalo Public Schools, said she visits the wall every day.

“One of the reasons we have so many racial problems is because we don’t know one another,” she said. “We don’t interact with each other. This wall is an outdoor museum. It brings people together.”

On a recent evening, hun­ dreds of community members gathered at the wall to cele­ brate its progress and chat with the artists. Neighborhood resi­ dents and families from across the city mingled in front of the half-finished portraits, telling stories from their own experi­ ences in the civil rights fi ht or asking artists about some of the

Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News

“It’s people stopping every five minutes, whether to honk or pull over and say thank you to us,” said Julia Bottoms-Douglas, painting Eva Doyle, a longtime Buffalo activist.

wall’s lesser­known fi ures.

In addition to prominent leaders and historical fi ures like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Angela Davis and Frederick Doug­ lass, the wall also contains local community leaders such as Doyle, politician George K. Arthur and Buffalo abolitionist William Welles Brown.

Benjamin Willis, a Buffalo resident and admirer of the proj­ ect, said he was happy it honors

so many important local fi ures.

“I think it’s a beautiful proj­ ect,” Willis said. “Eva Doyle was a second­grade teacher of mine, and I remember even as a 7­ or 8­year­old that she was teaching black history in school and the importance of having pride in yourself and understanding some of our ac­ complishments as a people.”

As the sun beat down on the wall on a recent afternoon, Wa­ jed used a marker to apply thick

black strokes to the wall for his portrait of Lydia T. Wright, Buf­ falo’s fir t black pediatrician.

Next to Wright was an outline of Frederick Douglass, a juxta­ position that shows the range of local and national fi ures as well as historical time periods the wall represents.

“The work that [Douglass] did paved the way for Dr. Lydia T. Wright to go to school and become a doctor and claim the right to do that,” Wajed said. “I

Family ‘just kept pushing forward’ KIRST • from D1 freezing. The economy was tough. In Texas, it was warm.

There seemed to be plenty of jobs.

John and Robin made a decision. The family moved to Houston.

Greg, at the time, was in middle school.

“Oh, my God,” he said. “At fir t, it was brutal.” He was a kid from the North in a completely different culture.

The other children were not always kind, to put it gently.

His family went through some significant jolts. More than once, his parents sat at the kitchen table and talked about whether they should move back.

Instead, they did what they always do when things go wrong.

“We toughed it out,” Greg said. “We just kept pushing forward.”

It is the same lesson he is trying to teach his own children, after the fl od.

Greg is a fi efighter for the Westlake Fire Department. He is also an electrician. Sunday, he had off from both jobs.

Greg and his wife, Carrie, kept hoping the water would stop before it reached their house, which sits on a rise above the street. It was raining, but not at a terrifying pace.

That afternoon, while Greg was at the store, the rain accelerated. It was like a cannonade against the wind­ shield, the hardest downpour he’d ever seen.

More than once, in describ­ ing what came next, he used the word “Niagara.”

By the time Greg returned to his neighborhood, the mouth of his street was too fl oded to enter. He circled until he found a different route. To reach his house, he traveled through 8 or 9 inches of water in the street.

Once at home, he was stuck. His station house is 20 miles away. He couldn’t get to work, at least not offi ially. Yet even with the water creeping up over the curb, his wife and their four kids were safe in the house.

“I’m a fi efi hter,” he said.

“I felt like I ought to be doing something.”

Greg threw on a few pieces of gear and a pair of shorts, then slogged over to a point, maybe a half­mile away, where an emergency task force was being mobilized.

He told them about his work and he volunteered.

He spent the next seven or eight hours on a boat, getting people out of houses: Young children.

The elderly. Even dogs and cats. That evening, weary, he went home. The water was edging closer, but his family

Top, a helicopter flies over Greg Kopacz’s house in the Champions area of Houston last week. Above, Kopacz walks up his sidewalk in the rain.

still had power. The house was dry.

The next day, he repeated the routine. He volunteered with other rescuers. They carried a quadriplegic man in a wheelchair through 5 feet of water. But Greg’s luck ran out on his own street. By the time he arrived home, the water was moving fast toward their fl wer beds.

If it gets to the patio, Greg told his wife, we’d better get busy.

It hit the patio. They shut down their breaker box.

The family started pushing furniture against the wall, and trying to move anything precious upstairs.

They didn’t have time to get it all.

If you haven’t lived through a fl od, Greg said, you can’t put words to the moment when the water – brown, murky, foul­smelling water – starts bubbling through the cracks and coming into

your house. Upstairs, helpless, his family settled in to face whatever the morning would bring.

By Monday, there was a solid 9 inches of water in their living room. It began to recede by the evening, but the harm was done.

“Everything downstairs is gone,” Greg said.

That includes an ornate desk his wife’s stepfather made by hand.

And an envelope contain­ ing the little cap their oldest daughter wore, as an infant, at the hospital.

And quilts that had been hand­sewn by his wife’s grandmother.

And silverware passed down through generations.

“The things we can’t replace, that’s what brought my wife to tears,” said Greg, who describes Carrie as being “10 times tougher than I am.”

Still, you could hear resolve in his voice.

“If anything, I feel guilty,” Greg said. He talked about fi efighters at his station who worked 36­hour shifts. He talked about families who suffered utter devastation, even loss of life, families stranded without hope of rescue in the storm.

In his neighborhood, Greg said, it was all community.

He watched as a helicopter thundered past their house, as emergency workers rappelled down to help a woman who’d gone into labor. “Like some­ thing in a movie,” Greg said.

He watched as neighbors climbed into boats, trucks, even kayaks, to do anything they could to help those in trouble.

The Kopacz clan is well­ established in Houston. The extended family founded the Houston Bills Backers, the offi ial Bills fan club in the region. The quality that links so many natives of Western New York is exactly what he sees all around him in Texas.

“The warmth, the generos­ ity, it was unbelievable,” Greg said. “No one waited for help to come. They said: ‘If my neighbor’s in trouble, I’ve got to go.’”

By Wednesday, Greg’s parents were at his house, as was his sister Kathie and her husband, Mark, who invited his family to stay with theirs.

A cousin, Lisa Fix, immedi­ ately started a GoFundMe account to help with their repairs, an effort that had raised more than $1,000 in two days.

“There’s no way I can express my gratitude,” said Greg.

His brother Eric showed up and took one look at the living room, where everything within a yard of the fl or was basically destroyed, then turned to Greg with an expression that said: Let’s get started.

“My brother,” Greg said, “he’s got no quit in him.”

Greg keeps telling himself there’s a lesson in all this. When he was a child, his parents rarely lectured. What they taught, they taught by what they showed him every day.

He fi ures that’s how he’s got to see this moment.

“The one thing I want my kids to know is that if you want something good to happen, you’ve got to go after it,” Greg said. “If you want something, you’ve got to bust your butt.”

So he thinks about what others lost in the fl od, and he thinks about how everyone he loves is safe, and he thinks about how the greatest and most lasting heirloom is not defi ed by some possession, but becomes family itself.

He hopes his children understand: That heirloom is on safe ground.

hope that these 28 panels will spark that in people, to know that collectiveness, unity, is what we all need. Several of these people on this wall are gone, but what they left was the work.”

For Baker, the wall repre­ sents a model community proj­ ect others can replicate.

“The success that we’ve had already is unbelievable,” Baker said as he fi led in the hair on his portrait of politician Shirley Chisholm, who moved to Buf­ falo in the 1980s after serving in Congress. “It just goes to show, if you do something that’s rep­ resentative of the community, they will support it and they will turn out for it.”

Gwen McKinnon, who was leading a group of United Way volunteers through the area recently, said the project should serve as an example for other communities that want to take ownership of their own history.

“This is the beginning of Buffalo telling the story of its history,” McKinnon said. “It should be in every area of the city. We all have our different cultures and we all have people that represent us.”

While Baker was talking, as happens often, a car slowed and the driver honked his horn.

Baker waved his hand in grati­ tude without even glancing

away from his work.

“A lot of times I don’t even turn my head,” he said, “be­ cause if you do it every time someone honked their horn or called out to you, you’d never get anything done. I know people who have changed their route to work just to drive by here to see the progress.”

As artistic problems go, the painters agree an excess of ad­ miration is a good one to have.

As for Tingley, whose role in the project shrank as a result of community blowback to the original plan, he said he can’t imagine the mural being done any other way.

“Looking back on it now, it’s almost unbelievable that it could have been just me on this wall, versus what it is now and how important it is to have other art­ ists of color on the wall,” Tingley said. “I think it’s a wake­up call for all of us, including myself.”

Tingley said that the com­ munity­driven process, includ­ ing whittling down a list of potential names from 300 to 28, was essential to the success of the project.

“The community spoke up, and that’s what matters. It’s about them,” he said. “We’re not even close to being done with the project and I can already see what it’s doing. That’s amazing.”

Defense wins OK to talk about Baum’s psychiatric disorder BAUM • from D1 was traveling overseas.

“How is your money holding out?” asks his stepfather, Dr. R. Bruce Baum.

“Life is cheaper here, but I will lose the SSI eventually if I stay here because they will find out that I am out of the country,” Baum replied.

Prosecutors view the con­ versation as an admission of guilt, but think jurors are going to wonder how the FBI came to search Baum’s Facebook page.

“The government does not propose an in­depth review of the terrorism investigation,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jona­ than P. Cantil said in court pa­ pers. “However, it is important to convey to the jury that the government did not search the defendant’s Facebook page on a fi hing expedition.”

The FBI’s investigation into Baum became public shortly af­ ter his arrest on fraud charges three years ago. The four­count indictment against him claims he stole $4,277 in Social Securi­ ty disability benefi s over a four­ month period in 2013.

The unrelated allegations tied to terrorism, including the central and still unproven claim that Baum attended a terrorist training camp, have been dis­ closed over the years as his case unfolded.

One of the claims is that Baum received a text from an unspecifi d individual in 2011 saying, “Jesus rose again today... ha...ha...ha. I heard you are be­ ing trained for being used as a terrorist.”

The FBI’s search of Baum’s Facebook page was also based ontwoconfidentialsourceswho said Baum “lectured” them in 2013 about the Arab Spring, told them he had been to Syria and said he was “not afraid to die.”

A third source reportedly told the FBI that Baum was fi ­ ated on converting family and friends to Islam and that he was bipolar, off his medication but harmless.

“There is no indication that he ever threatened anyone, that he committed any crimes or that he associated with any ter­ rorists,” Comerford said in his court papers.

Never charged in connec­ tion with the terrorism allega­ tions, Baum was indicted by a grand jury on the Social Secu­ rity fraud charges and, early on in the case, his mental health became a focal point.

Court papers describe him as bipolar and the two sides have argued over whether his mental health should be intro­ duced at his coming trial.

Prosecutors claim any men­

tion of Baum’s mental health will divert the jury from its core mission – deciding whether he defrauded the Social Security disability system.

“Thetypeofdisabilitythede­ fendanthasisirrelevant,”Cantil said in court papers.

Inseekingpermissiontotalk about Baum’s mental health, defense lawyers made it clear they want the jury to under­ stand why their client, despite a healthy physical appearance, was collecting disability ben­ efits.

“The jury should know, at a minimum, that Mr. Baum re­ ceived benefi s because of a psy­ chiatric disorder, not a physical condition,” Comerford said.

In the end, Skretny ruled that evidence of Baum’s mental health will be allowed during his trial because the jury might otherwise “question why the defendant, who appears able­ bodied, was receiving disability benefi s.”

Jury selection for Baum’s tri­ al begins Sept. 19.

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Calendar

To submit items for publication:

Call: 849-4553 Fax: 849-3445 E-mail: gustocal@buffnews.com

City will repave more than 75 streets

$7.5 million set aside for projects; includes infrastructure

| Page B3

CITY&REGION

SECTION

The Buffalo News

Stanley Evans • Deputy Managing Editor 849­4444 • sevans@buffnews.com

Using civil rights template to fight black crime Call it the ultimate Muhammad of Muham­ good vs. evil showdown: mad’s Mosque 23 publicly The Gospel and the Koran deplored the “no snitch­ vs. the code of the streets. ing” credo, pointing out When the Rev. that it silences good Darius Pridgen went people while gangsters public with photos of regularly ignore it, Rod Watson two men who broke rolling over on one into his church, and another to get a deal COMMEN TA RY appealed to “some­ from prosecutors. one who cares enough about their Pridgen, too, asked the community community and these young men” to speak up to fi d the burglars whose to identify the burglars, it marked images were captured on surveillance another call from the pulpit to reject cameras in his True Bethel Baptist the code of silence that allows crime Church. After giving the young men a to fl urish in African­American chance to turn themselves in – which neighborhoods.

Earlier this year, Minister Dahveed See Watson on Page B2

B

Thursday, May 25, 2017

Viral sub-eater on hiatus after floor hockey mishap

By Stephen T. Watson N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

CUOMO REVEALS ECONOMIC PUSH AT CANALSIDE Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednes­ day detailed a $53 million expansion

by Moog and a $2 million state invest­ ment at Canalside. Story on Page B7.

John Pawlowski won’t return to his favorite tree on his favorite Town of Tonawanda street for his weekly lunch break today – or for probably the next six weeks.

But it’s not because suspicious neighbors scared off America’s most famous sub­eater. (Yes, we’re serious, and more later on how the story of the Town of Tonawanda submarine sandwich standoff has gone viral.)

Instead, Pawlowski ruptured the quadriceps tendons in both of his legs while playing fl or hockey

earlier this week. He went into sur­ gery Wednesday and said he won’t be able to bend either leg for about a month and a half.

That means no trips anytime soon to his favorite deli for his reg­ ular sub order, and no stopping to eat the meal on Zimmerman Bou­ levard for the visits that have made him a minor celebrity.

“I’ll be back strong,” Pawlowski promised one friend on Facebook who asked about his sub­eating routine.

To recap: For the last 18 months or so, once a week, Pawlowski has See Pawlowski on Page B2

Reed again targeted by Democratic strategy arm

Gallant mounts challenge to 4-term House member

By Jerry Zremski N E W S WA S H I N G T O N B U R E AU C H I E F

social media, the serpentine sculpture appears so vi­ brant and otherworldly that some have mistaken those images for digital renderings.

A steady fl w of subway passengers this week gazed in wonderment at the sculpture while riding the escala­ tor.Somepausedbeforeleavingthestationtotakeitallin.

Desiree Ransom and Nyree James took a moment to look at the piece on their way to school. Both said they were impressed by the way the sculpture’s color stood out against the white surroundings of the new Metro Rail station. And it helped that the piece includ­ ed heavy doses of their favorite colors, purple and pink.

“It’s pretty cool to me. I just want to know how long

WASHINGTON – The committee tasked with electing more Democrats to the House has once again named Rep. Tom Reed as one of its top targets.

And this week, a Democratic candi­ date emerged to oppose the four­term Republican from Corning.

Rick Gallant, a longtime teacher and union activist from the Corning area, an­ nounced Tuesday that he will challenge Reed next year in New York’s 23rd Con­ gressional District, which covers much of the Southern Tier and part of the Finger Lakes region.

“Toward the beginning of the year, I saw that Tom Reed was saying one thing and doing another, and I came to think that the people of the Southern Tier and central upstate want someone repre­ senting them with their true interests at heart,” said Gallant, 59.

This will be the third consecutive elec­ tion in which the Democratic Congressio­ nal Campaign Committee, or DCCC, has targeted Reed, who nevertheless won by wide margins both previous times.

After trying an experienced Tomp­ kins County politician in Martha Rob­ ertson in 2014 and a former Obama ad­ ministration offi ial and longtime Navy veteran, John Plumb, last year, Demo­ crats are now turning to a teacher who has never run for public offi e.

Gallant has been a teacher in the Corning­Painted Post School District for 17 years. He has taught elementary and middle school and currently works with suspended students, expelled students and students out with long­term medical issues. He has also coached junior varsity and varsity basketball.

In addition, Gallant has been elect­ ed twice to serve on the New York State United Teachers board of directors, rep­ resenting districts that stretch from Waverly to Westfi ld – encompassing much of the congressional district that he wants to serve. In that role, he serves teachers and other unionized school em­ ployees for about 150 school districts.

Residents of Painted Post, just outside of Corning, Gallant and his wife have two grown daughters.

In his new role as congressional can­ didate, Gallant said he plans to stress that he will serve his district in a much different way than Reed, who prides himself on constituent service and hold­ ing town hall­style meetings while rising on the House Ways and Means Commit­

See Sculpture on Page B2

See Reed on Page B5

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

“Gut Flora” is Shasti O’Leary Soudant’s new sculpture at Metro Rail’s renovated Allen-Medical Campus Station on the ground floor of UB’s soon-to-be-completed medical school. She calls the art, modeled on bacteria that live inside human intestines, a tribute to cultural diversity.

Sculpted ‘rainbow tree’ radiates a vibrant spectrum at subway stop

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

As pedestrians approach the University at Buffalo’s soon­to­be­completed Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences from the west, a fl sh of color cuts through the construction dust swirling around the $375 million building.

That small visible sliver of Shasti O’Leary Soudant’s sculpture “Gut Flora” is head­turning when viewed through the windows of the newly renovated Allen­ Medical Campus subway station on the ground floor of the new medical building.

The sculpture’s technicolor tentacles reach from fl or to ceiling. In photographs that have circulated on

“You can see that each of these strands has a different expression. That signals the idea that diversity is a contributing factor to the health of the overall larger being.”

Shasti O’Leary Soudant

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B2

The Buffalo News/Thursday, May 25, 2017

City & Region

No coincidence that the sculpture resembles structure of DNA SCULPTURE â&#x20AC;˘ from B1 it took to do it,â&#x20AC;? said Ransom, a senior at Buffalo Academy of Sci­ ence Charter School. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like a rainbow tree.â&#x20AC;?

The best time to view the sculpture is in the early after­ noon, when sunlight shines into the space and illuminates it like a light box, Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Leary Soudant said.

This has the effect of making the colors even more vibrant. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You can see that each of these strands, each of these threads of bacteria has a different expres­ sion. That is sort of to signal the idea that the diversity of that cul­ ture is a contributing factor to the health of the overall larger being,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is a garden of benefi cial bacteria. One of the reasons we grow gardens in the fir t place is so that we can see these colors.â&#x20AC;?

There are no wrong interpre­ tations of the work, said Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Leary Soudant, 50, who also created a high­profi e public art project at 500 Seneca St. and whose work is in the collection of the Albright­ Knox Art Gallery.

But her intention for the piece, modeled on the bacteria that live inside human intestines, is specif­ ic to its location in a transporta­ tion hub that will serve the Buf­ falo Niagara Medical Campus.

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

Shasti Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Leary Soudantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new artwork, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gut Flora,â&#x20AC;? greets commuters at Metro Railâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Allen-Medical Campus Station.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I started to think about Buf­ falo as a larger body, like a corpo­ real entity where the streets and the subway lines and the tunnels and the bridges â&#x20AC;&#x201C; all of the thor­ oughfares â&#x20AC;&#x201C; are part of the circu­ latory system of the City of Buffa­ lo,â&#x20AC;? she said.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no coincidence that the snaking artwork bears a resem­ blance to the structure of DNA, she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;These fundamental parts of our bodies, these funda­ mental expressions, are trans­ lated into the colors that we have here,â&#x20AC;? said Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Leary Soudant, who worked with a large crew to in­ stall the piece over several sleep­ less nights.

The 25 colors were achieved by powder­coating 242 individual pieces of stippled stainless steel, a material trademarked by the Buffalo company Rigidized Met­ als. The pieces, which weigh only about 200 pounds each owing to the lightweight material, are held together by 15,500 nuts, bolts and washers.

The pieces are fastened to the structural beams of the build­ ing and snake through perfect­ ly cut holes in the stationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ceil­ ing and fl or tiles, giving visitors the sense that the strands run through the entire building â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and possibly through the earth below and infin tely up into space.

Hope for celebration when heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back Bringing down â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;black wall of silenceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; PAWLOWSKI â&#x20AC;˘ from B1

WATSON â&#x20AC;˘ from B1

ordered the same ham, tur­ key, lettuce and Swiss cheese sub from the Tailgate Deli in Tonawanda. He then takes his sub and drives around the cor­ ner to Zimmerman and parks under the same tree to take a lunch break before heading back to his offi e in the City of Tonawanda.

Everything went fi e un­ til about a month ago when a couple followed Pawlowski, 36, back to his offi e and confront­ ed him about what he was do­ ing on their street. They werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t convinced that he was just eat­ ing a sub. A week later, when Pawlowski returned, two town police offi ers showed up.

The Buffalo News started writing about this, but Barbara Tucker, the owner of the tree, didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know anything about Pawlowskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lunch breaks or the brouhaha they had caused until a reporter told her.

Stories about Pawlowski have attracted the attention of Buffalo­area readers, but the tale of the sub­eater really took off after Kate Nocera, the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for BuzzFeed, tweeted a link to it Sunday and praised it as a classic example of local news. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I want to tweet out every line of this story it is just so good

they declined â&#x20AC;&#x201C; he put the images on the Buffalo Police Departmentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Facebook page in hopes the community would respond.

It was a tough ask â&#x20AC;&#x201C; even though it shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have been.

But the back­to­back appeals from minis­ ters raises a question: Can the black church, which led the effort to free African­Americans from the overt tyranny of racism, reprise the same role when the attacker looks just like the victims? Continued racist incidents notwithstanding, can the church play the same galvanizing role it played in the civil rights era now that the problem is lurking right next door and dressed not in white sheets, but in the same skin color?

Pridgen thinks it will take a lot more than one institution because this is an era in which there is very little trust of â&#x20AC;&#x153;anyone in leader­ ship,â&#x20AC;? including ministers. â&#x20AC;&#x153;For things to turn around, we need orga­ nization and attention to marry one another,â&#x20AC;? he said, explaining that â&#x20AC;&#x153;activistsâ&#x20AC;? know how to get attention but there is little trust in organizations like the church, government or community groups to advance a cause, as there was during the civil rights era.

The result is that â&#x20AC;&#x153;weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re dying in silence,

John Pawlowski, in Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital for surgery on injured legs, was amazed by instant fame.

and pure,â&#x20AC;? Nocera tweeted.

The tweet from the well­ connected Nocera, whose hus­ band is from Lockport, alerted reporters and news organiza­ tions in Washington, New York and across the country, who retweeted the story in turn and brought it to tens of thousands of new readers.

People who read and shared the story said they were struck by how it captured life in a small town, by Pawlowskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Ă&#x17D;Ă?Ă&#x17D;Ă&#x2018; Ă&#x20AC; Ă?Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x2019;Ă&#x201C; Ă&#x152;Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x2039;Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x201C;Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x2018;Ă&#x2DC; Ă&#x2019;Ă&#x201E;Ă&#x2018;Ă&#x2022;Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x201A;Ă&#x201E; Ă?Ă&#x201E;Ă&#x2018;Ă&#x2019;Ă&#x17D;Ă? Ă&#x17D;Ă? Ă&#x201E;Ă&#x152;Ă&#x17D;Ă&#x2018;Ă&#x2C6;Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x2039; Â&#x201E;Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x2DC; Ă&#x2C6;Ă? Ă&#x2021;Ă&#x201E; Ă&#x203A;Ă&#x201D;Ă&#x2026;Ă&#x2026;Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x2039;Ă&#x17D; Ă&#x201E;Ă&#x2013;Ă&#x2019;

Ă&#x17D;Ă?Ă&#x192;Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x2DC;Â? Ă&#x20AC;Ă&#x2DC;

Place an In Memoriam and receive a free military graphic.

To place an In Memoriam, call 856-5555.

Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.

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straightforward desire to fi d a good place to eat a sub, by the confrontation with the fir t set of neighbors and by the wel­ coming response from Tucker. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Greatest local news sto­ ry ever: They remain uncon­ vinced by [his] explanation that he simply is eating a sandwich,â&#x20AC;?

John Michael McGrath tweet­ ed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This really is my favorite story. We should all be Barbara Tucker,â&#x20AC;? John Branch tweeted.

Earlier this week Esquire posted a Q&A with Pawlowski, who alternately enjoyed and was amazed by his newfound fame, until Monday.

He said he was playing fl or hockey and was trying to back­ pedal to keep up with an oppo­ nent when he felt a pop in his right leg and then a pop in his left leg. He said he went down in a heap and couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get up on his own.

It turns out that he has a fully ruptured left quadriceps tendon and a nearly fully rup­ tured right quad. As Pawlowski prepared for surgery Wednes­ day, he said his lunch spot on Zimmerman wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t his high­ est priority. But he did say he was avoiding subs at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital in Amherst to stay â&#x20AC;&#x153;faithfulâ&#x20AC;? to Tailgate Deli.

Pawlowskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mother, LuAnn Stevens Londos, thought that it was important to let Tucker know that he wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be re­ turning to Zimmerman any­ time in the near future. So she drove over to Tuckerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s house and gave her the news about Pawlowskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s injuries.

Tucker got Pawlowskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s number and called him to wish him well, a gesture that Paw­ lowski appreciated. â&#x20AC;&#x153;She seems like the nicest lady,â&#x20AC;? he told The News.

Tucker said she would have worried about Pawlowski, so she was glad to fi d out what happened. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When he comes back,â&#x20AC;?

Tucker said in an email, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I think there should be a celebra­ tion.â&#x20AC;?

but weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re living in fearâ&#x20AC;? he said, adding that everyone is going to have to play a part.

Muhammad, too, has talked about a â&#x20AC;&#x153;black wall of silenceâ&#x20AC;? that allows crime to fl urish.

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s still trying to pull together a town hall meeting to break down that wall and agrees that religious institutions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like others â&#x20AC;&#x201C; have taken a hit. But that just makes it more difficult, not impossible, for faith leaders to spearhead such an effort. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Absolutely, thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s where our main work is.

We speak truth to power, but we also try to elevate the condition of our people,â&#x20AC;? he said, though ministers have to work to gain credibil­ ity â&#x20AC;&#x153;by showing integrity and consistency and by doing what we say weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re going to do.â&#x20AC;?

And, he said, they canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be bought off by funding sources, long a sore point in the African­American community.

While Pridgen is right about institutionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; declining infl ence, I think he underestimates how much leadership can still matter. Those who fl ck to his and other churches and mosques wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be doing that if it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t.

That is something to build on if blacks want to treat neighborhood safety as the new civil rights issue.

After all, the right to be free from racial discrimination is a hollow victory if your children canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even play in the front yard for fear of a stray bullet.

Reportersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Notebook / Bits and pieces of news â&#x20AC;Ś OLAF FUB SEZ: Accord­

ing to poet and philosopher

Ralph Waldo Emerson, born

on this date in 1803, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.â&#x20AC;?

...

AUTHOR, AUTHOR â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Mindy Fried, a sociologist

and teacher at Boston College, returns to speak about her book, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Caring for Red: A Daughterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Memoir,â&#x20AC;? at 7:30 p.m. today in the Maxine and Robert Seller Theatre at the Jewish Community Center, 2640 North Forest Road, Getzville.

The book recounts her experiences caring for her 97­year­old father, activist and playwright Manny Fried, during the last year of his life. Tickets are $10, $5 for students.

Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book author and illustrator Wendy Essrow visits Dog Ears Bookstore & Cafe, 688 Abbott Road, at 10:30 a.m. Saturday to read from her latest book, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Whereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Your Belly, Nelly?,â&#x20AC;? and help children make paper bag puppy puppets to accompany the story. For more info, call 823­2665 or visit dogears­ bookstore.org.

...

MAJOR MOVERS â&#x20AC;&#x201C;

Reservations are needed by Friday for 2016/2017 Women in Leadership Dinner hosted by the Buffalo Niagara Chapter of New York State Women Inc. on June 7 in the Park Club, 4949 Sheridan Drive, Amherst. Keynote

speaker Wyleia Miller will talk on â&#x20AC;&#x153;Women Changing the World.â&#x20AC;?

Cost is $45. Registration and a reception begin at 5 p.m. To register online, visit bncwomeninc.org.

Honorees include Mandy Bailey, chef, Big Big Table Community Cafe; Rosanna Berardi, managing partner, Berardi Immigration Law; Lisa Booz, regional director, Camp Good Days and Special Times; Sheila L. Brown, owner, radio station WUFO 1080 AM; and Franchelle Hart, executive director, Open Buffalo.

Also Christine E.B. Howard, president, E.B. Howard Consulting; Karen L. King, executive director, Erie County Commission on the Status of Women; Linda Pellegrino, â&#x20AC;&#x153;AM Buffaloâ&#x20AC;?

TV host; Ann-Marie T. Orlowski, CEO, Cradle Beach; Nancy Rizzo, owner, Smart and Simple Wellness; Catherine Linder Spencer, artist; and Therese Vita, senior vice president, Key Private Bank.

...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Robert Alois Stiglmeier, Patricia Gelman, George Maziarz, April Jones, Amber Dixon, Richard Satterwhite, Karen D. Klostermann, Andrea Benkovich, Jill Krze­ mien, Melissa S. Golimowski, Debbie Frank, Olivia Oliver, Sean Creahan, Liz Carone, Mikayla Stelmach, Kathy Pangburn, Nada Jelenovic, Kristin Wach, Diane Sopicki, Betty Harris, Sheila Lempko, Carol Mackey, Chi­Chi Dan and Ricky Pirritano.

To submit birthdays and other items of interest to Reportersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Notebook, please email olaffub@buffnews.com or send a letter to Reportersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Notebook, Buffalo News, Box 100, Buffalo, NY 14240.

Lottery Picks / Winning numbers for Wednesday

N.Y. Evening Number: Lucky Sum: N.Y. Midday Number: Lucky Sum:

186 15 985 22

Win Four Evening: Lucky Sum: Win Four Midday: Lucky Sum:

1599 24 1883 20

Take Five not available Pick 10: 1 7 13 20 25 27 29 34 41 45 55 57 61 64 66 69 71 75 77 78 N.Y. Lotto not available Powerball not available Pick 3 Evening: Pick 3 Day: Pick 4 Evening: Pick 4 Day:

739 170 8023 0331

Late numbers for Tuesday Take Five

3 12 25 27 35

Mega Millions: 6 13 17 33 60 Mega Ball: 14 Megaplier: x2 These numbers are unofficial.

For official New York Lottery results go to buffalo.com/lottery or your lottery retailer.

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• Allentown Music 1113 Elmwood Ave. • Amy’s Place 3234 Main St. • ALT Theatre 255 Great Arrow • BCC Arts and Entertainment 4660 Sheridan Drive, Williamsville • Big Orbit Gallery 30 Essex St. • Buffalo East 1412 Main St. • Caffe Aroma 957 Elmwood Ave. • Crane Library 633 Elmwood Ave. • Essex Street Pub 530 Rhode Island St. • Filigrees Gallery & Boutique 1121 Elmwood Ave. • Fuse Salon & Gallery 984 Elmwood Ave. • Hoyt and Forest • Hoyt Lake • Milkies 522 Elmwood Ave. • parking lot on Elmwood at Great Arrow • Spot Coffee Elmwood 765 Elmwood Ave. • Urban Roots 428 Rhode Island St. • ZGM Fine Arts Studio 1045 Elmwood Ave.

THE FOUNDRY

298 Northampton St. The local art collective known as 8BitBuffalo is set­ ting up shop in this bustling East Side venue that’s recently evolved into one of Buffalo’s most intriguing grass­roots arts spaces. The collective’s exhibi­ tion runs from 7 p.m. Friday through Aug. 4 and features painting, sculpture and inter­ active art that in some way ad­ dresses “the aesthetics of classic (circa 1985) video games.” The Foundry also features an insane number of music shows and parties throughout the festival.

• Ad a 612 m Mi • La Fillm ckiewic o z r 745 kinvill re Ave. Theat er Sen e eca St. • Club Marcella 622 Main St. #101 • Electric Avenue 300 Ellicott St. • The Grand Ballroom at Hotel Lafayette 391 Washington St. • Main (St)udios 515 Main St. • WNY Book Arts Collaborative 468 Washington St.

List of southern venues

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email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

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he Buffalo Infringement Festival – our rising city’s loudest, longest and most egalitarian arts event – has served as a beacon for artists with big imaginations and miniscule budgets since its quiet beginnings in 2005.

From one year to the next, it casts an ever­wider net and dredges up artists of all stripes from across the re­ gion. For many artists, the free­for­all festival serves as a launching pad to bigger things. For others, it temporarily lifts them from obscurity for the space of a 15­minute acoustic set in someone’s backyard, only to drop them right back into the underground. And therein lies this festival’s unpredictable beauty.

Starting tonight, the festival – a collection of unhinged street parties and unimaginable oddities mixed in with more mainstream performances and exhibitions – will transform Allentown into a hyperactive bastion of off­ beat culture until the final note of the last band resounds in Nietzsche’s on Aug. 4. There are plenty of venues outside Allentown, as well, from the hopping Filigree’s Boutique at Elmwood and Forest avenues and People’s Park, in the Park­ side neighborhood, to a stretch of sidewalk near Hoyt Street and Forest Avenue that will host the Infringement Festival’s second annual “Anti­Warped Tour” on Saturday.

All the swirling activity is far too much to sum up in two pages, but our map should help you get your bearings, if only to lose them again when you encounter the specific brand of weirdness that interests you most. The full sched­ ule, of which this spread represents only a tiny fraction, is online at www.infringebuffalo.org.

Nickel City Co­Op

Ziggy Starfish W

By COLIN DA BKOWSKI N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

NORTH ST

N ietz sche’s College Street G allery

TO THE PEOPLE

Maria C. Rola’s Hoopnosis Fire Faery Show

M oo n

THE INFRINGEMENT FESTIVAL TAKES ART, MUSIC

DAYS

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BRYANT ST

255 Great Arrow Ave. Last year, director Bob Van Valin had to scuttle his Infringement production of Bertolt Brecht’s “A Man’s a Man.” He’s mounting it for real this time, and the multimedia production that reflects on unjust wars promises to be en­ grossing. The theater’s parking lot will also host “Buffalo Car Plays,” an interactive theater project by local playwrights Donna Hoke, Steve Roylance, Jon Elson and

N S T

Stree t life

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MANNY FRIED PLAYHOUSE

Gusto Thursday, July 25, 2013

21

Pi ca ss o

Gusto Thursday, July 25, 2013

20

Squeaky Wheel

Wasteland Studios

“Point of Entry (Every thing is wonder us)” at Wasteland Studios

FOLLOW THE GUSTO BLOG AT WWW.BUFFALONEWS.COM

For Infringement coverage throughout the festival, including daily recommendations, video interviews, mini­reviews and pictures.

And follow @colindabkowski and @infringebuffalo to keep your Twitter feed full of Infringement news and opinions.

FaNs welcome sabres back to First Niagara ceNter | PAGE B1

.

BUFFALONEWS COM

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Copyright 2013

In the spotlight

Marissa Higgins of Monsignor Martin

INCOMPARABLE

Jeff simon says Jody Foster’s speech tops any award show this season. Page C8

Msgr.Martin’s unbeaten girls hockey team dominates the league. Page d4

FocuS: the artS

Janne Sirén, ambitious head of Finnish museum, picked to lead the art gallery

the new albright-knox director B y C ol i n Da Bkow sk i

F

w n y ed iti on

Serving Western New York since 1880

n e ws A Rts CR i t i C

“I just felt that in Buffalo there’s this very positive aura about the next chapter in the city’s future, not only at the Albright-Knox, but more generally in Buffalo. …

And that’s tremendously exciting.”

innish museum director Janne Gallen­Kallela­sirén has been selected as the new director of Albright­ Knox Art Gallery, it was announced Monday. sirén, 42, will end his fi e­year tenure as director of the Helsinki Art Museum in Finland’s political and cultural capital to take charge of the 150­year­old institu­ tion on el mwood Avenue in the spring or early summer. He will succeed former gallery director Louis Grachos, who left the Albright­Knox this month for a new job in Austin, te xas, af­ ter leading the museum through 10 years of growth. sirén was elected unanimously by the Albright­Knox board of directors sunday night, according to the gallery.

Leslie Zemsky, president of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, the governing body of the Albright­Knox, said that the search for a new director drew “an outstanding pool of candidates.”

But sirén, who was educated in the United st ates and has held positions in universities and museums throughout eu rope, quickly rose to the top of the list.

“He’s got the academic credentials,” Zemsky said when

see Gallery on Page A2

Janne Gallen-Kallela-Sirén Age: 42 Native city: Helsinki, Finland Family:

wi fe, sonja; two daughters, 3 and 8; one son, 5 Past Experience:

dir ector, Helsinki Art Museum, 2007­2012; ta mpere Art Museum, in southern Finland, 2004­2007; visiting assistant professor, He­ brew University of Jerusalem, 2000­2004 Education:

B.A. in art history from the College of the Holy Cross, wo rcester, Mass.; M.A. and Ph.d . in art history from ne w york Univer­ sity’s institute of Fine Arts Languages spoken:

en glish, Finnish, swedish, German, italian Hobbies: Running and skiing

N.Y. poised to toughen restrictions on firearms Lawmakers see urgency of curbing gun violence

By Tom Precious n e w s A L B A n y B U R e AU

ALBAny – ne w york st ate is poised to enact some of the nation’s strictest gun­control laws, with new prohibitions against sales of assault weapons, reduc­ tion in size of ammunition magazines, longer prison sentences for crimes com­ mitted with guns, and mandatory back­ ground checks for certain sales of fi e­ arms between private parties. th e package of gun bills, pushed in the wake of the dec . 14 mass shooting in which a gunman took 26 lives at a Connecticut elementary school and the Christmas ev e killing of two fi efig ters in a Rochester suburb, was being negoti­ ated into the evening Monday on the fir t day of the 2013 legislative session. Law­ makerswereexpectedtoactlateMonday or sometime today. th e measures will include reduc­ ing the size of ammunition magazines from the current 10 bullets to seven and expanding Kendra’s Law, the statute requiring mental health treatment in memory of a Fredonia woman who was pushed to her death in 1999 in front of a ne w york City subway train by someone with a long history of mental illness.

Lawmakers said the new provision will double the mandatory treatment pe­ riod to up to a year and require mental health professionals to report to county mental health agencies about those pa­ tients they believe could be a danger to others.

Counties will then pass that informa­ tion on to the state di vision of Criminal Justice services, which can determine whether that person has a registered weapon and, if so, could confi cate any guns the person might own. th e looming deal also defi es assault weapons as those with any single char­ acteristic – such as a pistol grip or a tele­ see Guns on Page A2

de rek Gee/Buffalo ne ws

armstrong reportedly confesses to winfrey Source says cyclist admitted to drug use

By Jim Litke and Jim Vertuno A s so Ci At ed PR ess

Index

Business ...................... B6 Classifi d .................... d8 Comics ......................... C6 Crossword ........ d9 , d1 1

Associated Press

Lance Armstrong, who was stipped of his tour de France medals last year, was interviewed Monday by Oprah Winfrey. the interview airs thursday on OWN.

da ily di sh .................. C3 en tertainment ......... C4 Jingo ............................. A4 Life & Arts ................... C1

Lotteries ..................... B2 ob ituaries .................. B4 op inion ....................... A6 Picture Page ............ C10

see Armstrong on Page A2

th e Region ................. B1 scoreboard ................ d7 sports ............................ d1 te levision ................... C9

By Zachary A. Goldfarb and Philip Rucker wA s H i n G t o n P o s t

wA sHin Gt on – President ob ama vowed Monday that he would not negotiate with Re­ publicans over the federal debt ceiling, warning that social se ­ curity checks would be delayed and the nation could enter a new recession if Republicans do not agree to raise the limit on

weather

Clouds and sun. High 34, low 27.

Details on Page B10

government borrowing. ob ama said Republicans were threatening to hold “a gun attheheadoftheAmericanpeo­ ple” and that he would not trade spending cuts, as Republicans demand, for an agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling. “if congressional Republi­ cans refuse to pay America’s bills on time, social security see Obama on Page A8

75 CENtS

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B BN

903041

AUst in , te xas – Lance Arm­ strong confessed to op rah wi nfrey during an interview Monday that he used performance­enhancing drugs to win the to ur de France, a person familiar with the situation told the Associated Press.

th e person spoke on condition of anonymitybecausetheinterviewisto be broadcast th ursday on wi nfrey’s network, ow n.

Armstrong was stripped of all sev­ en to ur titles last year following a vo­ luminous U.s. Anti­d oping Agency report that portrayed him as a ruth­ less competitor, willing to go to any lengths to win the prestigious race.

UsAd A chief executive tr avis ty gart labeled the doping regimen, allegedly carried out by the U.s. Post­ al service team that Armstrong once

obama warns goP over debt ceiling

A2

The Buffalo News/Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Continued from The Cover

New director says the gallery’s offer was too good to pass up Gallery • from A1 asked what made Sirén stand out from other candidates, whom the gallery de­ clined to name. “But I think it’s that en­ ergy and leadership, and that ability to connect into the community and really understandingtheroleamuseumplays in a community, in a place like Buffalo.”

Sirén, who spoke to The Buffalo News by telephone from New York City before fl ing to Buffalo over the week­ end, said he was drawn to the opportu­ nity not only because of the Albright­ Knox’s envied collection of modern and contemporary art, but because of the cultural momentum that has been building in Buffalo for some time.

“From the moment I set foot in Buf­ falo, it was sort of love at fir t sight,” Sirén said. “I just felt that in Buffalo there’s this very positive aura about the next chapter in the city’s future, not only at the Albright­Knox, but more generally in Buffalo. Things are sort of happening, and you see in little bits and pieces around there, it’s sort of in the air. And that’s tremendously exciting.”

Sirén, the museum’s 11th profession­ aldirectorandthefir tdirectorofama­ jor American museum from the Nordic region, said he deliberated only briefl about the opportunity, taking a week or so to discuss the potential move to a new continent with his young family, which includes his wife, Sonja; a son, 5; and two daughters, 3 and 8. They will join Sirén when he begins his tenure. In the end, he said, the offer was too good to turn down.

“These opportunities are so rare, and institutions as brilliant and as fan­ tastic as the Albright­Knox, which has been able to reinvent itself time and againoverthepast150years,theyareso rare,” he said. “In terms of the Albright­ Knox, I didn’t have to think long.”

It also didn’t hurt, Sirén said, that his children’s main concern, having grown up in the chilly Nordic climate of Helsinki, was whether Buffalo had

any snow.

In his native Helsinki, Sirén served a dual role as director of the museum and as a key architect of the City of Hel­ sinki’s cultural policy and its public art program, an experience he said he hopes to apply in Buffalo. An Albright­ Knox release described him as “a pas­ sionate advocate for the active role of the museum, and the arts, in a vibrant civic life and the growth of a commu­ nity.”

“One could even say that in addi­ tion to the role of museum director, I’m sort of a fi e arts commissioner, even though that’s not a formal title.

But in effect, that’s what my role has been,” Sirén said. “I’ve interfaced with so many different forums and profes­ sions, from engineers to city planners to people who work in the cultural tour­ ism industry, to hotel managers, just a diversity of different pools of informa­ tion, which then get connected at the art museum. And in a sense, we are the bridge to the global scene.”

Sirén’s track record in Helsinki lines up closely with the increasingly international direction in which the Albright­Knox has been headed since Grachos came to town in 2003. Along with the ambitious internationally fo­ cusedprogrammingatthemuseum,Si­ rén said his proudest accomplishments in Helsinki include his stewardship of the city’s growing public art program and its successful development of a cul­ tural tourism industry, as well as his use of the museum as an educational tool to foster visual literacy across Fin­ land.

He was also the primary author of a controversial plan to build an inter­ national outpost of the New York City­ based Guggenheim Museum in Helsin­ ki. The plan was narrowly rejected last May by the city’s council over concerns that the project was not fair to Finnish artists and existing institutions.

Zemsky said that board members did not view the city’s rejection of the Guggenheim proposal – which was al­

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Janne sirén of Finland, who has been selected as the new director of the albright-Knox art Gallery, chats with leslie Zemsky, president of the gallery’s board of directors, while walking in the gallery Monday.

ready in its advanced stages when it was voted down – as a failure on Sirén’s part. On the contrary, she said, she was impressed with the work he poured into the project, the museum savvy he exhibited in the process and the major fundraising he was able to accomplish: “He’s very comfortable asking for mon­ ey, basically,” she said.

On paper, Sirén seems the model of a savvy international museum direc­ tor, with experience spanning several continents and subject areas. Accord­ ing to a release from the gallery, Sirén speaks fiv languages and has lived and worked in seven countries, includ­ ing Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Austria and Israel, where he taught for four years as a visiting art professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Before his appointment to the Hel­ sinki Museum’s directorship, Sirén di­

Armstrong also addressed Livestrong charity staffers arMstronG • from A1 led,“themost sophisticated,professional­ ized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”

After a federal investigation of the cy­ clist was dropped without charges being brought last year, USADA stepped in with an investigation of its own.

The agency deposed 11 former team­ mates and accused Armstrong of mas­ terminding a complex and brazen drug program that included steroids, blood boosters and a range of other perfor­ mance­enhancers.

A group of about 10 close friends and advisers to Armstrong left a downtown Austin hotel about three hours after they arrived Monday afternoon for the tap­ ing. Among them were Armstrong attor­ neys Tim Herman and Sean Breen, along withBillStapleton,Armstrong’slongtime agent, manager and business partner. All declined to comment entering and exit­ ing the session.

Soon afterward, Winfrey tweeted: “Just wrapped with (at)lancearmstrong More than 2.5 hours. He came READY!” Shewasscheduledtoappearon“CBSThis Morning” today to discuss the interview.

In a text to the AP on Saturday, Arm­ strong said: “I told [Winfrey] to go wher­ ever she wants and I’ll answer the ques­ tions directly, honestly and candidly.

That’s all I can say.”

Armstrong stopped at the Livestrong Foundation,whichhefounded,onhisway to the interview and said, “I’m sorry” to staffmembers,someofwhombrokedown in tears. A person with knowledge of that session said that Armstrong choked up and that several employees cried during the session.

ThepersonalsosaidArmstrongapolo­ gized for letting the staff down and put­ ting Livestrong at risk, but he did not make a direct confession to using banned drugs.

Bring home the best of Buffalo.

He said he would try to restore the foundation’s reputation and urged the group to continue fig ting for the char­ ity’s mission of helping cancer patients and their families.

Armstrong spoke to a room full of about 100 staff members for about 20 minutes, expressing regret for everything thecontroversyhasputthemthrough,the person said. He told them how much the foundation means to him and that he con­ sidersthepeoplewhoworktheretobelike members of his family. None of the people in the room challenged Armstrong over his long denials of doping.

Winfrey and her crew had earlier said they would fi m Monday’s session at Arm­ strong’s home. As a result, local and in­ ternational news crews were encamped near the cyclist’s Spanish­style villa be­ fore dawn.

Armstrong still managed to slip away for a run despite the crowds outside his home.

Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, has fi ed a federal whis­ tle­blower lawsuit that accused Arm­ strong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Ser­ vice. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether it will join the lawsuit as a plaintiff.

The London­based Sunday Times also is suing Armstrong to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel law­ suit. Sunday, the newspaper took out a full­page ad in the Chicago Tribune, of­ feringWinfreysuggestionsforwhatques­ tions to ask Armstrong.

Dallas­based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny Armstrong a promised bo­ nus for a Tour de France win, has threat­ ened to bring yet another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million an arbi­ tration panel awarded the cyclist in that dispute.

The lawsuit most likely to be infl ­ enced by a confession might be the Sun­ day Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from Armstrong’s sworn testi­ mony in the 2005 arbitration fig t would not apply because of the statute of limita­ tions. Armstrong was not deposed during the federal investigation that was closed last year.

Many of his sponsors dropped Arm­ strong after the damning USADA report – at the cost of tens of millions of dollars – and soon after, he left the board of the Livestrong cancer­fi hting charity he founded in 1997. Armstrong is still said to be worth about $100 million.

Livestrong might be one reason Arm­ strong has decided to come forward with an apology and limited confession. The charity supports cancer patients and still faces an image problem because of its as­ sociationwithArmstrong.Healsomaybe hoping a confession would allow him to return to competition in the elite triath­ lon or running events he participated in after his cycling career.

rected the Tampere Art Museum, in southern Finland, from 2004 to 2007.

No stranger to the United States – his Finnish colleagues consider him a qua­ si­American, he said – Sirén earned his master’s and Ph.D. in art history from New York University and his under­ graduate degree from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.

Sirén was born in Helsinki in 1970 and in 1983 moved with his family to Switzerland, where his father, a bio­ chemist, was working. (His mother is an interior designer by training and a writer on arts and culture.) He studied at the American school in the southern Swiss city of Lugano, near Italy, and said he intended from a young age to pursue a career in the United States.

The Albright­Knox collection fir t came Sirén’s attention when he was studying at New York University’s In­ stitute of Fine Arts. Among his favorite

works from the gallery, he counts Jack­ son Pollock’s “Convergence,” Gauguin’s “Spirit of the Dead Watching,” Picasso’s “La Toilette” and the entire collection of abstract expressionist masterpieces.

He also praised Grachos’ transforma­ tion of the exterior campus of the gal­ lery as well as works by Sol LeWitt and Mona Hatoum now on view as part of “Decade,” Grachos’ valedictory exhibi­ tion.

“It’s just really high­quality works, really intelligent collecting acumen and practices, and a solid foundation from which to build the future,” Sirén said, calling the collection “on a global scale, remarkable.”

The history of Sirén’s family has in­ tersected indirectly with Buffalo in the past: His great­grandfather, he said, was an associate of the Finnish archi­ tect Eliel Saarninen who, with his son Eero, designed Kleinhans Music Hall.

For Zemsky and other members of the Albright­Knox board, Sirén embod­ ies the ideal of the modern, multitask­ ing museum director, with the right combination of skills to keep the gal­ lery on the upward trajectory that be­ ganunderGrachosnearlyadecadeago.

“People really do think of the Al­ bright­Knox Art Gallery as a global art institution. Having international connections, I think it really is great in terms of our cultural tourism initia­ tives,” Zemsky said. Sirén, she added, brings “energy, enthusiasm and a fresh outlook. We’ve had that before, but it’s fresh. He’s coming in with new eyes.”

And Sirén, who said it was too ear­ ly to talk about specifi plans or initia­ tives he has for the museum, said he was drawn by the gallery’s collection and reputation as much as by the city it serves.

“A museum such as the Albright­ Knox, it always exists in relation to its owncontextanditsurbanfabric,”Sirén said.“I’mcomingthereasmuchforBuf­ falo as I am to lead the Albright­Knox.” cdabkowski@buffnews.com

Quick passage is deemed necessary due to assault weapons ‘emergency’ Guns • from A1 scoping stock or fl sh suppressor.

The plan will grandfather in those gun owners who legally obtained assault weapons either before the 1994 ban was put in place or who bought them through what law­ makers described as loopholes be­ ingclosedinthenewdeal.Butsuch owners will not be able to trans­ fer the weapons to other people in New York and will have to register the weapons with the state.

“We are going to ban as­ sault weapons. We are go­ ing to eliminate all the loop­ holes that existed previously,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D­Manhattan. The deal in­ cludes closing a loophole in state law that has permitted assault weapons manufactured before 1994 to be sold.

There will also be new stan­ dardized handgun registration procedures put in place. District attorneys have been pushing for periodic gun reregistration laws; gun buyers in most areas of the state only have to register a gun when purchasing. The deal calls for gun owners to “recertify” with the State Police every fiv years that the original information on their gun license is still valid.

Silver said the only major stick­ ing point left in the negotiations was how to fi ance a provision that will permit schools to add ex­ tra security staff.

But Senate Republicans met for nearly four hours behind closed doors, with members expressing concerns that the measure too broadly defi es what the state will consideranassaultrifl .Somesen­ ators, especially upstate Republi­ cans in more conservative­lean­ ing districts whose phones were ringing off the hook the last sever­ al days, were seeking to break the bill into pieces so they could vote yes on parts they support – such as expanded penalties for crimes committed with illegal guns – and oppose gun restrictions they say would violate Second Amendment ownership rights.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, ac­ cording to Silver, has already indi­ cated he will provide a message of necessity, a legal step that would allow the Legislature to quickly approve a bill instead of delaying for a three­day waiting period to permit advocates and opponents time to read and weigh in on any deal.

Cuomo, who has his eyes on a possible White House run in 2016, has been desperately trying to

have New York be the fir t in the nation to push through stricter gun laws in the wake of the Con­ necticut tragedy.

The daylong, closed­door talks here came as Vice President Biden gave President Obama a list of pro­ posals, including assault weapon bans and restricting large­capaci­ ty ammunition magazines, for the WhiteHousetotrytogetCongress to enact. Biden is considered one of the Democratic front­runners for the 2016 presidential race if de­ parting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton does not run.

Silver said quick passage is nec­ essary because of what he called “an emergency” pertaining to as­ sault weapon sales.

Gun rights groups condemned the nearing agreement. “It won’t do a damn thing to cut down on gun violence,” said Harold W. “Budd” Schroeder, head of the Erie County­based Shooters Commit­ tee on Political Education, a state­ wide gun owners advocacy group.

He said that there was already talk about possible legal challenges to the gun restrictions and won­ dered aloud if the state was going to arrest people who do not turn in their high­capacity magazines or don’t reregister their guns.

“Upstaters are really not all that acclimated to bowing and scraping before a bunch of politi­ cians,” he said.

The gun issue was an early test for the coalition governing the State Senate, now controlled by Republicans and fi e breakaway Democrats. “We’re going to pass a comprehensive gun bill today,”’ said Sen. Jeffrey D. Klein of the Bronx, Democratic co­leader.

“This is an issue that shows we can work together, Democrats and Republicans,” Klein said.

The deal calls for a database of gun registrations now main­ tained by counties to be handled by the State Police. The names of gun owners would not be subject to the state’s Freedom of Informa­ tionLaw,accordingtoacopyofthe agreement shown to The Buffalo News. Owners of guns now con­ sidered assault weapons would have a year to register their weap­ ons with the State Police; failure to do so could lead to a Class A mis­ demeanor and confi cation of the weapon.

While the size of ammunition magazines sold in New York would be reduced from 10 to seven bul­ lets, owners who now have the larger­capacity magazines can keep them; but the deal would ban them from placing more than sev­ en rounds in each. The deal also

calls for ammunition sellers to be registered.

While the Cuomo adminis­ tration was not prepared to pro­ nounce a deal during the day, legal staffs unveiled the basic terms to lawmakers privately.

Sen. Patrick M. Gallivan, R­El­ ma, said he has received at least 500 phone calls and emails from people opposing further gun re­ strictions. He said he got one email at 3 p.m. Sunday from some­ one backing the expanded crack­ downs.

“It’s not just from people on the far right. One was a homeowner who doesn’t fi h or hunt but said, ‘Enough of an intrusion on our rights,’” said Gallivan, a former Erie County sheriff.

While some Senate Republi­ cans from the Buffalo area did not return calls seeking comment, Sen. Michael H. Ranzenhofer, R­ Amherst, said he was concerned that the effort was moving too quickly – without the bill expected to go through the normal three­ day wait period to let the public see what is being passed.

Ranzenhofer said his offi e was being fl oded with opposi­ tion calls and emails. He said the package fails to address a number of issues, such as efforts to better deal with school bullying, which hesaidhasledtosomeshootingin­ cidents by students who have been bullied or isolated by their peers.

“If I had assurances that this bill was going to change behavior and make communities safer,” he said,“I’dbealotmorecomfortable.

I don’t have that comfort.” email: tprecious@buffnews.com

Correction The opening of the exhibit “Her Story: Charlotte Mulligan and the Twentieth Century Club of Buffalo” will be held at 5:30 p.m.

Wednesday in the Buffalo History Museum, 1 Museum Court. The location of the opening event was incorrect in Monday’s editions.

...

The Buffalo News corrects published errors of substance. To request a correction, please notify the editor by writing to: P.O. Box 100, Buffalo, NY 14240. Or call The News at 849-4444 and ask to speak to the editor of the department in which the article was published. Or email citydesk@ buffnews.com or fax your request to 856-5150.

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Advice • Books • Lifestyle • Movies • Music • Travel

SPOTLIGHT Elizabeth Kahn, Assistant Managing Editor 849­5576 • ekahn@buffnews.com

The Buffalo News

SECTION

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

PAINTING AS THEATER, FROM GUILLERMO KUITCA He began painting as a child, gave it up at 20, then explored art as theater.

Now an ‘Everything’ exhibit at Albright­Knox celebrates the intellect and emotional insight of this prolific Argentinian painter.

By Colin Dabkowski

C

NEWS ARTS WRITER

risis came early for Guillermo Kuitca.

In 1980, when the prolific Argentinian painter was barely 20, Kuitca threw down his brush in frustration.

Having painted consistently since he was 6 – he had his first ex­ hibition when he was just 13 – the artist had reached a standstill. For him, the possibilities of his chosen medium became too much to bare.

“I felt that all the things that I was doing were simply not genuine enough, not good enough, not real enough. And I wasn’t finding a connection with that,” Kuitca said in a recent interview at the Albright­Knox Art Gallery. Kuitca’s struggle came at a time when the rest of the art world, having previ­ ously declared the art of painting dead, was experiencing an over­ whelming resurgence of the form.

“I didn’t even know that art was dead, because I was too young to consider that,” Kuitca said. “So I experienced the death of painting as a sort of personal experience, not as a market, gallery, art world situation.

In a funny way, it happened at a time when there was an eruption. As the art world declared that painting was not dead, it was dying for me.”

Fortunately for Kuitca (pro­ nounced KWEET­kah) – and for the international cadre of collectors and devotees he has amassed over the past three decades – his absence from painting was short­ lived. A new exhibition co­organ­ ized by the Albright­Knox Art Gallery, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.,

“El mar dulce,” a 1986 acrylic painting by Guillermo Kuitca.

Guillermo Kuitca works in his Buenos Aires studio.

Below: a close detail of Kuitca’s 1995 painting “Mozart-Da Ponte I.”

Detail of an untitled painting

by Guillermo Kuitca from 1991.

and the Miami Art Museum, considers the 28 years that followed Kuitca’s defining crisis.

The exhibition opened on Friday in the Albright­Knox, and will travel to the Walker Art Center in Min­ neapolis and finally the Hirshhorn.

It began its run last year in the Miami Art Museum.

In his frustration, Kuitca turned his attention to the theater, a life­ long passion and pursuit that seemed to him rife with possibility.

Having seen a performance by the company of German choreographer Pina Bausch, Kuitca followed her See Kuitca on Page F2

Photos courtesy Sperone Westwater Gallery

On the Web: See a slideshow of Guillermo Kuitca’s work, watch a video of his visit to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and read full transcripts of interviews with the artist and curator Douglas Dreishpoon at Buffalonews.com.

What’s inside Literature Famous for her futuristic fables, Margaret Atwood has faith that books will survive. Page F3

Flipside: Today’s back cover People

Books

Travel

From studio to stage, a voice for the arts. Page F5.

A crime buff with Asperger’s stars in Picoult’s latest. Page F10.

One-tank trip. Page F13.

California getaway: Will it be San Diego or San Francisco? Page F14.

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, February 21, 2010

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Continued from Spotlight Cover

Mapping the evolution of an artist

Top left: Guillermo Kuitca’s 1992 mixed media piece “Heaven,” one of the artist’s many works which use a mattress in place of a canvas.

Top right: “Teatro Rojo,” a large, meticulously constructed collage based on a theater seating plan. Bottom: “Desenlace IV,” a 2007 painting in which Kuitca uses a trompe l’oeil effect to simulate slashes in the canvas.

KUITCA • From F1 experimental troupe to Wuppertal, Germany, to soak up inspiration.

He returned the next year with new ideas that, slowly but surely, pushed him back into painting and estab­ lished the themes that he would revisit again and again throughout his career.

Following his self­imposed sus­ pension, Kuitca came back to paint­ ing as a stroke victim might return to speech: slowly, resolutely, and in small but deliberate steps – “paint­ ing with very, very small brush strokes and even the tiniest possible moving of the arm.”

Wandering around his studio, grasping for inspiration, Kuitca set­ tled on the image of a small bed. Bit by bit, elements of the theater – stages, chairs, curtains – seeped into his canvases. Dramatic, ghostly scenes emerged: A baby carriage descends a staircase (a la Eisenstein’s “The Battleship Potemkin,” and later “The Untouchables”), dark beds and fallen chairs occupied cavernous spaces with mysterious portals looming in the background.

Eventually, human figures began to disappear, which heightened the already palpable sense of loneliness and alienation in Kuitca’s early work. In paintings like “El Mar Dulce,” the viewer is struck with the overwhelming feeling that some­ thing unsettling or dramatic has just occurred, and that Kuitca has cap­ tured the ghostly traces of the event that linger behind.

This was the birth of a monu­ mental artist, one whose work is of such wide­ranging ambition, intel­ lect and emotional content that the organizers of this exhibition were compelled to name it, simply and accurately, “Everything.”

Balancing intellect, emotion

In those formative years, Kuitca established himself as an artist in­ terested equally in the emotional potential of painting and its unique ability to explore pressing and com­ plex philosophical ideas, such as the notion of absence and the very meaning of space.

If that sounds like a bit much to digest in the course of a Sunday af­ ternoon at the art gallery, there’s no need to feel anxious. Kuitca’s work is notable as much for the range and complexity of its concepts as for its

Theater seating plans factor heavily in much of Guillermo Kuitca’s recent work.Top:“Mozart-DaPonteI,”from1995.Bottom:“BerlinStaatsopera,” part of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s larger work “32 Seating Plans.”

intense and often immediate emo­ tional impact.

It is, in a sense, eye candy with a profound soul.

Douglas Dreishpoon, senior cu­ rator at the Albright­Knox and the exhibition’s lead curator, character­ ized Kuitca’s work as an ideal bal­ ance of intellect and emotion.

“It’s such an amazing combina­ tion of conceptual rigor and emotion­ al heart,” Dreishpoon said. For those attempting to enter Kuitca’s world for the first time, Dreishpoon sug­ gested an approach that focuses on the symbols and motifs that circulate in his work. It’s a little like looking for certain shots repeated in the films of Quentin Tarantino or guitar licks in

the songs of Jimi Hendrix.

“A good way to approach him is thematically, whether it’s through beds, through theater, through house plans, through maps. It’s a good lens to view him, through the various themes he’s worked in and mined and probed,” Dreishpoon said. “He does that in depth. When he gets into an idea, he really digs in.”

Perhaps the most obvious exam­ ple is Kuitca’s use of the theater. Be­ ginning with the theatrical ele­ ments that appeared in his early works and running through to his fantastical seating plans (works on paper, collages and paintings), the theater makes insistent and repeat­ ed appearances in the artist’s work.

But in each body of work, like the cyclical appearance of beds and maps, it always means something slightly different. For Kuitca, the link between his paintings and the theater exists in their inherent sense of drama – both the drama repre­ sented or implied in the paintings themselves and the drama created when a viewer stands in front of a painting. In this way, Kuitca has merged his two passions not just by painting about theater, but by posit­ ing painting as theater itself.

“The drama in the painting is not in the painting, it’s in the situation of being in front of a painting,” Kuit­ ca said. That sense of theatricality, he said, happens by the mere pres­ ence of a person in a gallery. “That’s why I think it’s so theatrical, because you need to be there. So maybe that’s a real link between paintings and theater.”

And yet, this conceptual link be­ tween paintings and theater reveals only a minuscule part of Kuitca’s ever­expanding practice. His work also pulses with notions about hu­ man absence, which many write has clear links to the Argentinian dicta­ torships that saw the disappearance of thousands of innocent people dur­ ing Kuitca’s youth. It also deals with the idea of zooming out from the most intimate spaces (say, a bed), to representations of larger spaces, like apartment plans, maps and, eventu­ ally, the enormous aerial map from which the exhibition draws its title.

Some of Kuitca’s more widely ad­ mired pieces are his mattresses, onto which he has painted maps of places like Afghanistan and the American Midwest. The mattress works, some of which appear in the current show, were a way to simultaneously evoke a sense of intimacy and of discon­ nectedness, fusing micro with macro in a way that messes with our sense of space and what it means.

Kuitca said he was interested in “the idea of having a camera that goes further and zooming out and seeing things from a close view, and then that little thing in the context of an apartment, an apartment in the context of a city. Somehow, to­ day, this is a little bit trivialized by Google Maps, but when I did it, I wasn’t thinking of that. I was really fascinated that you could go in and out of things by creating different steps along the way.”

The right questions

Part of appreciating Kuitca’s work, far from trying to grasp some

evasive and ungraspable “point,” comes from asking the right ques­ tions. For instance, Dreishpoon asks: “How does he envision space and what does space come to mean for him?”

“Numbers reappear time and time again,” Dreishpoon continued.

“What does that tell us, what does that mean? They’re all over the ear­ ly drawings: so, memory, recollec­ tions, the disappearance of people when the theater only has numbers on seats but no people. What does that mean?”

For Albright­Knox Director Louis Grachos, who came to know Kuitca’s work when Grachos was beginning his curatorial career in the late ’80s in New York City and included it in subsequent exhibi­ tions at the Miami Art Museum and San Diego’s Museum of Contempo­ rary Art, the artist’s potential was immediately evident.

“At a very young age, it was apparent that he was going to really blossom into a phenomenal artist,” Grachos said. “Inherently, what’s in­ teresting about Kuitca’s work is that it translates worldwide. Audiences in many, many, many different cultures can relate to the work, yet it’s absolutely loyal to its place.”

Dreishpoon assumed the lead in this exhibition after its original organizer, Olga Viso, of the Hirshhorn, took over the director­ ship of the Walker in Minneapolis.

Both he and Grachos, longtime fol­ lowers of the artist’s work, heralded the shared organization of the show across three institutions as a work­ able model for museums struggling to produce expensive scholarly shows on limited budgets.

“It’s a perfect example of how institutions can team up and pull their muscle together and make it happen with a budget that doesn’t break the bank,” Dreishpoon said.

Largely due to Dreishpoon’s input, the show contains a signifi­ cant selection of works on paper by Kuitca, which have not been serious­ ly considered by previous exhibi­ tions of Kuitca’s works.

“I personally am wild about works on paper,” Dreishpoon said.

“It’s been a big interest of mine for a very long time. And so, with Guiller­ mo, that’s what I wanted to look at.”

Dreishpoon visited Kuitca’s stu­ dio in Buenos Aires for three days, during which time he looked at an incredible trove of drawings that provided a new understanding of the artist’s trajectory, which Dreish­ poon wrote about in his essay for the show’s extensive catalog. The show includes many of Kuitca’s more recent works on paper, in­ cluding pieces that led to his impor­ tant piece “32 Seating Plans,” which the Albright­Knox acquired in 2008.

“The story was that he was sit­ ting in a bathtub reading a maga­ zine or something glossy,” Dreish­ poon said. “Some water got on a page, and it seeped into the print and it dislodged the print as a block and moved it. And he thought, ‘That’s really interesting.’ ” With this process, Kuitca created his visually arresting theater seating plans – images he downloaded from the Internet and digitally manipu­ lated, then printed out on emulsive paper and floated in hot or cold wa­ ter. The pieces speak to ideas of mi­ gration, to the absence of people, to the theater itself and to architecture and space – all ideas that fascinate the artist and those who follow him intently.

A sense of mystery

For Kuitca, his first American retrospective in more than a decade comes with the challenge of reintro­ ducing his work to a culture that’s not entirely at ease with its built­in ambiguity, its refusal to fit into spe­ cific categories or movements.

“From my experiences in Latin America or Europe, people are more comfortable not understand­ ing things, not understanding each other,” Kuitca said. “I think, in the United States, people try first to place a very clear idea of who the other is, to where they belong and what, and from there, start to see art under that lens.”

And that, he said, is a “terrible” filter through which to view his art.

Dreishpoon and Grachos promote a more open­ended approach – one focused on questions and intuition.

“He’s just an incredibly complex artist who came out of various tradi­ tions and influences, from not just the world, but from his specific con­ text and its history,” Grachos said.

“He’s someone that never ceases to surprise me with how inventive his work is … he just continually evolves.” e-mail: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, October 31, 2010

Spotlight: Art Three years after Sol LeWitt’s death, a team of artists scribbles his massive conceptual work to brilliant life at the Albright-Knox

Albright-Knox director Louis Grachos stands on the gallery’s main staircase, surrounded by Sol LeWitt’s enormous wall drawing. The piece will remain on view indefinitely.

Apostscript–inpencil

By Colin Dabkowski /

NEWS ARTS WRITER

The smell of graphite still hangs in the air at the Albright­Knox Art Gallery, where a massive wall drawing by the late conceptual artist Sol LeWitt was unveiled two weeks ago. ¶ For 54 days, a team of 16 artists, using 1,717 mechanical pencil leads, scribbled on three walls surrounding the staircase that connects the two buildings of the Albright­Knox. They did so while standing on towering scaffolding and enclosed in a cocoon of plastic sheeting, as an air filtration system removed clouds of pencil dust from the air around them. ¶ Those artists, led by LeWitt’s lead draftsman Takeshi Arita, followed specific instructions from LeWitt, who finished the design for the drawing shortly before his death in 2007. ¶ On a recent Thursday, before the piece was opened to the public, gallery director Louis Grachos, Arita, longtime LeWitt studio assistant John Hogan and project coordinator Ilana Chlebowski marveled at the completed scribble drawing.

The revelation of the piece, which from afar resembles a jum­ ble of vertical and horizontal steel tubes, was an emotional experi­ ence for those who created it. This particular unveiling was even more loaded because the piece was LeWitt’s last major commission and one of his largest wall draw­ ings, others of which reside in ma­ jor museums and private collec­ tions around the world.

The scaffolding erected to en­ able artists to make their marks on the wall meant that the team had no idea how the overall piece would look until they had finished it – sort of a modern­day micro­ cosm of the way Egypt’s pyramids were obscured by ramps as they were erected block by block.

“I was just weeping. I had no idea what to expect,” Chlebowski said of her immediate reaction to the completed drawing. “From what I’ve learned, [LeWitt] wanted no emotion associated with his work, but to me this work is full of emotion. It’s just moody, it’s brood­ ing, it’s growing, and it’s dying at the same time.”

But to those uninvolved in the process – and probably even for the famously unsentimental Le­ Witt himself, were he still alive – it might be difficult to see where emotion enters the picture at all.

The sheer scale of the work is overwhelming. It extends from the first floor of the gallery’s 1962 build­ ing all the way to the ceiling of the entryway to its original galleries.

Examined at medium range, the pattern of the scribble resembles the beam of a copy machine or scanner surrounded by thickening blackness. Or, as Chlebowski sug­ gested, of a door creaking open to reveal a slit of brilliant light.

Up close, you can see the indi­ vidual scribble marks of the artists,

Photos by Derek Gee and Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News

Above are details of the graphite scribble drawing conceived by Sol LeWitt, who planned the massive work for the space at the Albright-Knox before he died in 2007. A team of 16 artists worked 54 days, using 1,717 mechanical pencil leads to complete it.

and it’s easy to imagine the quasi– meditative state they had to enter to accomplish such potentially mind­dulling work.

You have to stand quite far away – in the next gallery over – for LeWitt’s intended effect of “continuous gradation and feel of steel” to come through. And even when it does, the “aha!” moment can be somewhat anticlimactic.

The effect will naturally vary depending on the viewer. But to a great many, LeWitt’s final scribble piece will by its nature be some­ what less interesting than the process that created it.

Fortunately for those interested in that process, Chlebowski over­ saw the launch of a blog (albright­ knox.tumblr.com) that explored how the team of artists went about creating the work over a nearly two­month period.

And even if the work itself doesn’t knock your socks off aesthet­

ically speaking, the mammoth in­ stallation tells us something about the importance of LeWitt’s career and his influence in the art world.

LeWitt’s central achievement as a conceptual artist was essentially to promote the notion that the idea for a piece of art held primacy over the actual artwork itself. His designs are often compared to musical scores meant to be executed by successive “orchestras” of artists. This idea, and his enormous body of work, earned LeWitt his place as one of the forefa­ thers of conceptual art.

The work’s symbolic, privileged place in the museum is perfect for considering what came before Le­ Witt and what may follow. The joining of the two buildings, old and new, neoclassical and mod­ ernist, prompts us to think about art as a continuum, and as a con­ versation between contemporary and historical styles.

How on earth did we get from

that stunning room of paintings by Rothko, DeKooning, Pollock and Gorky downstairs to the minimalist arrows of Micah Lexier spread throughout the building or the con­ ceptual surveillance­based project

by Mark Shepard now on view in the gallery’s Sculpture Court?

Well, in a sense, we had to pass through the prism of LeWitt, whose work helped to put the brakes on the encroaching self­in­ dulgence of late abstract expres­ sionism and replace it with the far more cerebral fare of minimalist and conceptual art. In so doing, he influenced scores of artists, chore­ ographers, musicians, writers and curators whose work is now run­ ning the international art world.

Some of those artists wrote short essays praising LeWitt in a book published to coincide with the major retrospective of his wall drawings that will be on view in the Massachusetts Museum of

Contemporary Art until 2033.

Ellen Carey, a Buffalo­educated artist whose work has been exhibited locally in the Nina Freudenheim Gallery, wrote that LeWitt “was always pushing the parameters, challenging how art was made and what it could be, questioning its meaning.”

Robert Mangold, the North Tonawanda­born painter whose minimalist approach to painting both influenced and drew from LeWitt’s work, wrote that his close friend’s art “spurred me on to greater efforts.” The same goes for artists like Carl Andre, Chuck Close, Robert Lazzarini, Tara Donovan and countless others whose work is familiar to frequent visitors to the Albright­Knox.

And even though LeWitt passed away in 2007, his work may just outlast them all. e-mail: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

( MAGENTA ) ( BLACK )

One Seneca Tower saga continues to grow

New York billionaire interested, another party already making bid | BUSINESS • B7

CITY&REGION The Buffalo News

Stanley Evans • Deputy Managing Editor 849­4444 • sevans@buffnews.com

SECTION

B

Thursday, June 9, 2016

Cosmetic rider is out as board OKs budget

$853.6 million school plan uses reserve to close deficit

By Deidre Williams N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Photos by John Hickey/Buffalo News

Pedestrians walk down Main Street past the mural at 710 Main St. created by Jessie Unterhalter and Katey Truhn of Baltimore.

Mural makers work in bold strokes Baltimore-based artists help revive a portion of Theatre District with massive and colorful creation intended to ‘dance’ with passersby

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

Artists Jessie Unterhalter, left, and Katey Truhn pause while working on their mural at 710 Main St., the largest mural they’ve ever created.

Bus riders in city suffer as NFTA curtails routes When a transit was trying to get home agency has trouble from Wegmans with a doing its job – or bunch a groceries when fi ling its jobs – and the the Amherst Street bus problem can cost its didn’t show up. He constituents their called and was told jobs, you have a they skipped the run Rod Watson city whose rebound because they had no COMMEN TA RY could be slowed in driver. So he walked its tracks. home, “even with all That’s what is happening at the the groceries; I had no choice.”

Niagara Frontier Transportation “It can be devastating to Authority, where a shortage of those who depend on public drivers is forcing the agency to transportation. They can lose a scavenge city bus runs and put job or miss a doctor’s appointment those drivers on suburban or or school,” said Common Council school routes to fi l in. That leaves President Darius G. Pridgen, who city riders waiting for a bus that held a hearing on the issue after may not come as they try to get to constituents complained about vital appointments – or just get canceled buses. home.

The NFTA is upfront about Being left standing is what the fact that it has a shortage of ticked off Amherst Street resi­ drivers, as well as of mechanics dent Carlson Mancinelli, who is to keep buses on the road. When disabled and relies on the bus to one driver calls in sick or takes a get to counseling and doctor’s See Watson on Page B2 appointments. But this day, he

Academic Excellence.

Professional Success.

See Mural on Page B2

Expert chef puts students to the test

See Budget on Page B5

Coming: a big steak courtesy of ex-Bills SEAR steakhouse planned for Avant building

By Andrew Z. Galarneau FOOD E DI TOR

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Celebrity chef Lizette Lopez De Arriaga gets a taste of dishes prepared by teams of Emerson School of Hospitality students in “Iron Chef”­style cook­ ing competition. Story on Page B2. See a photo gallery at buffalonews.com.

Dedicated to: • Academic Excellence • Quality Patient Care • Professional Leadership

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After his decade traveling the nation as a National Football League running back, Fred Jackson knows what he wants in a steakhouse.

Now the beloved Bills alumnus and two former teammates are investing in an ef­ fort to bring that kind of steakhouse to downtown Buffalo.

Former punter Brian Moorman and cornerback Terrence McGee have joined Jackson as partners in SEAR, the steak­ house planned for the Avant, 200 Delaware Ave. Announced in April, it’s scheduled to premiere this fall. Ron Raccuia, the play­ ers’ agent and president of ADPRO Sports, BlueCross BlueShield President David W. Anderson, and LoVullo Associates Presi­ dent David Pietrowski are also investors.

“There’s going to be a lot of energy in the building, not your normal steakhouse,” Jackson said. “When you go to other cities, you have those, and I wanted to make sure the City of Buffalo had one of those places.”

The restaurant will be run by David Schutte, owner of Oliver’s and Creekview See Steakhouse on Page B2

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One of the biggest and brightest new murals in Buffalo is quickly tak­ ing shape on the north side of 710 Main Theatre.

Baltimore­based artists Katey Truhn and Jessie Unterhalter, known for cre­ ating bold murals that often spill from buildings onto streets and sidewalks in cities across North America, have been working on the piece since June 3 with a pair of local assistants. It is the largest mural the pair has created.

“We tried to create some sort of movement with it, so as people walk by or drive by, it dances and changes with them,” Truhn said.

Despite the threat of rain Tuesday, the pair operated twin scissor­lifts on

the skinny sidewalk along West Tupper Street. They dipped paint rollers in plastic trays of neon paint and drew them across the primed wall, leaving behind angular blasts of color and long, curved lines.

Before the rain arrived, they had completed about a third of their fir t layer, which they will embellish, re­ confi ure and refi e over the next two weeks. It is a riotous collection of ab­ stract shapes in bright and incongru­ ous colors, which recalls work of painter Robert Delaunay and the design aes­ thetics of the early ’90s – proto­Cubism meets “Saved by the Bell” meets Buffa­ lo’s Theatre District.

Truhn and Unterhalter, dressed in paint­spattered jeans, hoodies and col­

The Buffalo School Board, in a 7­2 vote, has approved a budget for the 2016­17 school year that eliminates the district’s controversial health insurance rider cover­ ing cosmetic surgery.

The move saves the district $5 mil­ lion, according to the fiv ­member major­ ity that recommended the change. But in­ stead of paying for cosmetic surgery, the board approved setting aside the $5 mil­ lion in reserves for future teacher salary increases.

During Wednesday’s business meeting, board members approved an $853.6 mil­ lion spending plan, which is up by $27.8 million over the current year. It carries a $4.8 million budget defi it that will be closed with cash reserves.

Buffalo Teachers Federation President Philip Rumore said the union will go to court over the elimination of the cosmetic surgery rider because the board arbitrarily made the move without doing so as part of long­stalled negotiations for a new con­ tract.

The BTF has been without a new con­ tract since 2004, with state law keeping the terms of the old contract – including the cosmetic surgery rider – in effect until a new deal is reached. The union has said that it is willing to give up cosmetic sur­ gery, but only as part of a larger deal.

The idea to remove the cosmetic sur­ gery rider originated with the board ma­ jority bloc – Larry Quinn, Carl P. Paladino, Patricia A. Pierce and departing members

B2

The Buffalo News/Thursday, June 9, 2016

Continued from the Cover

Artists aim to create ‘positive energy’ MURAL • from B1 orful sunglasses, took a short break to talk to a reporter as drivers heading toward the Kensington Expressway slowed to a crawl to get a look at the jarring new piece.

“Basically, we just try to create positive energy in any environment that we’re trans­ forming,” Truhn said.

Unlike many murals, she added, the pair’s work is “usu­ ally not telling a story, but just sort of a musical, exciting en­ ergy.”

Each of their projects, Un­ terhalter said, is inspired by the building it adorns.

“We’re really inspired by ar­ chitecture, and that’s the way that we start off designing.

We have a language of shapes that we use, and then we kind of plug those into the architec­ tural elements,” Unterhalter said. Truhn added that the 710 Main facade features a slight increase in height toward the middle, an element that in­ spired their design.

The project represents an increasing desire to include public art in neighborhoods that are undergoing revitaliza­ tion, according to Aaron Ott, the Albright­Knox public art curator who commissioned the project. That includes the Theatre District, where Shea’s

Performing Arts Center re­ cently announced a collabora­ tion between the Shaw Festi­ val and 710 Main Theatre and where Ellicott Development is planning a major develop­ ment.

“There’s this recognition that there’s a lot of economic development going on all of a sudden,” Ott said. “A lot of people are feeling if they don’t match it with cultural develop­ ment, that economic develop­ ment is going to feel stale. This kind of element is emblematic of why you want to come to a space or why you want to stay in a space.”

Ott noted that murals are in high demand in neighbor­ hoods throughout Buffalo.

Several more are planned, in­ cluding upcoming projects on the building that houses the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology and a building near the Trimain Center.

“Murals have been the one thing that no matter where we go, people ask for. If I’m in Tonawanda, if I’m in Orchard Park, if I’m in the East Side or here in downtown, every­ body’s like, ‘Can you give us a mural?’” Ott said. “It clearly was a form that civically, al­ most regionally, was being asked for.” email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

Celebrity chef offers life lessons at Emerson

By Jay Rey N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

They held their own version of a cooking competition Wednesday at Emerson School of Hospitality, complete with a judge who knows a thing or two about preparing food.

Chef Lizette Lopez De Arriaga – a pri­ vate chef to the rich and famous – made a trip to the culinary high school on West Chippewa Street in downtown Buffalo, where she served as the judge for Emerson’s version of “Iron Chef,” the fast­paced, real­ ity food competition on the Food Network.

Teams of three seniors and three juniors squared off to come up with a healthy lunch that most impressed Chef Lizette, as she is Derek Gee/Buffalo News known, whose client list includes celebrities such as singer Lady Gaga, actor Tom Hanks Lizette Lopez De Arriaga tastes pizza and fi mmaker James Cameron. The teams baked by students in Emerson School of Hospitality cooking competition. had 15 minutes to prepare their meals.

Prior to the competition, Lopez De Arria­ ga, 45, spoke for an hour to freshmen at Em­ “As a woman, specifi ally, it’s really erson, a school that’s much in demand with hard,” she said. “When I started, there were its career­focused model that the school dis­ 60 chefs in the kitchen. Fifty–eight of them trict is trying to replicate. were men; two of them were women, of The school has good attendance, a good which I was one of them.” graduation rate and serves more than 400 But largely, the chef talked to the stu­ students – 80 percent of whom are minority. dents about life and was open about her ex­ “I’m a Mexican­American born with perience as a victim of domestic violence. brown skin who fought tooth and nail,” Lo­ “Be humble,” she told them, “and keep pez De Arriaga told the students. “I’m just learning. Those two things will carry you like you.” your entire life.”

The New York City chef talked to the stu­ That advice was told to her by one of her dents about the art of cooking. “Real chefs idols – Julia Child. create,” she said. “Real chefs aren’t copying “How much money do you make?” one other recipes. The mark of a real chef is to student asked. fi d your voice.”

“I make six fi ures,” she said.

You need a thick skin to be a chef, said “What is your signature dish?” another Lopez De Arriaga, who was direct with the asked. students about the hardships of the busi­ “The one I’m making at the moment,” ness and her battles with racism, sexism she said. and classism since starting her professional Lopez De Arriaga, who appeared on the career at the fiv ­star Ritz Carlton in Mari­ fir t season of the Food Network program na Del Rey, Calif.

“Cutthroat Kitchen,” came to Emerson on

Three months of construction lie ahead STEAKHOUSE • from B1 restaurants, as managing part­ ner.

SEAR will be “relaxing the atmosphere a little bit, so it’s not your daddy’s steakhouse,” Schutte said, in a nod to nou­ veau steakhouse chain STK, one of his inspirations. “The music’s a little more fun, the chefs turn­ ing out great steaks but also get­ ting creative with small plates, salads and seafood.”

Beef choices will include sig­ nature cuts, dry­aged and Wa­ gyu options, he said.

Three months of construc­ tion lie ahead, including instal­

A

lation of a 28­foot, 2,000­bottle wine wall displaying some of the restaurant’s extensive wine collection. There’ll be a few bar tables on a slightly higher level for a mild stadium feel, a pri­ vate dining room, and several televisions. A patio would open in 2017.

Another Bills­related en­ terprise, Pegula Sports & En­ tertainment, is designing and marketing the 120­seat restau­ rant, Raccuia said. That means that Frank Cravotta, Pegula Sports & Entertainment vice president, and other people responsible for 716, the Har­ borCenter sports bar, and the Marriott hotel’s Panorama on

B U F F A L O

Seven restaurant will be shap­ ing SEAR, he said.

“To be successful we had to assemble a team of what we feel are the most talented people in Western New York to pull this off, and we feel like we did that,” said Raccuia.

“It’s not so much investing in a steakhouse as it is invest­ ing in a community we believe in, that we have a lot of love for,” said Moorman, who lives out­ side Jacksonville, Fla. He and his wife, Amber, “were a big part of that community for a long time,” he said. “We’re excit­ ed about what the City of Buf­ falo is doing, how it’s growing, and to be a part of that is very

N E W S - S P O N S O R E D

enticing.”

Jackson lives in Buffalo with his family during the offseason.

He fin shed 2015 with the Seat­ tle Seahawks and is now a free agent. “We wanted a nice place that anyone could go to, have a nice steak and a good time do­ ing it,” he said.

“Buffalo’s not just a place I plan on forgetting about,” said Jackson. “It means more to me than just a place I played foot­ ball. It’s a place my family will always consider home.”

Early fall is the target date, Schutte said. email: agalarneau@buffnews.com

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Wednesday thanks to social media.

The Buffalo Public Schools recently thanked a venture capitalist on Twitter for his contributions supporting school proj­ ects. The chef noticed the tweet and asked if she could participate in some way.

That’s when the school district invited her to visit Emerson.

“She was awesome,” said Interim Prin­ cipal Debbie White­Stokes. “I think she re­ ally spoke to them. Not only did she answer questions about her career, but about life.”

At Wednesday’s competition, Chef Li­ zette counted down as time ran out: “Three, two, one – plates on the table.”

Lopez De Arriaga fi st inspected and tasted the dish made by the seniors: garlic shrimp over a black bean salad with a veg­ etable on the side.

“Did you have pesto over there?” she said, peering at the table of ingredients.

“Yes,” said one of the students.

“I defin tely would have added pesto,” she said.

She suggested going more bold with the fl vor next time and sautéeing the garlic with the shrimp.

“Presentationwise, wow, gorgeous,” she told them. “This is very sophisticated for 15 minutes.”

Then she turned her attention to the dish by the juniors: a vinaigrette potato sal­ ad and turkey burger topped with a caprese salad. “The meat defi itely needs more sea­ soning,” she told them. “The turkey is spot­ on. It’s moist; it’s juicy.

After a few minutes of critique and en­ couragement, the chef chose the winner: the juniors and their turkey burger.

“Honestly, you’re both winners,” she told the teams. “Just the effort, the tech­ nique and the thought process – you’re there.” email: jrey@buffnews.com

A wise call to expand recruitment of drivers WATSON • from B1 vacation day, they sometimes pull drivers off another route.

But the agency vehemently denies sacrificing city residents to serve suburbanites. Rather, it says it’s just a matter of numbers: More of its routes are in the city, so that’s where more cuts have to be made. And it says buses run more frequently on city routes, so cutting a bus there will mean less of a wait time for the next one.

“On a percentage basis, we defin tely are not cutting more city service than we are subur­ ban service,” said spokesman C. Douglas Hartmayer.

The head of the transit union doesn’t buy it, saying clerks have told them that “schools and suburban routes” are a priority. The union even fi ed a Freedom of Informa­ tion Law request to get data on which buses were being sacrificed when driver short­ ages force such switches.

The NFTA responded that it “has no records responsive to your FOIL request,” which seems hard to believe. Even if decisions are being made on the spur of the moment when drivers call in sick, you would think sound management practices would dictate keep­ ing track so offi ials can go back and determine whether unfair patterns are developing – unless they really don’t want to know.

Vincent G. Crehan, president of Local 1342, Amalgamated Transit Union, said that 35 to 40 buses can be eliminated on bad days, but that the agency uses “roving cuts” that avoid targeting the same route every day so riders don’t catch on and complain.

He notes that a lot of older riders don’t have smartphones, so they can’t check for the latest update if their bus has been canceled while they’re standing at the stop.

The one thing Hartmayer and Crehan – who’s also a nonvoting NFTA board member – agree on is that a rash of retirements exac­ erbated the problem. The solution is recruiting more drivers. Crehan, whose union has been without a contract for six years, blames the NFTA pay scale. But Hartmayer says that there is an “industrywide shortage, and we’re caught up in that.” Drivers start at $12.95 an hour operating smaller MetroLink buses before gradu­ ating to the bigger vehicles, where the maximum is $21.59 an hour. Hartmayer said that they also get a health care

package worth $21,000 and that he’s “befuddled” why they aren’t getting more applicants.

But Pridgen is equally befuddled by the NFTA’s driver shortage, noting that the one thing Buffalo has is people “who could drive and fi things.” He said the authority never approached him to try to recruit drivers, even though he pastors True Bethel Baptist Church, one of the largest in a community where people are begging for jobs and many don’t have cars.

He vows to keep up the pres­ sure from the Council, but said the real solution is for affected riders to take their complaints to NFTA commissioners, who have cars and may not “really understand the impact when transportation is not available as promised.”

Despite the lack of data, Hartmayer insists that “99 percent of our service is deliv­ ered on a daily basis.” Still, the NFTA would be wise to take up Pridgen’s suggestion to expand its recruitment efforts.

Meanwhile, if you didn’t know Buffalo has jobs going begging, head down to the NFTA and pick up an applica­ tion. Just don’t count on taking the bus to get there. email: rwatson@buffnews.com

Lottery Picks / Winning numbers for Wednesday

N.Y. Evening Number: Lucky Sum: N.Y. Midday Number: Lucky Sum: Win Four Evening: Lucky Sum: Win Four Midday: Lucky Sum:

652 13 067 13 0612 9 9923 23

Take 5 not available Pick 10: 4 5 8 10 11 13 18 20 24 31 54 59 63 65 68 69 72 73 75 79 N.Y. Lotto not available Powerball not available Pick 3 Evening: Pick 3 Day: Pick 4 Evening: Pick 4 Day:

510 077 5347 6993

Late numbers for Tuesday Take Five

9 13 19 30 39

Mega Millions:25 48 51 65 72 Mega Ball: 4 Megaplier: X4 These numbers are unofficial.

For official New York Lottery results go to buffalo.com/lottery or your lottery retailer.

FILMED BY: WESTMOOR

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, November 22, 2009

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Spotlight: Art “Robert Mangold: Beyond the Line” continues through Jan. 31, 2010,

and “Topographies” continues through Feb. 28, 2010, in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (1285 Elmwood Ave.) For more information, call 882-8700 or visit www.albrightknox.org

These oddly shaped geometrical canvases on display at the Albright-Knox are from Robert Mangold’s “Column Structures” series.

Photos by Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

The North Tonawanda-born artist’s Zen-like focus is on display in ‘Beyond the Line’ at the Albright-Knox and in the stained-glass windows that will grace the new federal courthouse

Mangold’s mindful minimalism

By Colin Dabkowski

ings that dispense with the angularity of his previous canvases and favor an amoebic line that still adheres to a sort of grid.

Mangold’s hand­drawn lines are the most compelling part of his work, and they’re fun to inspect up close. Their seemingly mathe­ matical perfection breaks down as you bring your nose close to the canvas, which shows erase marks, recapitulations and changes of intuition.

“There’s a mathematical basis, but it isn’t always symmetrical and it isn’t always pre­ cise,” said Albright­Knox Senior Curator Dou­ glas Dreishpoon. Mangold explained his ap­ proach to drawing the lines on his canvases to Dreishpoon, who included those insights in his catalog essay.

“You have to know ahead of time where you’re going and how to get there,” Mangold said. “It’s like driving a car on a road where you feel the curve coming. You feel what the line is going to do before you actually start doing it.”

NEWS ARTS WRITER

U

ntil the end of January, a walk from one side of the Albright­ Knox Art Gallery’s original building to the other will be an exercise in opposites.

The south wing is now occu­ pied by “Topographies,” an engrossing exhibi­ tion featuring an assortment of new acquisi­ tions. From Tara Donovan’s otherworldly 2007 sculpture “Untitled (Mylar)” to a psyche­ delic 1998 floor installation by Polly Apfel­ baum, nearly all the works in the show shout loudly about chaos and disorder. It wouldn’t be a stretch to view them as visual mappings not only of geography — which, in some cool ways, they are — but of the chaotic, disorderly and uncertain times in which we live.

But across the sculpture court, where you can walk beneath Robert Therrien’s gigantic folding table and chairs and steal a glimpse of Clyfford Still’s “1957­D No. 1,” there’s some­ thing much quieter going on.

That something is a compelling exhibition of paintings by North Tonawanda­born painter Robert Mangold, whose widely col­ lected work has been a constant presence on the international art scene since he left the re­ gion for New York in the 1960s.

“Robert Mangold: Beyond the Line” is meant to celebrate the artist’s stained­glass window commission for the U.S. courthouse now under construction on Niagara Square. It surveys Mangold’s work over the last eight years, a productive but relatively brief portion of a career that stretches back 40 years.

Mangold’s work, minimalist in nature and always concerned with color, shape and line, has often been described as “Zen­like.” It’s a description that, especially when juxtaposed with “Topographies,” seems perfectly apt. “His paintings,” wrote curator and critic Eliza Williams in the British magazine Art Monthly, “continue to cut a clean swath through the huge variety of media that jostle for position in contemporary galleries.”

In other words, walking from one side of the gallery to the other is sort of like changing the channel from MTV to PBS, or putting on Philip Glass instead of The Clash. The point is there, but you have to slow down and concen­ trate to get at it.

An odd geometry

Being surrounded by Mangold’s oddly shaped geometrical canvases in the north wing’s main gallery is a bit like finding your­ self in the midst of a larger­than­life game of Tetris on pause. The pieces, from Mangold’s “Column Structures” series, are brightly col­ ored and divided into grids. Gracefully swoop­ ing graphite lines traverse the surface of the paintings in little choreographed dances be­ fore falling off the edge of the canvas and con­

Architectural impulses

Robert Mangold, above, worked with fabricators in Germany to produce stained-glass windows for the new courthouse. (Samples of the windows are on display at the Albright-Knox.) Architect William Pedersen called it “the type of art that will provide a moment of serenity to the people entering the courthouse.” Lower photo shows Mangold’s “Three Column/Figures 5,” painted in 2003.

tinuing invisibly into space.

The standout in this group is the Albright­ Knox’s own “Column Structure IX,” a top­ heavy yellow­tinged canvas traced by three lilting, self­possessed lines.

After contemplating the column structure paintings for a few minutes, you get the idea that they might all somehow fit together like outsize puzzle pieces, their fragmented lines eventually connecting with one another to form an enormous painted constellation.

Their shapes, seemingly derived from mathe­ matical formulas, play on an innate human desire to organize and arrange.

That Zen dream breaks down a little in the adjoining rooms. One gallery houses Man­ gold’s “Curled Figure” paintings, which are not quite as captivating because they’re self­ contained — even decorative — and seem to cut off the imagination before it has a chance to get going. Another gallery contains Man­ gold’s newest work, a series of circular paint­

That approach applies as well to the court­ house commission, for which Mangold worked with fabricators in Germany to pro­ duce three windows that mirror his rectangu­ lar column paintings. A room dedicated to the commission includes a scale model of the completed building, Mangold’s concept sketches and samples of the windows. It pro­ vides a fascinating glimpse into the sensitive considerations that artists and architects pour into even the most bureaucratic edifices.

Given their shapes, Mangold’s column paint­ ings have long been called “architectural,” so the artist’s work on the building makes perfect sense.

“I believe that it is the type of art that will provide a moment of serenity to the people entering the courthouse, particularly those who are going through the judicial process and are under a great deal of stress,” wrote architect William Pedersen of the firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, which designed the courthouse.

“Mangold’s art has a tremendous presence, nobility and quietude. A sense of calm em­ anates from it – a calmness that is in harmony with the function of the building.”

Of course, you need not be caught up in the federal court system to get a clear sense of Mangold’s elegant, unhurried and ultimately imagination­stoking work. While the ever­ex­ panding contemporary art world churns out a mind­boggling array of flashing, squawking and visually messy work, Mangold continues to deliver on the sublime and solitary promise of minimalism.

By continuing his lifelong explorations into the fundamental elements of canvas, color and line, Mangold has insisted on keeping the vol­ ume turned low. His paintings whisper rather than scream. And they’re well worth a listen. e-mail: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

( MAGENTA ) ( BLACK )

TASTE

Buffalo is home to many restaurants that have stood the test of time. Food Editor Andrew Z. Galarneau takes us on a tour of seven and talks about the dishes that made them famous. PAGE C1

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Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Copyright 2017

W N Y EDITION

Serving Western New York since 1880

Klyczek’s job at risk as NCCC board meets

Famed pop artist leaves vast estate to Albright-Knox Gift from Marisol includes hundreds of various works of art and the sale of her New York City loft worth at least $4 million

President may be fired or put on leave after controversial audiotape emerges

By Thomas J. Prohaska

NCCC President James P. Klyczek was recorded referring to victim of sex assault.

N E WS N I AGA R A R EPORT ER

New York Times

B Y C OL I N DA BKOWSK I /

N EWS A RTS CR ITIC

The Albright­Knox Art Gallery’s lucky streak continued Wednesday with the announcement of another major gift that will reshape the institution for future generations.

Less than a year after the gallery received the largest single financial donation in its history, officials announced that the gallery has received its largest single donation of art: The vast and lucrative estate of pop artist and Buffalo favorite Marisol, who died last April.

The estate includes more than 100 sculptures, some 150 works on paper, thousands of pho­ tographs and the artist’s New York City loft apartment. The impending sale of that apartment, worth an estimated $4 million to $5 million, will bolster the gallery’s operating endowment as it heads into its first major expansion in more than 50 years. | S E E D O N A T I O N O N PA G E A 6

VenezuelanAmerican artist Marisol in 1964 with various sculptures.

She began exhibiting in New York in the late 1950s.

SANBORN – James P. Kly­ czek is likely to be fired or placed on administrative leave today as president of Niagara County Community College.

Klyczek can be heard on a surreptitiously recorded audio­ tape ridiculing a woman who reported last summer that she was sexually assaulted on cam­ pus, said a source with knowl­ edge of the matter.

“You can’t call the victim of a sexual assault dumb or stupid,” the source said. “You’re putting the integrity of the college at risk. … If these allegations are true, he has to be fired.”

The tape shows that Klyc­ zek was highly critical of the woman who filed the sexual as­ sault complaint, according to WKBW­TV. It was the first of two reported sexual assaults on campus. The recording was obtained by Channel 7.

“What is she, stupid?” Kly­ czek asked. “I mean, no, se­ riously. This just aggravated me. Make us the guilty party because you’re too stupid to

Trump’s tax plan gives low rate to companies

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis, Alan Rappeport, Kate Kelly and Rachel Abrams N EW YOR K T I MES

“Baby Girl,” 1963

“The Generals,” 1961­62

See Klyczek on Page A8

T H E F I R ST 100 DAY S

For businesses large and small

“My Father,” 1977

follow your instinct that this guy sits down next to you and there’s nobody else around, you agree to take him on a tour.

That is as dumb as can be.”

The victim reportedly wanted her daughter to attend NCCC. “Her daughter should be worried, because if she’s got her mother’s genes, she’s dumber than a doorknob,” Klyczek said, according to Channel 7.

Trustee Gina I. Virtuoso, who previously voted to place Klyczek on leave, said Tues­ day that she prefers firing him when the board holds a special meeting today.

“Dr. Klyczek at this time should be terminated,” Virtuo­ so said. “Whether that happens

WASHINGTON – President Trump plans to unveil a tax cut blueprint today that would apply a vastly reduced, 15 per­ cent business tax rate not only to corporations but also to companies that now pay taxes through the personal income tax code – from mom­and­pop businesses to his own real es­ tate empire, according to sev­ eral people briefed on the pro­ posal.

The package will also in­ crease the standard deduction for individuals, providing a

Inside: House panel

leaders say Flynn likely broke the law. Page A4 modest cut for middle­income people and simplifying the process of filing tax returns, according to people briefed on its details. That proposal is opposed by homebuilders and real estate agents, who fear it would diminish the impor­ tance of the mortgage interest deduction. And it is likely to ne­ cessitate eliminating or curb­ ing other popular deductions, a politically risky pursuit.

It is not clear whether the plan will include Trump’s promised $1 trillion infrastruc­ ture program, but it will jetti­ son a House Republican pro­ See Taxes on Page A8

Marisol is best known for her wood sculptures Born: May 22, 1930, in Paris • Died: April 30, 2016, in New York City Marisol Escobar – known to friends and the art world only as Marisol – was born in Paris, raised in Venezuela and built her career in the United States. She rose to prominence in the art world in the early 1960s and was most closely identified with the Pop Art movement, though her work was often difficult to categorize. She is best known for her strangely proportioned wood sculptures, which combine elements of folk art and often depict figures and events from Marisol’s own life. After she rose to prominence in the 1960s, Marisol retreated from the art world spotlight. She remained productive into the 21st century, producing hundreds of sculptures, drawings and photographs that now reside in the Albright­Knox Art Gallery collection.

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Scoreboard ................ D6 Sports ............................ D1 Taste .............................. C1 Television ................... C8

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The Buffalo News/Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Continued from the Cover

Marisol’s New York City studio, shown here in a recent photograph by Jason Mandella, served as a storage space for many of her favorite works.

“The Funeral,” a 1996 sculpture based on the funeral procession of John F. Kennedy is one of more than 100 sculptures donated to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery by Marisol.

Albright-Knox was first to acquire her sculptures DONATION • from A1 “It’s totally transformative,” Albright­Knox Director Janne Sirén said of the gift. “I cannot think of a mid­century artist of Marisol’s stature who would have left their entire estate to a museum.”

In honor of the artist and her gift, a gallery in the soon­to­ be­built Buffalo Albright­Knox­ Gundlach Art Museum will be named after Marisol and will feature her work.

The gallery has long main­ tained a close relationship with Marisol Escobar, who was born in Paris, raised in Venezu­ ela and built her career in the United States. The Albright­ Knox was the fir t museum to acquire her work – the popular sculptures “The Generals” and “Baby Girl” in 1962 and 1964 – and kept close tabs on the artist over the decades.

“Baby Girl,” which the gal­ lery purchased after it was ex­ hibited at Leo Castelli’s Stable Gallery in 1962, became an in­ stant hit in Buffalo – the “Shark Girl” of its day – as did the artist herself.

The prolific and enigmatic artist was among a group cham­

pioned by gallery’s patron and namesake Seymour H. Knox Jr., who developed similar relation­ ships with Clyfford Still, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and many others.

“How rarely do you see a work come into the collection and instantly be a favorite?

‘Baby Girl’ became an instant favorite,” Albright­Knox curator Holly E. Hughes told The News after Marisol’s death in April 2016. Marisol’s work, Hughes continued, “instantly became a destination point. She’s just such an important part of our history of supporting emerging artists, but also supporting art­ ists who are a little bit outside the box as well. I’m really proud that we fi st collected her and put her on the map.”

The unprecedented bequest, set down decades ago in Mari­ sol’s will, is a direct result of Knox’s early embrace of her work.

“She was incredibly grateful to Mr. Knox for his purchase of ‘The Generals’ and ‘Baby Girl.’

It was her fi st museum collec­ tion,” said Carlos Brillembourg, Marisol’s longtime friend and co­executor of her estate with mutual friend Mimi Trujillo. “I think it’s a wonderful thing for an artist to have a museum take

An untitled 1959 drawing by Marisol is part of a major bequest from the artist to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing for an artist to have a museum take care of their archive because it means that it will always be in public view and not dispersed among private collections.”

– Carlos Brillembourg care of their archive because it means that it will always be in public view and not dispersed among private collections.”

Marisol, who was represent­ ed by Buffalo­born gallerist Sid­

ney Janis throughout her career, made frequent appearances at Albright­Knox openings and events over the decades.

The significance of the gift, which turns the Albright­Knox

into an international destina­ tion for anyone interested in Marisol, exceeds Still’s then­ unprecedented donation of 31 paintings in 1964. The bequest also comes at a time of increas­ ing interest in Marisol’s work, much of which she kept in her studio until her death.

“Although she was incred­ ibly productive and she pro­ duced a lot of work, she also did not sell everything,” Brillem­ bourg said. “She kept with her in her studio her favorite works from basically all her periods.”

Highlights include her 1996 work “The Funeral,” based on the funeral of John F. Kennedy, a portrait of the artist and her mother, and the important 1955 sculpture “The Hungarians,” a haunting portrait of a young family.

“There has been an uptick of interest in the last fi e or 10 years as more people have been thinking about her work,” Brillembourg said. “She was, of course, known as being a pop artist, but what’s interest­ ing about Marisol is that she is much more than that. And she’s unique because she’s probably the best­known woman artist of the pop artists. Most of them were men.”

Sirén said the bequest is a nod to that trailblazing work in an art world dominated by men.

“I think also her being a woman artist in a world sur­ rounded by men, it really speaks to her pioneering work on that front,” Sirén said. “She crossed a lot of barriers early.

She never was one standing at the barricades yelling out an ideology, but she was certainly aware of all the broad kaleido­ scope of factors that went into being a woman artist.”

The announcement is the gallery’s second major windfall since it launched its expansion project after Buffalo­born bil­ lionaire Jeffrey Gundlach donat­ ed $42.5 million to the project.

Like many Albright­Knox visitors with fond memories of Marisol’s work, Gundlach was transfixed by the artist’s sculp­ tures as a child and closely as­ sociates them with Buffalo and the gallery.

“I fi st saw Marisol’s ‘The Generals’ and ‘Baby Girl’ right around the time they were ac­ quired,” Gundlach said in a statement. “Even though I was quite young, their visual im­ pact, materiality, and form were so strong that I never for­ got them.”

WHAT: “Monet and the Impressionist Revolution” // WHEN: Nov. 15 to March 20 // WHERE: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, 1285 Elmwood Ave. // TICKETS: $12 adults, $8 seniors and students, $5 ages 6-12 // INFO: albrightknox.org

Different StrokeS “Monet and the Impressionist Revolution” is about getting up close and personal with the masters. On your visit to the gallery, bring this page with you and use it to learn more about the exhibition’s many masterpieces by peering into their trademark brushstrokes and styles.

Related: Preview of the “Monet and the Impressionist Revolution” exhibition on Page 19

Can’t make it to the gallery and find the artists’ works?

Go to Page 39 for the answers

4.

In the great, thick globs of paint this artist used to build up little sculp­ tures upon his canvas, you can detect each hair of the paintbrush. His pioneering techniques produced many living, moving, almost three­dimen­ sional scenes.

Hint: A self-portrait attributed to this painter hangs in the fireplace room of the James Prendergast Library in Jamestown.

21 Gusto Thursday, November 12, 2015

Gusto Thursday, November 12, 2015

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This artist produced only seven major paintings in his career, each of which were the result of applying paint to the canvas with a precise, scientific system of points.

Hint: He was played by Mandy Patinkin in Stephen Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park With George.”

The creator of these meticulous dabs of color approached his work from this period in a systematic way. His goal, which he shared with his impressionist colleagues, was to suspend the ephemeral quality of light in paint.

Hint: This artist is perhaps most famous for painting the Boulevard de Montmartre in Paris during various seasons and times of day, but from the same perspective.

The line slicing across the middle of this canvas in some ways marks the border between antiquity and modernity, and the artist who created it saw himself as a kind of messenger between those two worlds.

Hint: The Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s collection contains two of this artist’s most important paintings.

With the long and almost “cartoonlike” brushstrokes he used in this painting, according to Albright­Knox Director Janne Sirén, this painter tried to create a sense of movement: “The artist is almost sort of channeling the sensations of the natural world through his hand, fingers and ultimately the brush onto the canvas.”

Hint: This artist’s first painting, “Impression, Sunrise,” gave the name to the Impressionist movement.

Bright colors and broken brushstrokes were two trademarks of this prolific artist, who was fascinated as much by the female figure as the play of light and shadow on a piece of fabric or the surface of a pond.

Hint: This painter has spawned a recent series of tongue-in-cheek protests which have riled critics and institutions alike into penning defenses of his work.

A hallmark of this adventurous painter was his inclusion of unfinished sections, manifested here by the unpainted corner of the canvas that reveals his long and languid brushstrokes. Such an approach, Sirén said, “was regarded as brutal and in a sense dirty,” angering critics and establishment artists alike.

Hint: He was recently featured in a Paris exhibition dubbing him “The Man Who Invented Modernity.”

The Buffalo News

JULY 23, 2017 » SECTION C

Arts, entertainment + books

Jeff Simon: Jeffrey Toobin, O.J. and ‘telling it like it is.’ Page C3 Books: Van Cliburn’s warmth outlasted his shining moment. Page C4 Memoir: With a trio of iconic roles, Jeffrey Tambor takes stock. Page C5 Alan Pergament: Martin’s gone, Benigni’s not, and other news. Page C6

SUNDAY

2 Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

“The Welcome Wall” at 751 Fillmore Ave. is nearly complete. It features the word “welcome” in 15 different languages. Community members painted nearly half of the mural.

MURALS OF SUMMER B Y C OL I N DA BKOW SK I /

N E W S A R T S C R I T IC

Blank walls of Buffalo: Your days are numbered.

We are in the thick of high mural season, when artists armed with buckets of primer and cans of spray paint fan out across the city to turn monochromatic walls into canvases bursting with color. ¶ Some of the murals are in prominent spots. Others are hidden. So if hunting for new public art sounds like a good time to you, set aside a Sunday afternoon to check out these five new eye-popping murals and murals-in-progress:

1

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Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

1. “For Ken Price”

Artists: Anonymous Location: 140 Chandler St. hile the Albright­Knox Art Gallery’s public art program accounts for the bulk of the new projects we’ve been seeing on city streets lately, there are also many off­the­radar efforts by underground artists in out­of­the­way locations.

Chandler Street, a dusty stretch of pockmarked road near Wegmans on Amherst Street, has long been a haven for Buffalo’s graffiti artists, who have canvassed its run­down warehouses and industrial spaces with an ever­evolving series of tags and more ambitious projects.

One of those projects includes a mural based on the work of American sculptor and painter Ken Price, who was the subject of a 2013 Albright­Knox Art Gallery exhibition. It fol­ lows a similarly successful adaptation of a Burchfield Penney Art Center exhibition on the comix artist Spain Rodriguez that appeared near the Central Terminal in 2012.

The piece is the work of an anonymous collective of current and former graffiti artists working to make artwork normally confined to white­walled galleries more accessible to the general public.

“Once something leaves those white­walled spaces and comes to the streets, it becomes a totally different thing,” one of the artists said. “I think it’s work that could be ap­ preciated by anybody and everybody, and I don’t think it should be difficult to access.”

W

2. “Welcome Wall” (In progress)

Artists: Keir Johnston and Ernel Martinez Location: 751 Fillmore Ave. he south face of the former Copacabana Jazz Club in the Broadway­Fillmore neighborhood now features a wall of ka­ leidoscopic color meant to broadcast a welcome message to Buffalo visitors and newcomers of all ethnicities and backgrounds.

To that end, intricately designed panels created on parachute cloth and pasted to the building are overlaid with the word “welcome” in 13 different languages. The piece is part of the Albright­Knox Art Gallery’s public art program.

It is the work of Philadelphia­based artists Keir Johnston and Ernel Martinez. The duo, known for its work on community issues, worked with stakeholders in the neighborhood to create the piece.

“Because the project can be outlined and preplanned in a ‘paint­by­numbers’ format, individuals of all skill levels came together and participated simultaneously in the project,” an Albright­Knox release noted. “This ensured a significantly broader audience was able to engage in the production of the mural.”

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John Hickey/Buffalo News

3. “Magic Buffalo”

Artist: Bunnie Reiss Location: 1322 Hertel Ave. n the north, east and west faces of Joe’s Deli at the edge of the ever­hipper Hertel strip, a strange vocabulary of chirping birds, folk art symbols and icons pop out of an arresting backdrop of bright teal.

The mural, which features a prominent Buffalo on its west side, is the work of Los Angeles­based artist Bunnie Reiss. For many years, Reiss has been building her reper­ toire of symbols, drawn from Eastern European folk art and other traditions, into a definitive style.

Reiss’ idiosyncratic approach has gained her a substan­ tial following and plenty of media attention, resulting in larger commissions such as the Joe’s Deli job. Juxtapoz de­ scribed her as “a creative enigma who seems to be in touch with a parallel universe.”

The new piece is sponsored by the Albright­Knox Art Gallery’s public art program with an assist from the New Era Cap Foundation.

“I wanted to honor my Eastern European heritage and also honor my Polish heritage, knowing that there is a very large Polish community in Buffalo,” Reiss said in a phone in­ terview from Detroit, one of three eastern cities she’s paint­ ing in this summer. “I’ve put my own twist on it and brought what I am hoping to be a lot of happiness and pleasure to that neighborhood.”

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F OR MOR E E Y E -P OP P I NG M U R A L S , T U R N T O PAGE C 2

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The Buffalo News/Sunday, July 23, 2017

Continued from the GustoSunday cover 4

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Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

John Hickey/Buffalo News

Buffalo artist Edreys Wajed works on a painting of Buffalonian Williams Wells Brown.

“The Mothership” might make you think the building it’s painted on is on fire.

4. “Freedom Wall” (In progress)

5. “The Mothership”

Artists: John Baker, Julia Douglas, Edreys Wajed, Chuck Tingley Location: East Ferry Street and Michigan Avenue ow in its beginning stages, this long­planned and ambitious mural on a 300­foot concrete wall in the Cold Springs neighborhood is designed to spotlight local and national black leaders in the civil rights movement.

A newly formed collective of artists has spent several days prepping the walls, which now feature line drawings of major figures from the movement and from black history, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass.

Beyond its immediate visual impact on the neighborhood – and on the grey, concrete wall that surrounds the nearby NFTA bus depot – the project has also served to unite the artistic community of the East Side. After initial plans to have Tingley execute the entire project were roundly criticized, the Albright­Knox added more artists of color and East Side artists formed a new collective.

This mural will be the first fruit of that effort, with many more to come.

Artist: Team Razor Wire Location: Delavan and Longview avenues he geometric lines and retina­stressing colors of Team Razor Wire are becoming a familiar sight in venues around Buffalo, from sharp­edged new walls on Bailey Avenue to a glowing, golden tower in the shadow of the Tri­Main Center on Jewett Avenue.

This piece, which occupies the east side of a brick building on this industrial stretch of road, can be viewed either as a counterpoint or a competitor of Shantell Martin’s sprawling black­and­white mural “Dance Everyday” on the side of a derelict factory nearby.

Because it is hidden, the artistic duo – Nicholas Conrad Miller and Christopher Kameck – have cre­ ated a kind of mini­billboard on the west­facing wall to entice viewers to explore the piece more fully.

When you head around the back on Longview, the work unfolds in sharp, bright lines of red, orange and gold. If you didn’t know it was paint, you might think the place was on fire.

It’s a neat trick, smartly situated in a changing neighborhood.

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Issa Rae, star of HBO’s ‘Insecure,’ reflects on her real and fictional selves

By Geoff Edgers WA S H I N G T O N P O S T

LOS ANGELES – The moment seemed almost too perfect. Issa Rae, the stunningly talented and glammed­up star of her own HBO series, walking onto the stage at the BET Awards looking nothing like the “awkward black girl” who made her a YouTube star.

But before she could reach the microphone, Rae was introduced as … Yara Shahidi.

No joke. Yara, of course, is 17 and plays Zoey on ABCs “Black­ ish.” Rae, 32, stars on HBO’s “Insecure,” which launches its second season today.

“That’s Issa!” screamed Yvonne Orji, who plays Molly on “Insecure,” trying to correct the moment from her seat at the Microsoft Theatre.

Rae, after a pause and a stam­ mer, pushed through a clumsy bit with host Leslie Jones to introduce a performance by SZA. Backstage, before returning to her seat, she texted her writing staff about what had happened and managed to retweet a spot­on analysis by a fan named Deon.

“Wouldn’t be @IssaRae if something awkward didn’t happen LOL,” Deon tweeted.

Deon’s right. For Rae, a creative dynamo capable of turning heads on the red carpet and in the writing room, these moments just happen, whether in real life or on a set. And Rae’s ability to turn everything, whether a disastrous date or a workplace bumble, into comedy has carried her from YouTube sensation to a different kind of leading lady. In “Insecure,” she plays Issa Dee, who can show viewers her vulnerability without totally showing her hand, a character as self­assured as she is self­loathing. She’s funny, madden­ ing, manipulative and trying her best. To her legion of fans, she’s simply Issa.

Which, interestingly enough, is something the real Issa admits has started to get tiresome. As Rae grows older, she’s fi ding it less charming to be confused with this fi titious Issa. If only she had named her “Insecure” character Nia or Amani.

...

“I just didn’t think. I was so pressed with telling a good story that I didn’t think about the fact that this character, named after me, was going to air,” Rae said last month on her way to the BET Awards. “And even while shooting, it didn’t cross my mind until it aired. This is not by any means my life, and this is where it gets muddy because people assume that it is.”

Or, as “Insecure” writer Laura Kittrell puts it, “People think they know Issa in a way that’s different than the leads of most shows. I don’t think people are necessar­ ily walking up to Sarah Jessica Parker and saying, ‘Oh, she’s Carrie Bradshaw.’ “

Washington Post

Actress and writer Issa Rae stars as Issa Dee on HBO’s “Insecure,” which returns for its second season today.

More than six years have passed since Rae emerged on YouTube as the creator and star of “The Mis­Adventures of Awkward Black Girl.” The Web series, clicked on by millions of viewers, led to a false start (a failed pilot for ABC), a chatty, unvarnished memoir and, fi ally, “Insecure,” which she developed with veteran comedian and writer Larry Wilmore.

The show’s fir t season packed much of what’s driven classic sitcoms – offi e conflict, dating foibles, dishy friends – with much that is rarely seen on TV. The show’s blackness is as essential as its comic sensibility. And because they’re intertwined, “Insecure” can pull off hilarious, twisting subplots, such as season one’s unforgettable episode in which a drunken rap turned into a girl­feud turned into a social media disaster. “Insecure” also puts a spin on how race plays out in the workplace with a speci­ fi ity never before seen on a sitcom.

“Insecure” producer Prentice Penny describes this as capturing the “paper cuts of racism.”

“Where the white co­workers are sending each other emails about the uncertainty of Issa planning the beach day, or the boss asking Molly to talk to the black co­worker,” he says. “Things like

that where it doesn’t come off as so in your face.”

Director Ava DuVernay, whose own TV drama, “Queen Sugar,” recently kicked off its second season, is just glad “Insecure” exists. She has never bought into the criticism of “Girls” creator Lena Dunham for not including significant black characters on the show. The way to diversify popular culture isn’t through token charac­ ters, she says, but through shows such as Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None” and Rae’s “Insecure.”

“We don’t need to be inserted into this woman’s story if she’s saying I don’t know that experi­ ence and I don’t want to force it,” she says. “Issa’s show is an answer to so many years of not having ‘Friends.’ They didn’t have any black friends. The show ‘Girls.’

There’s no black girls. ‘Sex in the City.’ We’re women and we love these stories and we try to insert ourselves in them and see ourselves in them, but we are not in them. But now we’re there. And we’re not just there as tokens. And it’s friggin’ funny. She’s friggin’ funny and has a voice.”

...

There are times when Rae’s been referred to as a kind of black Liz Lemon, a reference to Tina

Fey’s character on “30 Rock.” She loved that show, but whether she embraces that comparison, she admits, depends on “the mood and context.” Nobody, after all, runs around calling Christian Bale “the white Denzel.”

In late June, as Rae wrapped the second season of “Insecure” and prepared to give a talk during the BET Awards weekend, she considered her place in entertain­ ment. On camera, as Issa Dee, she’s electric, snapping off improvised raps in the mirror, battling with friends and wrestling with her conflicting emotions about her longtime live­in boyfriend, Lawrence.

Off camera, she’s quieter, less direct and friendly, without being confessional.

During a live onstage talk BET weekend talk with Charlamagne Tha God, the radio personality asks her about her love life. She brushes him off. Later, offstage, she’s asked about the moment and her dating status. She declines to offer any details.

“Even my friends don’t know about my really personal life,” Rae says. “They always tease me about being very private.”

Not even a year into her HBO run, she is the picture of the Web star in transition, the celebrity in progress. She’s on billboards, but she still goes to the supermarket by herself. (“Girl,” one of the “Insecure’s” directors Melina Matsoukas will tease her, “you got to get somebody else to shop for you.”) Ask her about fame, and she’ll shake her head.

“I think fame is dead,” she says.

“Everything is sort of temporary.

There is temporary fame, and I feel like I have temporary fame during a specific season, but I think the era of movie stardom only exists for the older crowds. The George Clooneys and Brad Pitts and Ange­ lina Jolies and for music stars. But for television, I just don’t feel the same way, because it is so fli hty, and there is so much happening at the moment.”

That’s not to say she does not realize her life has changed. In “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,” her memoir, Rae wrote of her childhood in Maryland and her traumatic move to California – middle school was miserable – her struggles with weight, her parents’ divorce and even her complicated heritage. Her father was born in Senegal, and her mother in Louisi­ ana. (Rae’s full name is Jo­Issa Rae Diop.) Now, she admits she regrets being so open in parts of the book, which came out in 2015, before “Insecure” premiered.

“I wrote in such a vacuum place that it felt like diary entries, and I was so isolated in the process,” Rae says. “It felt like, ‘Oh, I’m exchang­ ing stories between girlfriends, and it never occurred to me that the country will see it, and the world will see it, and form opinions about me.’ ”

‘Girls Trip’ is by women, about women

By Robbie-Ann McPherson SPECI A L TO THE N EWS

Buoyed by its four powerhouse leading ladies, “Girls Trip” is a gut­bustingly funny, if sometimes uneven, movie with a huge heart.

This is a fi m written by women, about women, in particular four African­American women, and their relationships with each other. And when you mix in life, husbands, ex­husbands, kids, jobs, years gone by, shifting priorities and a little too much absinthe, it blooms into a very relatable story about female friendships, told with a shockingly bad case of potty mouth.

Regina Hall is Ryan, a successful “life coach” role model married to the smolder­ ingly handsome Stewart (Mike Colter). She is invited to be the keynote speaker at the Essence Festival in New Orleans, and she is inspired to make the trip a girls weekend by reuniting with three lifelong friends from whom she had grown distant Movie Review over the years. Jada Pinkett Smith is the “Girls Trip” buttoned­up Lisa, ∆∆∆ (Out of four) who has left her mojo Starring Regina Hall, somewhere in the Tiffany Haddish, Jada trash under empty Pinkett Smith and Queen bottles of hand sani­ Latifah. Directed by Mal­ tizer. Queen Latifah colm D. Lee. 122 minutes. brings her usual Rated R for crude and sexual content through­ movie star gravitas out, pervasive language, as Sasha, a gossip brief graphic nudity and blogger whose last drug material. possession is about to be repossessed. And Tiffany Haddish absolutely carries the movie with her hilarious turn as Dina, a broken­ bottle wielding, tough talking truth­bomb thrower.

Ryan and Stewart’s perfect marriage is not all it seems, and the ladies partake in the party atmosphere of New Orleans as Ryan struggles to save her perfect image, her marriage and a huge licensing deal that is on the table for her.

The rest of the plot unravels like an upturned knitting basket full of yarn, the balls rolling in all directions. Oh – and there is an old­school dance­off. And it is awesome.

Larenz Tate turns up as the dreamy guy that Larenz Tate should turn up as in every movie – the perfect guy. He is the only good one among the (naked!) whinos, cads, frat boys, sex objects and absentee ex­husbands.

But this is not just a man­bashing movie about getting wasted; there are heartfelt downbeats. Some of the best scenes in the movie are the unfunny ones among the four lead actresses. They are the Dream Team when all four are onscreen together, yet each actress has the depth of skill on her own to bring the whole crazytrain to a dramatic halt.

Ultimately, the movie is about why ride­or­die female friendships are so vital to a woman’s emotional health.

And also how too much absinthe might make you think a lamp is your date for the night.

For anyone who thinks this fi m might be tamer than any other raunchfest just because it’s female­centric (and this is a supreme compli­ ment to Tiffany Haddish’s comedic talent) here’s a warning: Haddish is not afraid of anything as an actress, let’s just say that much.

“Girls Trip” resets the bar both high and low – high, as a fi m allowing four lead black actresses to shine as they do, and low – as raunchy as it gets, right in the gutter. But it’s pretty funny down there.

STATE COMPTROLLER CHECKING TAX BREAKS FOR BUFFALO BILLION

.

BUFFALONEWS COM

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Copyright 2016

Architecture firm OMA selected to design Albright-Knox expansion Gallery expansion takes shape

N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

The Offi e for Metropolitan Architecture, a buzzworthy fi m responsible for designing one of the most controversial buildings of the 21st century, has been chosen to design the Albright­Knox Art Gallery’s fir t major expansion in more than 50 years.

The selection of the fi m, specifi ally OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu and his team of New York City­based architects, was unanimously approved Monday night by a vote of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, the board that oversees the museum. It marks an important moment for the Albright­Knox, whose leaders

• The Office for Metropolitan Architecture, or OMA , was founded in 1975 by architect and theorist Rem Koolhaas. It is perhaps best known for its monumental design for the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, China. But it is also involved in projects ranging from academic buildings and cultural centers to fashion shows and space studies for governments and institutions. Rather than embodying a single style, it has developed a reputation for intellectual and research­based solutions to tricky design challenges.

• The Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s expansion, planned since 2001, took a major step forward Tuesday with the hiring of OMA and architect Shohei Shigematsu. It will cost an estimated $80 million, with $20 million set aside for an operating endowment. Architects will begin work on the proj­ ect in September, with a final plan and renderings to result within a year. Construction is not likely to start until at least 2019.

W N Y EDITION

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By Colin Dabkowski

Serving Western New York since 1880

No. 1 pick Shaq Lawson signs Bills contract

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Dolly Parton

| PAGE C1

have spent the past decade setting the stage for an expansion. And it is the fi st museum commission in the United States for the fi m, whose work spans every continent and cuts across disciplines.

“This is a once­in­a­lifetime opportunity to add a new wing to this complex,” Shigematsu said in a phone interview last week, adding that the new design will refl ct the desire of Albright­Knox leaders “to make the museum itself more open, more public and more diverse.”

But don’t expect the monumen­ tal scale or stylistic brashness of the serpentine CCTV headquar­ ters in Beijing, China – a project See Architect on Page A10

A day of lasts at Immaculata Academy

Cosmetic surgery rider for teachers may be eliminated

School Board sees $5 million savings in bid to close budget gap this month

By Deidre Williams N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

The Buffalo School Board majority bloc plans to unilater­ ally eliminate the district’s con­ troversial cosmetic surgery rid­ er for teachers as part of a plan to close an $11.9 million budget defi it by the end of the month.

That move alone would save $5 million, said board mem­ ber Jason M. “Jay” McCarthy, part of the fi e­member major­ ity that signed the resolution, which is due to be voted on Wednesday night.

The board also would ad­ vise the Buffalo Teachers Fed­ eration that the district will no longer reimburse teachers for cosmetic procedures.

“We have fi ured out a way to use resources from this use­ less privilege that teachers have created for themselves and putting those resources back into the classroom,” Mc­ Carthy said Monday.

But BTF President Philip Ru­ more said the union will go to court if the board tries to elim­ inate that part of the contract, rather than doing so as part of the long­stalled negotiations.

“If their attorney doesn’t tell them that this is problematic, then perhaps they should seek new counsel,” Rumore said.

“It’s absurd,” he added, ac­ cusing the district of trying to

break the terms of a contract it agreed to instead of negotiat­ ing a new pact.

The BTF has been without a contract since 2004, with state law keeping the terms of the old pact – including the cosmetic rider – in effect until a new deal is reached. The union has said that it is willing to give up cos­ metic surgery, but only as part of a larger deal.

The resolution – from Larry Quinn, Carl P. Paladino, Patricia A. Pierce and departing board members McCarthy and Presi­ dent James M. Sampson – also would cut $2 million from Su­ perintendentKrinerCash’sturn­ around plans, called the “New Educational Bargain.” It would reduce the budgeted amount to $15 million, from about $17 mil­ lion, for the coming school year on the grounds that the plans won’t be fully operational when school starts in September.

The majority also wants to reduce budgeted overtime in the district to $500,000, from $1.8 million.

For weeks, board mem­ bers and administrators have been toiling over the district’s fi ances, with time running out before the start of the new fi cal year July 1. Geoffrey F. Pritchard, chief fi ancial offi cer for the district, will present See Rider on Page A10

Inside The News Trump’s judicial outburst happened before NEW YORK – The furor over Donald Trump’s outbursts against the presiding judge in the Trump University case isn’t the fi st time the presumptive GOP nominee has assailed the jurist hearing his cases in court. Story on A4.

Mark Mulville/Buffalo News

Students sign shirts and yearbooks on the last day of classes at Immaculata Academy in Hamburg on Monday. The Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph are formally ending their sponsorship of the school due to dwindling numbers and the age of its community. Story on Page C1

Clinton appears to clinch Democratic nod

By Maggie Haberman N EW YOR K T I MES

NEW YORK – Hillary Clin­ ton has reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination for president, the Associated Press reported Monday night, an achievement that would make her the fi st female nom­ inee of a major party for the presidency.

Clinton had been expected to clinch the nomination Tues­ day after polls closed in New Jersey.

But the AP surveyed super­ delegates Monday night, and their reporting showed that Clinton had secured the overall support of the required 2,383 delegates, according to a news release.

The call comes after a

INDEX

Business & Careers . E1 City & Region ............. C1 Classifi d ..................... B7 Comics ......................... D4

bruising primary fi ht against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has said he is prepared to stay in the race until the Dem­ ocratic National Convention in late July.

And it comes before voting Tuesday in six states including California, where Sanders was hoping for an upset victory to extend his campaign.

Speaking at a rally Monday in Long Beach, Calif., Clinton said that she was still focus­ ing on the primaries Tuesday.

“I got to tell you,” she said, “ac­ cording to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment, but we still have work to do, don’t we?”

She added: “We have six elections tomorrow, and we’re going to fi ht hard for every single vote, especially right

Crossword ........ B8, B10 Entertainment ......... D3 Horoscope .................. D5 Letters ......................... A9

here in California.”

Michael Briggs, Sanders’ campaign manager, said in a statement that the AP’s ruling was “unfortunate” and “a rush to judgment.”

“Secretary Clinton does not have and will not have the req­ uisite number of pledged del­ egates to secure the nomina­ tion,” Briggs said.

“She will be dependent on superdelegates who do not vote until July 25 and who can change their minds between now and then.”

Sanders, who had vowed to stay in the race until the con­ vention, said in a news confer­ ence Monday that he “hoped to win” in California, but added, “Let’s assess where we are af­ ter tomorrow before we make statements based on specula­ tion.”

Life & Arts ................... D1 Lotteries ..................... C2 Obituaries .................. C4 Opinion ....................... A8

Picture Page ............. D6 Scoreboard ................ B6 Sports ............................ B1 Television ................... D3

Clinton won the Puerto Rico primary Sunday, bring­ ing her closer to the number of pledged delegates required for the nomination.

Since conceding to then­ Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic presi­ dential primary race, she has carefully laid the groundwork for another shot at the White House, including serving four years as secretary of state un­ der Obama.

Now, Clinton is preparing for a general election battle with Donald Trump, the pre­ sumptive Republican presiden­ tial nominee.

Clinton’s delegate total in­ cludes pledged delegates and superdelegates, who are party leaders and elected offi ials who are not pledged to any candidates at the convention.

WEATHER

Lapses, laxity blamed in N.Y. prison escape Inspector general cites ‘breakdowns’

By Tom Precious N E W S A L B A N Y B U R E AU C H I E F

ALBANY – Long­stand­ ing security lapses, along with complicit employees, were among the key factors that let convicted murderers David P. Sweat and Richard W. Matt es­ cape from the maximum­secu­ rity Clinton Correctional Facil­ ity in Dannemora last year, a new state report has found.

New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott said Sweat and Matt were “par­ ticularly cunning and resource­ ful” inmates who were assisted, as known last summer, by a ci­ vilian employee in the prison’s tailor shop and by the “reckless actions of a veteran corrections offi er.”

“The escape could not have occurred, however, except for long­standing breakdowns in basic security at Clinton and

Breezy, chance of rain. High 67, low 49. Details on Page C6.

(the prison agency’s) executive management failure to identify and correct these defi iencies,” the inspector general said in a 154­page report released Mon­ day afternoon.

The report details structur­ al failings within the Depart­ ment of Corrections and Com­ munity Supervision offi e in Albany and with prison guards on the front lines at the north­ ern New York facility, including offi ers who failed to search the bags of Joyce E. Mitchell, a 51­year­old civilian employee at the prison, who paid less than $6 for six hacksaws that she smuggled into the facility to help the two men in their June 5, 2015, escape.

The search for the two men cost New York $23 million, not including the expenses in­ curred by other local and feder­ al agencies, and involved 1,300 offi ers who spent weeks comb­ ing dense woods and chasing leads that led investigators See Report on Page A3

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The Buffalo News/Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Continued from the Cover

Project will double the gallery’s exhibition space ARCHITECT • from A1 alternately lauded for its inventive­ ness and pilloried for its authoritarian posture.

The comparatively delicate and more budget­conscious Albright­Knox expansion project, which is expected to cost about $60 million, will unfold on a small but famous plot of public parkland and will attempt to fuse the architectural styles of three centuries.

When the project is complete, the gallery will have about twice its current amount of exhibition space, and at least a quarter of its campus will be dedicated to educational and public functions apart from the museum’s main exhibition programs.

The estimated total cost will be $80 million, with $20 million to be raised for an operating endowment.

While all of the architecture fi al­ ists in the Albright­Knox competition produced models and renderings of potential new buildings, the gallery is not releasing any of those designs.

The decision, said Albright­Knox board president Thomas R. Hyde, is out of a concern about publicizing design concepts the gallery “has no intention of building.”

“We are not picking a design, we’re picking a partner,” Hyde said.

“Of the things that all the architects have presented in response to our request for proposals, I hope we can get something that is better than any of them.”

Now that the gallery has selected an architect, it will launch a six­month process of commu­ nity engagement and study with Shigematsu and his team, who will offi ially start work on the project in September.

Following that will be another six­month period of schematic design, out of which a concrete plan and renderings will emerge.

Both Hyde and Albright­Knox Director Janne Sirén said the compe­ tition among the fi e accomplished fi alists – OMA, BIG, wHY, Allied Works and Snohetta – was tight, and that the decision came down to minuscule differences.

Sirén described the architectural competition, during which the fiv fi ms presented ideas to an audience of about 100 in the Albright­Knox auditorium on May 2 and 3, as “a 100­meter sprint, when the differ­ ences are in fractions of a second.”

Iwan Baan

The CCTV headquarters in Beijing, China, was designed by OMA, the firm chosen for the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s planned expansion project.

“It was a hard decision because of that,” Hyde said. “On the other hand, if you think of a hard decision as one where you destroy the place if you go the wrong way, this was not a hard decision.”

What made OMA rise to the top, said Hyde and Sirén, was a combina­ tion of its reputation for research into the cultural, physical and institutional history of its clients and sensitivity to the complex site on which the Albright­Knox campus sits.

Shigematsu said his team’s research included a deep look into Frederick Law Olmsted’s design for Delaware Park, the western edge of which is anchored by the Albright­Knox.

He noted that Olmsted’s design was not merely two­dimensional, but

included many vertical walkways and staircases. Those elements, he said, helped to shape OMA’s proposed designs for the building.

The team also considered the complex architectural legacy of the site itself, which includes the original 1905 building by E.B. Green, a 1962 addition designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Green’s much­modified Clifton Hall, which is connected to the gallery by an underground corridor.

OMA was founded by the Dutch architect and theorist Rem Koolhaas in 1975.

Its museum projects include the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow, the under­construction Fondazione Prada in Milan, Miami’s Faena Arts District and a recently completed addition to the Museum of

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Fine Arts in Quebec City.

Like the other fi alists on the gallery’s shortlist, OMA has no singular style. It markets itself as a fi m that creates “intelligent forms while inventing new possibilities for content and everyday use.” Its projects range from the $1.2 billion CCTV headquarters to scenic designs for one­off fashion shows for Prada and others in Paris and Milan.

OMA’s working process is famously nonhierarchical, with key ideas for designs sometimes fl wing up the chain from anyone in the offi e.

Its process of pitching a new client, as described in a 2005 profile of Koolhaas in the New Yorker, involves cobbling together foam models meant to show the way the fi m’s designers think and solve problems rather than

merely presenting slick renderings of their proposed designs.

Those foam models caught Hyde’s eyes during the competition.

“The foam was something we liked. They were crazy looking things,” Hyde said. “Their presenta­ tion started with those, and I think what they were conveying to us was that we look at all kinds of things. We don’t jump to what it’s going to look like in the end.”

Shigematsu, who cut his teeth in OMA’s Rotterdam headquarters before taking charge of the New York offi e in 2006 and becoming a partner in 2008, has led the Faena Arts District project and the new Pierre Lassonde Pavilion in Quebec City.

It is the Quebec project, also meant to double the museum’s gallery space and bridge disparate architectural styles at the edge of a public park, that bears the most resemblance to the game of architectural Tetris he and his team will have to play in Buffalo.

“Rather than creating an iconic imposition, it forms new links between the park and the city,” a description of the project from OMA’s website reads. A similar challenge exists at the Albright­Knox, and that fusion of architecture and landscape is part of what attracted OMA and Shigematsu to the project.

“The City of Buffalo has such a level of architectural heritage and legacy, and we were very thrilled potentially to be part of that,” Shigematsu said. “Of course, this is an Olmsted city, and who can do a project within an Olmsted­designed park? That’s an opportunity that doesn’t probably happen anywhere else but in this precise location.”

The board’s next challenge is fundraising. Sirén and Hyde said they are seeking funding from individual donors, government sources and foundations.

Without a rendering in hand, the process may prove more difficult than a typical fundraising strategy. But the gallery’s leadership is counting on the reputation of OMA and the thorough­ ness of an expansion process that began back in 2001.

“We’re going to try to recruit the lead gifts just based on people’s trust in the integrity of the process that we’ve been playing out and trust in the quality of the architect we’ve selected,” Hyde said. email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

Nevergold accuses board majority bloc of ‘grandstanding’ RIDER • from A1 the proposed budget dur­ ing Wednesday’s School Board meeting and expects there will be discussion and questions.

Many of those questions could center on the cosmetic rider proposal.

“We already are very late in approving this budget.

We’ve spent a lot of time on it and had staff review a lot of data … and this is a stum­ bling block, as far as I’m con­ cerned,” board member Bar­ bara A. Seals Nevergold said of the cosmetic proposal, ac­ cusing the majority bloc of playing to the crowd after failing to achieve much dur­ ing its time in control.

“This is grandstanding, as far as I’m concerned, be­ cause this group wants to go out as the majority that has made some difference,” she added. “They came in with a vision statement where they were going to make all of these reforms, and es­ sentially they didn’t do any of it. This is, ‘Look what we did so you can’t see what we didn’t do.’”

Nevergold said she will ask the attorney for the dis­ trict about the legality of the proposal.

The resolution cites state law giving the board author­ ity to “take such action as is necessary and appropriate to reach an agreement.”

“If that’s what’s ‘neces­ sary and appropriate’ to reach an agreement, now you know why we don’t have one,” said Rumore, alluding to the 12­year impasse and adding that the union cur­ rently has a charge of un­ fair labor practices charge against the district.

But the majority bloc says the district has bar­ gained in good faith, includ­ ing with multiple fact-find­ ers and mediators, and has still been unable to reach a deal. It said that despite the impasse, “both parties have agreed that the elimination of the cosmetic rider is in the best interests of the par­ ties and most importantly the schoolchildren.”

Administrators have recommended closing the $11.9 million budget gap by dipping into the district’s $52 million in savings, but some board members ad­ vised against using up re­ serves. And last month, Quinn argued that “using $12 million in savings to balance the budget does not get class sizes to where we want to be.”

When the board delayed a vote on the budget in May, one issue was Cash’s turn­ around plan, which calls for lowering class sizes, fo­ cusing on early literacy and developing communi­ ty schools. Offi ials origi­ nally estimated that the plan would cost $40.5 mil­ lion to fully implement in the coming school year, but they opted to put up about $17 million as a “down pay­ ment” for the fir t phase of the plan. That would help reduce the sizes of kinder­ garten and fir t­grade class­ es to less than 20 students per room. But majority’s new recommendation this week calls for reducing that by an additional $2 million.

Wednesday’s board meeting will begin at 5:30 p.m. at Waterfront Elemen­ tary School, 95 Fourth St. email: dswilliams@buffnews.com

The Buffalo News

JANUARY 15, 2017 » SECTION D

Arts, entertainment + books

SUNDAY

Alan Pergament: Iconic series share focus on relationships. Page D2 Jeff Simon: TV captures Obama leaving, Trump arriving. Page D3 Books: A scholarly look at Truman’s sacking of Gen. MacArthur. Page D4 Movies: ‘The Bye Bye Man’ delivers horror at its most derivative. Page D6

The rise and fall of HGTV’s power couple

By Katie Mettler WA S H I N G T O N P O S T

At first, the couple’s phoenix­rising narrative was simple enough.

Christina and Tarek El Moussa, now of HGTV fame, were two recovering real estate agents who, amid the 2008 housing market crash, lost nearly everything. In an attempt to salvage their once­ prosperous lifestyle, the couple started a business buying foreclosed houses in southern California and flipping them for a profit.

Tarek had the investment eye, Christina the designer’s touch. Sometimes they succeeded.

Sometimes they failed. But, hey, they were trying.

It was a great American plot.

The couple’s riches­to­rags­ to­riches­again backstory attracted showrunners at HGTV, the popular home and garden channel, which signed the couple to the network.

On April 16, 2013, the El Mous­ sas debuted as the stars of their own program, “Flip or Flop.”

The show has skyrocketed in popularity in the four years since, ranking as HGTV’s second­most­ watched program in 2016 with 2.8 million viewers, behind the network’s other adored renovat­ Christina ing couple, “Fixer Upper’s” Chip and Tarek El and Joanna Gaines.

Moussa have Like all of HGTV’s signature split. shows, the premise for “Flip or Flop” is compelling. Viewers can, from the comfort of their couch, watch an abandoned structure transform into an inviting home in the time it takes to finish a glass (or two) of wine. They have accomplished nothing, and yet feel, somehow, as if they were there, knocking down walls with the co­hosts.

What sets “Flip or Flop” apart from the rest of HGTV’s lineup, however, is Christina and Tarek, stereotypically attractive Californians whose personal narrative as husband and wife, best friends, business partners and parents has captured the hearts of their most loyal fans. Blog posts and tabloid pieces about the couple’s seem­ ingly loving family life litter the internet, buoyed by sappy social media posts from Christina and Tarek.

But like many Americans, 2016 was not kind to the El Moussas.

See Couple on Page D2

Scorsese speaks up about ‘Silence’

By Glenn Whipp

Pablo Picasso’s 1921 painting “Three Musicians,” on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is on view in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s exhibition “Picasso: The Artist and His Models.”

The Albright-Knox’s Picasso exhibit makes a graceful case for the artist’s central place in the story of modern art B Y C OL I N DA BKOW SK I /

N E W S A R T S C R I T IC

S

o what’s the big deal about this Pablo Picasso guy? ¶ His most famous works, museumgoers often mutter to themselves, resemble the yellowed Crayola masterpieces that hang on refrigera­ tor doors. ¶ His treatment of female bodies as objects of lust or scorn, in life as in art, often clung to outmoded ideals even as he constantly forged new artistic ground. ¶ And his personal­ ity sometimes seemed to eclipse his accomplishments, making his genius difficult to discern through a swirling fog of self­regard. ¶ The Albright­Knox Art Gallery’s exhibition “Picasso:

Complex genius: Pablo Picasso’s personality sometimes seemed to eclipse his accomplishments.

The Artist and His Models” sets out to answer these concerns by painting its own Cubist portrait of the Cubist master.

It considers the casual art fan’s questions about Picasso, even the naïve ones, from several angles at once. And it makes a graceful case – as if it needed to be made – for his central place in the story of modern art. ¶ The show, co­organized

by Albright­Knox director Janne Sirén and curator Holly E. Hughes, also offers succinct answers to many of the ques­ tions casual museum visitors might have about the artist.

See Picasso on Page D2

LOS A NGELES TIMES

See Scorsese on Page D2

Courtesy Albright­Knox Art Gallery

Picasso’s transition to Cubism: A series in the Albright­Knox exhibition “Picasso: The Artist and his Models,” demonstrates the darkening path his art could take. From left, the comparatively realistic”La Toilette” (1906), to the abstract and unnatural “Bather” (1908­09) to the dark, mysterious “Nude Figure” (1909­10).

2016-2017 Broadway Season

SHEA’S BUFFALO THEATRE Presented by Shea’s & Albert Nocciolino Shows, dates, times, prices, subject to change.

ticketmaster.com.

Groups 10+ call 829-1153.

BU-1288793

At a 1988 dinner following the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s controversial testament of faith, “The Last Temptation of Christ,” Paul Moore, then the Episcopal bishop of New York, told Scorsese about a book he should read.

Within a day or two, Moore sent the filmmaker a copy of “Silence,” Shusaku Endo’s novel about two Jesuit priests who travel to Japan in 1639 to find their mentor, a man rumored to have renounced his beliefs under torture.

When Scorsese began reading the novel a year later, he found Filmmaker he couldn’t shake the story of its Martin conflicted main character, Father Scorsese Sebastiao Rodrigues, a man working through his own pride and doubts in his quest to serve his God. Scorsese came close to making “Silence” several times in the intervening decades. Now that he has, he views the finished film as a “stripping away of everything extraneous to get to the essence, the spiritual.”

D2

The Buffalo News/Sunday, January 15, 2017

Continued from the GustoSunday cover

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Two iconic series share focus on relationships

ASADENA, Calif. – Notes from rainy La La Land (without musical accompaniment): Every visit here, I am reminded that looks, accents and just about everything else can be deceiving.

Freeform, formerly known as ABC Family, will premiere the fir t episode of the fi al season of “Pretty Little Liars” on April 18 with a two­hour fi ale. It will have 10 episodes this season, adding to the 150 episodes in its fir t seven seasons.

I’m not going to lie. I missed the fi st 149 episodes of the mystery series based on a book series about four female friends with “dark secrets” that is must­tweet TV with younger viewers.

But I did recognize one member of a panel – writer­producer Joseph Dougherty. So I approached him as he planned to eat breakfast after the session and asked: “Didn’t you used to work on ‘thirtysomething?’”

Dougherty confi med that and added that the legendary program that premiered in 1987 about characters in their 30s dealing with issues is about to celebrate its 30th anniversary and there are some special events surrounding it.

Boy time fl es.

Dougherty added that writing for “thirty­ something” and “Pretty Little Liars” isn’t all that different because both series are about relationships.

...

Michael Kenneth Williams, Inquiring minds want to know: who played Omar Little on HBO’s When is “Scandal” returning to “The Wire,” is one of the stars of the ABC’s schedule? The network coming ABC series, “When We Rise,” announced that the show will return about the history of the LGBT Jan. 26 with an abbreviated community. season of 16 episodes.

But he may be best known Shonda Rhimes, the Alan Pergament

by National Football League show’s creator, is happy the fans for his role in recent NFL sixth season isn’t the usual 22 TA LK IN’ T V promotions for wild card playoff episodes. games. At an ABC party, Williams told me he “I was delighted,” she said at a news confer­ doesn’t know why he was chosen to voice the ence here. “It was a thing that I wanted and promos because his mother told him never to ask asked for and said I wanted to do. In the middle when something good happens. I know why he of the last season, I think I went and I spoke to got the job. He has a great voice. The funny thing the network about this, wanting to have shorter is, he told me he isn’t a football fan. A native of seasons. It was a relief, and it was exciting to Brooklyn, he is a New York Knicks and NBA fan. be able to plan the season knowing the length would be shorter and getting to plan it the way Benito Martinez, who is best known for his we did actually made for stronger storytelling. role as a police captain in FX’s “The Shield,” “You don’t have to tread water every once returns in the third season of ABC’s “American in a while or try to fi ure out what you are Crime” in a new plot line about the exploitation going to do when you are not sure. I think it of vulnerable Americans. actually made our storytelling more powerful, His character, who becomes a migrant hopefully. worker in search of his son, speaks Spanish on “We really do have this beautifully differ­ the program. With the last name of Martinez, ent way of telling the season this year, where you might think speaking Spanish would have we’re really stepping back in time and coming been second nature to him. But at an ABC party, forward in time, and you are sort of seeing Martinez told me his family is from Albuquer­ things from different characters’ perspectives. que, N.M., didn’t immigrate here and he had to It is not necessarily about crazy things happen­ take a crash course in Spanish for the role. ing. I happen to believe this show was never about crazy things happening, but that’s okay.

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Fans felt El Moussas had lied to them COUPLE • from D1 Fans were devastated to learn in December that the beloved, picture­ perfect couple had been separated for nearly eight months, the result of a distressing incident at the El Moussa’s Orange County home that involved a gun and the police.

All this came after news reports claimed that their spin­off real estate classes, pitched as training sessions for aspiring house fl ppers, were a disingenuous money­grab, which they denied.

The couple’s perceived instabil­ ity had fans questioning whether there was room for reconciliation – and whether a long­term split would mean the end of “Flip or Flop.”

Then last week, Tarek offi ially fi ed for divorce. He is seeking spousal support and joint custody of the couple’s two children, 6­year­ old daughter Taylor and 1­year­old son Brayden, reported Yahoo.

The sense of permanency that accompanied this news thrust fans further into a mournful frenzy, lamenting the death of a love story in which they felt so invested – one that had been sprinkled through­ out six seasons on air and included a cancer scare, in vitro fertilization treatments and the birth of their second baby.

When Christina and Tarek met a decade ago, the Californians were successfully selling real estate in the state’s wealthiest neighborhoods. Christina had just graduated from college. Tarek was a rising star in the industry.

The couple married, moved into a house with a $6,000 monthly mortgage payment and started planning for a family, reported the Orange County Register. Then the housing market crashed.

Suddenly their luxurious home shrank to an apartment, with a roommate, where the rent was

just $700. For dinner, they shared Subway sandwiches because it was all they could afford. When Christina got pregnant, she passed on purchasing maternity clothes.

They were too expensive.

The couple still had their skills, though, eyes for good investments and tasteful design. On a whim, Tarek recruited a friend to edit video footage of them buying and fl pping a house, start to fin sh.

He sent it to HGTV, and the show was born.

As their family – and ratings – grew, the TV personalities began expanding their empire, hosting spinoff shows and developing house­fl pping seminars to teach fans the tricks of their trade.

But it didn’t take long for attendees to push back. A trip to promote the training sessions in Washington and Oregon was canceled at the end of 2015 when social media users loudly objected to the premise.

It was only a month later that the police were called to the couple’s home over what Tarek and Christina termed an “unfortunate misunderstanding.”

Deputies responded to the home in May after getting a report about a possible suicidal man. Tarek El Moussa was later found in a nearby state park with a handgun, but he denied being suicidal.

Eight months later, in early December, Tarek and Christina announced that they had sought marriage counseling but decided to split up while evaluating “the future” of their marriage.

Heartbroken – and outraged – fans took to social media to lament the split. Some wrote that they felt lied to by the couple, who had continued to produce episodes on the show as if they were together and whose social media posts never hinted at marriage troubles.

Almost exactly one month later, Tarek fi ed for divorce.

But it’s not really about crazy things happening to the characters or what crazy moments are happening.

“It’s really about where they’ve come to after all this time. You’ve watched them, sort of, descend from any moral high ground that they could have possibly had to kind of the lowest depths, and now they’re sort of having a chance to either climb out or not, and that’s what we’re watching. So that’s kind of the thing that you’re seeing. It’s very different from any other season we’ve had, and so I can’t really judge it against what we’ve done before or even think about it in terms of what’s going on now.”

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Things aren’t looking good for “Pitch,” the series about the fir t female pitcher in major league baseball. It was one of my favorites of the new season. But since even Steven Bochco struck out with his baseball series “Bay City Blues,” I doubted it would hit a home run in the ratings.

Fox Entertainment co­chairman Gary Newman said the series has fi ished this season’s 10­episode run with disappointing ratings and it likely won’t be decided until May if it will get a second season. That makes its return unlikely. However, Newman praised my guilty pleasure of the season, “Lethal Weapon,” as being Fox’s biggest new fall success. email: apergament@buffnews.com

Famed filmmaker reflects on his faith SCORSESE • from D1 We sat down with the 74­year­old director to talk about that essence and what he calls the “never­ending pilgrimage” of making “Silence” and understanding the truth found in Endo’s cherished novel.

Q: There’s a through line between “The Last Temptation of Christ” and “Silence.” Both movies raise questions about the foundations of faith and both speak to people who have doubt and despair …

A: Which is everybody. Everybody!

We’re weak! That’s why I loved the westerns when I was a kid. We were stronger. Shane is strong. Watch­ ing them compensated for my own feelings of weakness. Of course, it depends on what you describe as real strength and character. You can hit someone and they stay hit ... for a while. (Laughs) But that kind of strength is deceptive and not real.

Q: We see that brutality often in your films. Does working through depravity and darkness help you find a path to decency?

A: Yes. The negative aspects of being human very often involve brutality and violence and the capability of violence. And you have to understand it. Or at least be ready to understand it. That’s all kinds. And I don’t mean, “Let’s be outre and say ‘The Age of Innocence’ is violent.” But a Jesuit in Rome the other day said it was a terribly violent fi m. You turn a card over and it’s all these differ­ ent signs and signals of this tribe, which you’re ostracized from and it’s devastating.

Q: Betrayal – another element found in so many of your movies. In the foreword to a recent edition of “Silence,” you said that in order for Christianity to live, it needs “not just the figure of Christ but the figure of Judas as well.”

What do you mean by that?

A: Judas was God’s instrument for the sacrifice of Jesus. Did he want to betray Jesus? I don’t think so. That’s what we were trying to get across in “Last Temptation.” History labels him as the ultimate betrayer, but he

was just doing the job that God had assigned him.

Q: In “Silence,” the Judas figure, Kichijiro, keeps popping up – so often, in fact, his appearances become a form of comic relief.

A: Oh, absolutely! “It’s him again!”

The thing about Kichijiro is that he ends up being the teacher. He’s the vehicle for compassion, helping Rodrigues understand weakness.

Also: Kichijiro does say, “It’s so unfair. If I had been born a few years before, there would have been no persecution. I could have been a good Christian.” As if he’s not a good Chris­ tian because he’s afraid. Or because he gives up all the time. It fascinates me. He comes back and begs for forgiveness and says, “I promise to be stronger next time.” And he does mean it, but he can’t do it. I think that’s all of us. That’s humanity.

Q: Why do you think you’re so drawn to betrayal and traitors?

A: I think it goes back to the asthma I had as a kid. I was very much kept at home. Movie theater, church, go home. My parents had moved to Sunnyside, Queens, in ’42, but my father had a fi ht with the landlord and we were thrown out and sent back to where my father was born, which was 241 Elizabeth St., my grandparents’ apartment. It was a pretty bad place, the Bowery, in the old days when the Bowery was the end of life.

And one of the predominant themes of living there was betrayal.

And often the betrayal was deadly – deadly or ostracized in humilia­ tion. Maybe it was that asthmatic or maybe it was just me, but I became ultra­sensitive. I sensed danger around all the time. I wouldn’t say I was fearful. I was just realistic.

(Laughs) There were constant stories about people who informed. And many would wind up dead – or missing. So I grew up with that until I was 18, and then I moved to America, which for me was NYU. But I’ve never stopped being fascinated with stories of betrayal.

Q: You were handed a copy of “Silence” right after “Last

Temptation” premiered. Have your religious beliefs changed in the decades it took to make the movie?

A: The religious quest that brought me to “Last Temptation” took me to a certain point. “Silence” demanded more – an understanding of true faith. I know that sounds pretentious. But that’s what it is.

Sorry. That’s who I am.

For better or worse, I am a product of the mid­20th century New York Catholic Church. A priest at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, Father Fran­ cis Principe, was my greatest mentor.

He was there from when I was 11 until I was 17. He was a real guide, a street priest. He taught us, “You don’t have to get married at 21 like your parents or grandparents. Find your calling. Find your own way.” An extraordinary man who possessed such love.

I wanted to join in his footsteps, but I could not. I didn’t have the real vocation. I looked at Father Principe and saw an absence of ego. I couldn’t understand how he let go his pride in order to serve. In a way, “Silence” is an attempt to work through that question almost 60 years later. Because that’s the very thing Rodrigues is struggling with as well.

Q: He’s also struggling with the idea that God won’t listen to him. Or wondering if God is even there.

A: You remember in “Raging Bull,” Jake LaMotta sitting in front of that mirror at the very end, years later, and he accepts himself? That’s the beginning of God listening to him.

But he’s got to forgive himself fi st.

And a lot of people can’t do that. I struggle with that. We all do.

Constantly through “Silence” you hear the phrase, “I will not abandon you.” “I will not abandon you, Father.”

But what if no one’s listening?

Q: You premiered “Silence” at the Vatican and Pope Francis told you he hoped the movie “bears much fruit.”

That’s quite a different response than “Last Temptation” received.

A: Somebody in Rome just asked, “What do you think is the differ­ ence?” “Well, this one they’ll see.”

With “Last Temptation,” it never had a chance.

Exhibition gives three views of Picasso’s muse and lover PICASSO • from D1 So you think your kid could paint a Picasso?

Curators Janne Sirén and Holly E. Hughes dispense with that naïve notion up front by presenting a clever pairing of two wildly different pieces painted in 1921. Picasso’s playful cubist master work “Three Musicians,” on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, hangs on the opposite side of the wall from a somber scene of the same year from the Museé Picasso in Paris, “La Lecture de la Lettre.”

In “Three Musicians,” a triumph of synthetic cubism, much of the artist’s early energy and inventiveness is on display: Three fractured fi ures of shapes and patterns represent himself and pals Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob dressed in the outra­ geous costumes of Italian commedia dell’arte. “La Lecture,” by contrast, fi ds Picasso working in a realist style, depicting two men engaged in the somber act of reading a letter that likely contains bad news.

Together, the paintings

demonstrate Picasso’s protean ability to slip into new visual languages to suit the occasion, his subject and his own whims. For Picasso neophytes, a glance at his technical skills in “La Lecture” lends his many experiments and explorations more power. In this context, they cease to be childish scrawls and become the actions of a genius questing after the new.

The same notion is addressed in another wisely installed series: The Albright­Knox’s comparatively real­ istic “La Toilette” of 1906 essentially morphs into the Museum of Modern Art’s “Bather” from 1908­09 and fi ally into the Albright’s own dark piece of analytic Cubism, his mysteri­ ous “Nude Figure” from 1909­10.

Doesn’t much of Picasso’s art reflect his own sexism?

Often yes, but the question is complex and the Albright­Knox show does not take a position.

Instead, in smart groupings that draw on distant collections, Sirén and Hughes present the artist’s take on several of the women in his life and the effect they had on his work.

The most compelling example is

the exhibition’s three views of Dora Maar, Picasso’s longtime muse and lover. In one sensitive portrait from 1939, a huge­eyed Maar is a serene and girlish fi ure in a jaunty hat. Another, from 1938, shows her as a mechanical network of strange diagrams and patterns, which hint at her intellectual and emotional complexity. And fi ally, in the artist’s green­tinged and piggish rendering of Maar from 1944 on loan from the Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland, she appears as an over­ bearing, almost terrifying eminence.

Each is a refl ction less of its subject than its painter, who projects his own whims and emotions upon Maar as if she herself is a mere canvas. That these three pieces vary so remarkably in style and tone is a testament both to Picasso’s ingenuity as well as his paradoxical treatment of women both as indispensable and disposable.

Does Picasso’s ego overwhelm his accomplishments?

Hardly. A room dedicated to Picasso’s mid­ and late­career works demonstrates that he considered himself part of a great lineage that extended back to masters like Goya

and Jacques­Louis David and even further, to ancient statuary.

In someone of less ambition or intellect, this sort of nervous self­regard might be a limitation. But in this room, we see Picasso’s anguished take on the Cuban Missile Crisis in his take on David’s “Rape of the Sabine Women.”

That extraordinary canvas, which shows two men clashing with one another while the women and children cower below, extends the theme of his 1937 masterpiece “Guernica” into the 1960s and also points toward humani­ tarian crises in Syria and elsewhere.

Elsewhere, we see Picasso in conversation with Delacroix in his riotous 1954 piece based on “The Women of Algiers” and with ancient Greece in his series of blue­glass nymphs and satyrs in the collection of the Albright­Knox.

This room alone, which vibrates with Picasso’s fear of death and with his deep concern for human suffering, proves he belongs in the company of the masters he mimicked.

In addition to providing an easily digestible overview of Picasso’s career – no easy feat in this amount of square

footage – the exhibition also smartly explores Picasso’s infl ences and effects. Mini­exhibitions dedicated to Picasso’s immediate circle, his vast infl ence across continents and to the importance of drawing to his practice are marvels unto themselves.

One room of abstract paintings from the likes of Arshile Gorky, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe and others, however, feels oddly tacked on.

The success of any show that hopes to help viewers both understand and feel Picasso’s genius depends on its ability to demonstrate the artist’s ability to challenge himself, master new styles of his own invention and quickly shed them on his way to something new.

Picasso did this again and again across a career that spanned two centuries, leaving scattered pieces of genius in his wake. Through smart juxtapositions and a scholarly approach, “Picasso: The Artist and His Models” meets museumgoers where they are and arranges those pieces to thrilling effect. email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

RealtyUSA purchased by Pittsburgh firm

Acquisition creates third-largest real estate brokerage in nation | BUSINESS • B6

CITY&REGION The Buffalo News

Stanley Evans • Deputy Managing Editor 849­4444 • sevans@buffnews.com

By Tom Precious N E W S A L B A N Y B U R E AU C H I E F

ALBANY – Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s memory failed him Tuesday when he said he believed Steve Pigeon, a long­ time political ally and former advi­ sor to the governor, never worked for the government.

Pigeon was the counsel to former State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada in 2010 when Cuomo, then the attorney general, was investigat­ ing allegations that would eventual­ ly help to end the political career of Espada.

In Niagara Falls on Tuesday, it appeared Cuomo was trying to distance himself from Pigeon, the former Erie County Democratic Committee chairman. Pigeon was indicted last month on nine sepa­

rate charges, including bribery and extortion, in a scandal involving for­ mer state judge John A. Michalek.

Cuomo said Pigeon was helpful to him during his fir t run for gov­ ernor in 2001, which ended in him withdrawing from the Democratic primary race in 2002.

“He supported me in 2001,” Cuo­ mo said Tuesday, “which I appreci­ ated at the time.

“I’ve heard about the indictment, and justice should be done, and we

B

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Cuomo denies Pigeon link to administration Says story about influence ‘not correct’

SECTION

have zero tolerance for anyone who has broken the law in any way,” Cuo­ mo said.

Asked about a recent New York Post column that outlined a number of ways Pigeon had infl ence with Cuomo and his administration, Cuo­ mo said “that story was not correct.”

“He was never part of the admin­ istration. He never worked for my administration. He never worked in See Cuomo on Page B2

Jury awards $320,000 in case of false arrest Racial bias at heart of civil suit against city

By Phil Fairbanks N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Photos by Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

Thanks to a partnership between the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, a giant mural is now visible on the center’s west wall at 1221 Main St. Students in the art program are working with well-known Brooklyn muralist Alice Mizrachi.

Albright-Knox goes public bigtime Art gallery’s program aims to craft three new projects on Main Street, Jewett Avenue and at the Allen Street Metro Rail station

See Levy on Page B2

By Colin Dabkowski

Related: See more photos

N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

The giant mural is a teaching moment between Brooklyn muralist Alice Mizrachi, right, and Samiyah Edwards, 16.

L

The Albright­Knox Art Gal­ lery’s public art program is in full bloom, with three new projects set to be announced Thursday in spaces throughout the city.

Each of the projects is aimed at connecting parts of the city that don’t often come into contact with one another: A sprawling mural designed to mirror Buffalo’s ongoing re­ naissance now adorns the south side of the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology at 1221 Main St. A multi­panel mural featuring illus­ trations of Buffalo landmarks will soon appear on the long facade of an industrial building at 74 Jewett

on the making of the mural on the Picture Page, A9.

Ave. And a series of snaking sculp­ tures based on intestinal bacte­ ria will rise from the fl or of the Metro Rail station now under con­ struction at Allen and Main Street.

The trio of projects follows the unveiling of an installation of sculptures by Roberley Bell at the Tifft Nature Preserve and the completion of an eye­popping mu­ ral on the side of Shea’s 710 Main Theatre by Baltimore­based art­ ists Jessie Unterhalter and Katey See Art on Page B2

Imagine this country if black lives mattered

eave it to ter movement. young people As part of the to poignantly course, Hinderliter – explain the most coordinator of African misunderstood – and African­Amer­ deliberately or not ican Studies – had – three words in the undergraduates Rod Watson America’s sociopo­ record one­ to two­ COMMEN TA RY litical lexicon. minute audio fi es Prompted by responding to the comments from a student after national movement’s prompt: “If last fall’s Black Cross Project – black lives mattered ...” in which 300 miniature crosses The recordings, done in the were planted on campus to rep­ two weeks leading up to July 4, resent the number of unarmed don’t capture the Minnesota and blacks killed by police over a Louisiana police killings of black three­year period – SUNY Buffalo men that precipitated the mur­ State associate professor Beth ders of fi e white offi ers by a de­ Hinderliter began a summer on­ See Watson on Page B2 line class on the Black Lives Mat­

Justin Levy admits he was more than a little nervous at the prospect of an all­ white jury deciding his fate.

After all, he was a young African­ American man suing over his arrest by a white police offi er in Buffalo.

Even more important, perhaps, Levy wondered if the recent shootings in Loui­ siana, Minnesota and Texas would sway the six people hearing his case.

He got the answer he hoped for Wednesday.

The jury, after more than a day of de­ liberations, awarded $320,000 to Levy and found in his favor on all three of the allegations at the core of his civil suit against the city.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Levy, now 28, said afterward.

From Day One of the trial, Levy’s law­ yers made it clear this was not a case about physical injuries caused by a false arrest and unlawful imprisonment.

No, they said, this was a case about a different kind of injury – the freedom and liberty their client lost on that day in January 2009.

“They took a lot away from me,” Levy said of the police.

At the heart of the case was the allega­ tion that Buffalo Police Offi er Raymond Harrington Levy falsely arrested him and that he subsequently was jailed, strip searched, photographed, fin erprinted and hauled into court in leg irons.

The charges were later dismissed.

Steven M. Cohen, one of Levy’s lawyers, acknowledged from the start of the trial that Levy suffered no physical injuries.

“We’re here for a much larger pur­ pose,” Cohen told the jury in his opening statement.

Over and over again, he stressed his client’s innocence, reminding the jury that Levy was no street thug. He told them of his client’s devotion to Christian­ ity, his close ties to his family and his long work record as a carpenter and construc­ tion supervisor.

Aqueria Roberts cries while she was speaking during a Black Lives Matter rally that was held Wednesday evening in Bidwell Park on Wednesday, July 13, 2016.

The Buffalo resident told the crowd that she blames Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News

INSIDE: Lotteries / Page B2 • Local News / Page B3 • Obituaries / Page B4

Corwin retirement a boon to GOP Timing prevents any organized challenge

By Robert J. McCarthy N E WS POL I T IC A L R E PORT E R

For Republican leaders in Erie, Niag­ ara and Orleans counties, the timing of Assemblywoman Jane L. Corwin’s retire­ ment proves near perfect.

By announcing her departure less than 48 hours before the deadline for submitting this year’s designating peti­ tions, Corwin greased the skids for GOP leaders to anoint Michael J. Norris as their chosen replacement. Offi ials in­ sist any other interested candidate could collect the required 500 signatures by the close of business on Thursday, but the near impossibility of such a feat now leaves Norris – the former Niagara Coun­ ty Republican chairman – as the choice of a “committee on vacancies” controlled by party offi ials.

“Jane made her decision exactly when petitions were due,” Erie County Repub­ lican Chairman Nicholas A. Langworthy said Wednesday. “Now the mechanism left is the committee on vacancies.

“That’s the way it works under New York State election law,” he added. “It’s not the fir t time and it’s not the last time it will work out that way.”

See Corwin on Page B5

B2

The Buffalo News/Thursday, July 14, 2016

Continued from the Cover

Lawyer pleased jurors decided ‘that civil rights have value’ LEVY • from B1 But on the night of Levy’s ar­ rest, Cohen said, the only thing that mattered was the color of his skin.

In the end, the jury agreed that Levy was falsely arrested, unlawfully imprisoned and maliciously prosecuted. The ju­ rors also decided his civil rights were violated and that he suf­ fered damages as a result.

“We are pleased the jury spoke with a single, clear voice – that civil rights have value,” Cohen said after the verdict was announced.

Lawyers for the city declined to comment on the verdict or the possibility of an appeal but, during the trial, tried repeated­ ly to make the case that Buffalo Police had reasonable cause to arrest Levy.

Police offi ers who respond­ ed were in the midst of a physi­ cal altercation with Levy’s aunt when Levy showed up at her

Millicent Avenue home and at one point started “ranting and raving,” according to J. Chris­ tine Chiriboga, a lawyer for the city.

Chiriboga described Har­ rington’s arrest as “routine” and suggested he had reasons to believe Levy was interfering with the police.

“You will hear testimony that after the arrest was effect­ ed, Mr. Levy was treated cor­ dially, that admonitions were made to be careful and that he was given advice about how to avoid the discomfort from the cuffs,” she told the jury.

The jury disagreed.

When the trial began last week, the shooting of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge had just happened and Levy’s law­ yers acknowledged Wednesday that there was concern at that point about its impact on the jury.

The news of Philando Cas­ tile’s death in suburban St. Paul, also at the hands of police, came

a day later, and that was quickly followed by the murder of fi e Dallas police offi ers on Thurs­ day. The gunman, Micah John­ son, an African­American and former U.S. Army reservist, was later killed by police.

“With everything going on, it was almost a perfect storm for this case to be heard,” Wil­ liam A. Lorenz Jr., one of Levy’s lawyers, said Wednesday.

After the Dallas shootings, U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo, the judge overseeing Levy’s case, surveyed the jury.

Without mentioning the three incidents, he asked them if they had seen the news and if they could still remain impartial.

To a person, they nodded yes. Three days later, they re­ turned with a verdict A spokesman for the city, citing the ongoing nature of the lawsuit, declined comment Wednesday. email: pfairbanks@buffnews.com

City Hallways

By Susan Schulman

T

Yes, you’re right, the city is writing more traffic tickets

hose who think city police are writing more traffi tickets are correct.

From January to June of this year, the city issued 24,413 tickets. Last year, it issued 21,228 tickets for the same period.

That’s according to Lt. Jeff Rinaldo, who attended a Council Committee meeting Tuesday to discuss the Council’s request for a further crackdown on speeding on Moselle Street. A 7­month­old girl was recently killed there when her stroller was struck by a car.

The heightened citywide traffi enforce­ ment began last year, Rinaldo said.

“It’s a problem throughout the city in terms of speeding, running stop signs and other moving violations,” he said.

Council members like the beefed­up enforcement. Some suggested not allowing speeders to routinely plead down to lesser charges in traffi court. That could cut into city revenue, though, now that Buffalo runs its own traffi court. Revenues from speed­ ing ticket fi es usually go to the state. When

tickets are pled down to parking fi es, though, that money ends up largely in city coffers.

But saving lives is more important than collecting more money, some Council members said.

Historic moment: Tuesday’s Council Legislation Committee meeting was historic. Fillmore Councilman Dave Franczyk chaired the committee, his fir t time in that position since 2012.

“A little rusty,” Franczyk said of his performance at the meeting. “A tin man with a can of oil.”

Franczyk chaired many committees during his 30­year Council career prior to 2012, when he was replaced by colleagues more aligned with Mayor Byron Brown.

Franczyk’s new assignment refl cts today’s friendlier relations on the Common Council.

For more daily news and notes out of City Hall, check out the City Hallways blog at BuffaloNews.com/CityHallways.

‘A city is an entity. It has a personality,’ sculptor says ART • from B1 Truhn.

The new mural at the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology, which provides after­school arts ed­ ucation for high school students and job training for adults, was com­ pleted over the past two weeks by students at the center. They worked with New York City­based artist Al­ ice Mizrachi to design and paint a mural that refl cts Buffalo’s ongoing revival and nods to the Harlem Re­ naissance of the early 20th century.

It features a dark­skinned boy with his eyes closed and face streaked with tears beside a light­ skinned girl, whose green hair fl ws across the building to form a kind of rolling landscape. The message of unity across cultures, which BCAT Director Amber Dixon said emerged directly from the artist’s discussions with students, is clear.

The mural is the fi st in the Al­ bright­Knox and BCAT’s newly launched “Public Art Public School Voices” project, which will result in more student­based murals

throughout Western New York over the next fiv years.

“The idea of the mural being done right now is pretty significant be­ cause BCAT’s been opened two and a half years and we know we’re mak­ ing an impact on the community,” Dixon said. “Now we have a physical manifestation of that impact.”

Across town at Koch Metal Spin­ ning on Jewett Avenue, a large ware­ house that sits in the shadow of the Tri­Main Center on Main Street, art­ ist Daniel Galas is preparing to com­ plete about a dozen highly stylized illustrations of historic Buffalo build­ ings.

Galas focuses his attention on structures near his studio in the Tri­ Main, many of which will be featured in the new piece. They include the Buffalo Zoo, Highland Lodge No. 835, the Kensington Water Tower, Pierce­ Arrow Showroom and St. Mark’s Ro­ man Catholic Church.

According to the Albright­Knox, the Jewett Avenue building “presents a series of sections that the artist will use as a framing device, setting up a cadence that takes the viewer on a visual journey back and forth along

Buffalo’s Main Street divide.”

Finally, the gallery’s plan for the Metro Rail station currently under construction on the ground level of the rising University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences will feature a new sculpture by Shasti O’Leary Soudant called “Gut Flora.”

The piece makes use of several snaking, 11­foot­tall sculptures based on the bacteria that naturally live in human intestines. The inspiration for the piece came from Soudant’s under­ standing of the city as an intercon­ nected system with many similarities to the human body.

“If you’re look at the city as a body, its transportation pathways are basi­ cally the veins and digestive systems of that body,” Soudant said. “A city is an entity. It has a personality. It is en­ ergized and it is affected exactly the same way as human bodies.”

“Gut Flora” will be the fir t newly commissioned work of public art for a Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority station since the subway system was completed in the mid­ 1980s. email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

From left, Cole Eberle, 14, Desha Renshaw, 13, and Alex Bradley, 15, paint the sky of the giant mural on the west wall of the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology building at 1221 Main St.

‘I imagine ... a world where color Cuomo relied on Pigeon for advice about WNY in 2014 re-election is only used to identify crayons’ WATSON • from B1 ranged black man in Dallas.

But after the last two years, it wasn’t necessary to experi­ ence the past two weeks to feel the anguish of wondering if your life counts as much as someone else’s in a society in which significant segments pretend not to even under­ stand why you’d ask and re­ sent you for doing so.

For those who have to wonder how things would be different if black lives really mattered, the students say it far better than I could: “In a world where black lives matter, I imagine ... a world where color is only used to identify crayons ... where wearing a hoodie doesn’t mean trouble at night ... I imagine a world where Afros are adored as sculptures. I imagine a world with a million Obamas, not just one....

I imagine a world where life isn’t a privilege, but it’s a right.” – Levar Leys of the Bronx.

The young men and wom­ en recognize it is hard to be­ lieve black lives matter when every cultural clue tells them it doesn’t. “ ... I imagine a world where Afros and corns rows to black vernacular and the deepest of melanin is not acceptable because someone has made it a fad. It is acceptable because it is a way of life, and a way of preserving your culture that has been fought so hard to be kept.” – Amanda Bauza of Rochester: And they see the toll this constant battle takes on the psyche of too many young blacks who remain emotion­

ally and mentally chained. “... Imagine everyone loved our broad noses, full lips and dark skin. Imagine the African-American woman wasn’t treated with the least respect, as if Aretha never existed.

Imagine more African-American males filling the void of their child’s heart instead of a jail cell ... Imagine the greatest mass murder on American soil, to decimate Black Wall Street, never took place. If blacks weren’t programmed to hate themselves and unconsciously remain docile.

“Imagine if slavery never existed. Then again, imagine if it were to ever end. Imagine that.” – Richard Rouse of Buf­ falo.

They even imagine a world in which the content of their character is how they get ste­ reotyped and walking down the street does not become a life­and­death exercise. “ ... I imagine that my skin would not be a prominent factor in distinguishing my life’s journey. But my intellect?

My intellect will determine my future success. Walking down the street? It wouldn’t be a problem. Only smiles and head nods from police officers rather than the fear of having to text my mother one last time before my life is taken.

See, in that world, there would be no reason to cross the street when I walk by you ...” – Ronel Beausejour of Queens. “... black people will be able to travel into any neighborhood without being seen as dangerous. The activists of the past will smile down from Heaven because the black life is more valuable than it is today. Black men will treat black men as their brother,

not enemy; black women will band together as a sisterhood and raise our children...

Where racism will not be a determining factor for jobs and the criminal justice system ...

Black women will know their worth ... Black men will know their capabilities and their possibilities.” – Brandi Smith of Buffalo.

And Buffalo’s Rachel Orton sounds as if she were speak­ ing directly to those like for­ mer New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani – those politically dishonest enough to pretend not to understand the implicit “too” at the end of those three powerful words; or honestly too obtuse to recognize it, and thus to be accorded any stand­ ing as a national commenta­ tor.

“In a world where black lives mattered, I imagine being taught the brutal realities of slavery and I’ve learned about the lives of women who impacted the civil rights movement. Sojourner Truth, Ella Baker and Rosa Parks would have been names that I knew in grade school, not college ....Natural hairstyles would be celebrated in the workplace, not appropriated by celebrities or models ... Black ideas and opinions would not only be heard, but valued... In a world where black lives mattered, not one death would result from police brutality or hatred. Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice and others would still be alive.

“And in a world where black lives truly mattered, this movement would not be necessary.” email: rwatson@buffnews.com

CUOMO • from B1 government as far as I know,” Cuomo added.

Pigeon was one of the ar­ chitects of a short­lived coup in 2009, in which Espada bro­ kered a power­sharing deal that brought the Republicans back into power. When Espa­ da rejoined his Democrat­ ic colleagues in July of that year, Pigeon was hired as his $150,000­a­year counsel.

Just nine months later, Cuo­ mo brought a civil suit against Espada, alleging he and oth­ ers stole more than $14 million from a Bronx­based health care clinic corporation that Espada founded. Cuomo told reporters he expected criminal charges were likely against Espada.

“Stay tuned,” he said at the time.

Later that year, federal prose­ cutors indicted Espada, who was found guilty and went to prison.

In fact, Pigeon has a long tenure in state government. He fir t joined the Assembly as a “special projects coordinator” in 1985, making $142.87 every two weeks, according to payroll records obtained Wednesday from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s offi e. He left the As­ sembly two years later.

In 1995, Pigeon was hired as special counsel to then­Senate Minority Leader Martin Con­ nor, a Brooklyn Democrat and longtime private election law counsel. In 1997, he is listed as a “member’s counsel,” though pay records did not show ex­ actly whose staff Pigeon was on back then; at the time, his Sen­ ate salary was $67,800 a year. He remained on the Senate payroll until Jan. 1, 2000. Two days lat­ er, though, he was back on, at the

same pay level, but this time as a counsel on the Senate Demo­ crats’ central staff. In early 2001, he got a pay boost to $76,000, ac­ cording to payroll records.

Then­Sen. Byron Brown, now the Buffalo mayor, hired Pigeon on his Senate staff after Pigeon in 2002 was ousted as Erie Coun­ ty Democratic Party chairman.

Pigeon left the Senate payroll on October 2, 2004 but rejoined less than fi e years later – with a doubling in his pay – as Espada’s counsel. He went off the Senate payroll on January 1, 2011.

In 2013, The Buffalo News reported on Pigeon’s growing infl ence with the Cuomo ad­ ministration. Cuomo, facing re­election in 2014, relied on Pi­ geon for political advice about Western New York, which Cuo­ mo lost badly in his 2010 race, and even on some policy mat­ ters, sources said at the time.

Pigeon, by then, ranked among the major Cuomo po­ litical donors. He gave Cuomo $50,000 at his fundraiser birth­ day bash at the Waldorf Astoria in December 2012.

The governor more recent­ ly backed away from Pigeon after reports surfaced in late 2014 and into 2015 that Pigeon was under investigation. Sourc­ es over the months have said that telephone calls made by Western New York executives to those on Cuomo’s executive chamber staff were greeted – sometimes jokingly, sometimes not – with a unified fir t re­ sponse ensuring that the calls had nothing to do with Pigeon.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is leading the investigation against Pi­ geon and the former judge, has said his probe is ongoing. He is also part of the investigation, along with U.S. Attorney Preet

Bharara, into various economic development projects, includ­ ing a scuttled student dormito­ ry project at SUNY Polytechnic Institute. That project is run by Dr. Alain Kaloyeros, one of Cuo­ mo’s top advisors on upstate job creation efforts. email: tprecious@buffnews.com

Lottery Picks / Winning numbers for Wednesday

N.Y. Evening Number: Lucky Sum: N.Y. Midday Number: Lucky Sum:

292 13 558 18

Win Four Evening: Lucky Sum: Win Four Midday: Lucky Sum:

6887 29 5059 19

Take Five not available Pick 10: 1 3 7 9 11 12 15 16 26 27 32 38 48 55 65 68 70 71 73 74 N.Y. Lotto not available Powerball not available Pick 3 Evening: Pick 3 Day: Pick 4 Evening: Pick 4 Day:

688 249 8942 8407

Late numbers for Tuesday Take Five

17 23 28 35 39

Mega Millions: 6 8 22 46 68 Mega Ball: 4 Megaplier: x4 These numbers are unofficial.

For official New York Lottery results go to buffalo.com/lottery or your lottery retailer.

A6

The Buffalo News/Sunday, July 17, 2016

The Albright-Knox project

The recently opened Pierre Lassonde Pavilion in Quebec City, designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, sits at the edge of a large city park on the campus of the Quebec Museum of Fine Arts. Though reactions to the new space have been mixed, with some disliking its modern design, others welcome the museum’s jump into the future.

Hint of Albright-Knox plan seen in Quebec Buffalo gallery will be designed with an eye toward welcoming the public and riffing on natural space

By Colin Dabkowski

Q

Tempered excitement

N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

UEBEC CITY, Canada – At the edge of a park on the St. Lawrence River, a trio of stacked glass rectangles emerges from the ground like a Tetris block dropped from the sky.

The terraces of the fir t two tiers are covered in native plants that mimic the surrounding landscape.

Viewed from above, the structure looks like someone slipped an enormous car jack into the earth and lifted up the park to make room for the building.

The Quebec National Museum of Fine Arts’ new Pierre Lassonde Pavilion, designed by Shohei Shige­ matsu of the Offi e for Metropolitan Architecture, doesn’t just mirror the park; it’s actually made of the park.

And though the results will be different, Shigematsu said he hopes to take an even more organic approach in Buffalo, where he will lead the design of the largest cultural building project in the city’s history: an $80 million expansion of the Albright­ Knox Art Gallery in Delaware Park.

The Quebec museum’s location within a park in a city saturated with history, as well as the patchwork of heritage buildings that surrounds it, makes the museum a relevant test case for the Albright­Knox project. The museum also had a similar budget – about 100 million Canadian dollars to the Albright­Knox’s target of $80 million. And it had a similar goal to double the museum’s gallery space.

The Quebec museum expansion defers more to its surroundings, in comparison to some of the fi m’s more high­profile projects. This seems to have less to do with the ego of the architects or the museum staff who worked together to conceive it, and more with sending a message to the public: Come hang out with us. We have cool stuff.

“The most iconic move we made together with the museum was to make the museum very transparent, because museums tend to be closed and introverted boxes,” Shigematsu said in his remarks to artists and media during a preview of the space last week.

“So the art is not just about viewing, but it’s a catalyst to connect people to nature and between new and old.”

In Quebec’s case, the old includes the St. Dominique church, whose monastery was demolished to make way for the building in 2011. It also includes a hulking Beaux Arts temple, which opened in 1933, a converted 18th­century prison and a central glass pavilion added in 1991.

Toward transparency

If civic architecture is an expres­ sion of a city’s aspirations, the new pavilion is evidence of Quebec City’s resolve to step outside of its history.

It’s also evidence of a move toward public openness – also a desire of

Quebec Museum of Fine Arts

The new Quebec Museum of Fine Arts in Quebec City, Canada, is the first North American museum designed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

OMA’s second will be the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, which in June chose the firm and its New York-based architect Shohei Shigematsu to design the gallery’s first major expansion in more than 50 years.

The Quebec project, which opened in late June, is a useful test case for the Albright-Knox because of its many similarities to Buffalo’s flagship museum: It sits at the edge of a popular park. It was built on a tight budget of $100 million. And, like the Albright-Knox, its main goals were to double the museum’s gallery space and present a more welcoming attitude to the community.

Albright­Knox leaders.

Along the city’s Grande Allée, the ceiling of the uppermost step fl ats more than 30 feet above the heads of pedestrians, who have been casting curious looks at the building and its dramatic atrium since the project broke ground in 2013.

The building’s airy indoor plaza – featuring a cantilever more than 80 feet high, as well as a restaurant and seating areas for visitors – grew out of the museum’s desire to integrate more directly into the city. It also grew out of citizens’ appetite for more public­ friendly architecture.

“It’s the capital of Quebec, having a lot of authoritarian concrete buildings that were built in the 1970s and ’80s,” Shigematsu said in an interview.

“People had a lot of negative reac­ tions to those. So just by conceiving a museum in glass, they were so happy because they never, ever wanted to see another solid building.”

While the building appears solid from certain angles, its interior spaces are shot through with transparent elements.

On the uppermost tier, northern light fi ters through semi­opaque glass into the museum’s new gallery for Inuit art. The gallery’s function – to display the recent emergence of Inuit sculpture in an atmosphere bathed in northern light – was part of the design process from the start, according to the museum’s curator of early art, Daniel Drouin.

Elsewhere, windows have been punched out in strategic locations to give visitors views of the park and city that look like landscape paintings. A rectangular staircase that connects all three levels pops out of the side of the building, giving park visitors glimpses into the space and making museum visitors feel as if they are fl ating from one exhibition to the next.

Shigematsu said the exterior looks “almost too simple,” but that simplicity dissolves when you enter the building.

“When you are inside, you notice the kind of richness of the interior space but also the richness of the context with very simple means like windows,” Shigematsu said. “It didn’t take too much of an architectural move to actually refl ct the context into the building.”

Shigematsu’s trademark lies in the simple gesture that solves a client’s problem in a few graceful strokes.

“A bold move for me is not about a spectacular move, but a very clear move that really fixes the problem in a single or a couple of steps that are so robust that the concept will not be hindered by materiality or minor changes in the future that always happen in architecture,” he said.

Project parallels

The design and construction of the new pavilion came with challenges.

Line Ouellet, director of the museum since 2011, said controversy about the project was most intense during its fir t phase, long before the fir t shovel touched ground.

Quebec residents were concerned with the cost and feared it might upset the balance of the campus.

And they were angry that the plan involved demolishing a historic monastery, one that museum leaders deemed architecturally inferior.

That characterization didn’t sit well with the more than 1,000 resi­ dents who signed a petition against the demolition. The leader of the campaign, architect Phyllis Lambert, wrote in a letter to former museum director John Porter that the deci­ sion sent “a negative message about heritage preservation,” according to the Montreal Gazette.

Those concerns dissipated, Ouellet said, as the museum worked to demon­ strate its vision for the project through public exhibitions and events. Starting in 2010, it organized a show featuring models and renderings from all of the architectural fi ms on its list.

“The fir t stages were very difficult,” she said. “The more we had to show to the population, the easier it became.”

The Albright­Knox, by contrast, is only beginning the conceptual design phase with OMA and Shigematsu.

Renderings and models will not be publicly released until at least next year, as Albright­Knox board Presi­ dent Thomas R. Hyde has argued that it would make no sense to publicize concepts the museum “has no inten­ tion of building.”

While Albright­Knox leaders have not released any plans, they have downplayed the architectural impor­ tance of the gallery’s Clifton Hall.

That building, designed by E.B. Green and later modifi d to obscure much of its exterior character, seems a likely candidate for the wrecking ball.

During the construction process in Quebec City, the design changed based on budget and space concerns.

An original interior staircase was moved to the outside to make way for a strong, copper­plated column that contains the building’s elevator. Pricey fl or tiles were scrapped in favor of cheaper local granite. The limited budget didn’t allow for extensive testing of the glass, so OMA and the museum had to hope for the best.

But, Ouellet said, they were never worried.

“When you have such a high­qual­ ity studio like OMA, you must know that for them, it is their specialty to envision every small detail in order to make them at their best,” she said.

“They will never let you go.”

In Quebec, as in any historic city contending with an infusion of contemporary architecture, reaction to the new building is mixed.

During the opening week, which culminated with a public opening and a visit from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the sense of excite­ ment about the building was palpable.

Even airport passport agents were spreading word about the project to visitors.

On Thursday morning, passers­by slowed to peer into the building’s lobby.

“I’ve watched the evolution and I love it,” neighborhood resident Francine Labrecque said. “I think it is a great equilibrium between the past and the future … It was not an easy project, but they worked a lot on it. It takes a vision to do that, to have an equilibrating perspective. It’s really contemporary, and that’s OK. We are in our time.”

Another neighborhood resident who gave only his fir t name, Claude, was less impressed, but left open the possibility that he would change his mind.

“For me, it’s medium,” he said.

“Maybe when I see inside. But actu­ ally, actually medium. Not bad, not good, but medium.”

Same goals

While Shigematsu’s Quebec project bears similarities to his task at the Albright­Knox, there are differences.

The slice of Delaware Park in which the gallery sits is a smaller and more challenging site than Quebec’s enormous Battlefi lds Park. The presence of Gordon Bunshaft’s 1962 addition next to E.B. Green’s 1905 neoclassical building already creates a dichotomy between new and old, likely calling for a different kind of architecture.

And, perhaps most importantly, the architect and gallery staff already agree that the narrow corridors of Bunshaft’s building may no longer serve the gallery’s collection.

“You can’t preserve something that is not working,” Shigematsu said, stressing that he does not know what form the Albright­Knox expansion will take. “Let’s make it work fir t and then preserve it.”

For Ouellet and the staff of the Quebec museum, their new building represents not only an opportunity to display more of the museum’s vast collection, but to send a new invita­ tion to the residents of its home city.

The goal in Buffalo is the same, though the results will probably differ.

“It’s a new defin tion. It’s really welcoming. We are seeing architec­ ture in another manner,” Ouellet said.

“But it’s still top­rank, like churches were. This is the standard you are looking for.” email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

SolarCity should start making solar tiles this summer

Tesla says business slowdown was intentional to change over to new products

| PAGE B7

CITY&REGION The Buffalo News

Stanley Evans • Deputy Managing Editor 849­4444 • sevans@buffnews.com

SECTION

B

Thursday, May 4, 2017

Moratorium is sought on more game parking sites Residents air complaints to board in Orchard Park

By Barbara O’Brien N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

source:Art, a local art consortium that repre­ sents Rogovin’s estate in Western New York.

Collins and Resource:Art worked with Rogovin’s son Mark to coordinate the project.

He will speak at a VIP preview party for the exhibition tonight.

“My parents, Anne and Milton, always talked about giving back to the community, and they didn’t talk about it like they wanted to give $50 back to a neighborhood or $1,000

Some homeowners around the Buf­ falo Bills’ stadium in Orchard Park have made a small fortune for decades sell­ ing parking spots in their driveways and front yards to Bills fans.

Some charge fans $10 to $25 per car to park on their properties on game days.

But spurred by complaints from res­ idents that more lots are popping up in residential areas, Town Board mem­ bers Wednesday night were considering whether to place a moratorium on the expansion of parking facilities within a mile of New Era Field. The meeting in­ cluded a public hearing.

The “satellite parking lots” that al­ ready exist would not be affected. But homeowners and owners of other private parking lots would not be allowed to in­ crease their footprint or the number of cars they park, or create parking lots at sites where they have not existed before.

“Our intention would be to respect everybody’s rights, business or private property,” Councilman Michael J. Sherry said.

Residents of Oakwood Drive, a small street between Abbott Road and Bills Drive, recently told the board they were concerned that a house on their street had been purchased with the intention of tearing it down and turning it into a parking lot. They submitted a petition opposing that at the April 5 board meet­ ing. Town offi ials said Wednesday that the house has been demolished.

See Mural on Page B2

See Parking on Page B2

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

Larger-than-life images from Milton Rogovin’s renowned portraits are the focus of new West Side mural by public artist Max Collins on Massachusetts Avenue. The panel, one of three, is part of a project with students from the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology.

Rogovin’s Buffalo spirit writ large Murals celebrating documentary photographer’s sense of community go up on East and West sides to coincide with a new exhibition of his work

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

In a career that spanned half a century, Milton Rogovin made powerful portraits of hundreds of Buffalo residents at home, on city streets and in churches, factories and bars.

Although few fi ures in the history of Western New York art loom larger than Rog­ ovin, the famous documentary photogra­ pher’s work has been difficult to fi d in Buf­ falo since his death in 2011 at age 101.

That changed this week with the installa­ tion of two larger­than­life murals based on Rogovin’s portraits on the city’s West and East sides.

The project, headed by photographer and public artist Max Collins and completed with the help of students from the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology, or BCAT, also fea­ tures an exhibition and sale of rare Rogovin prints opening Friday in the center’s lobby at 1221 Main St. The exhibition and murals, titled “Community,” were organized by Re­

City schools balance next year’s budget

Rod Watson COMMEN TA RY

Sheriff’s jail terminology is distortion

Projected $10.2 million deficit is eliminated

By Jay Rey and Tiffany Lankes N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER S

Club.

More rain has fallen since March 1 – 12.03 inches as of Tuesday – than in any other spring in Buffalo’s history dating from 1870.

That’s too much water for many fi lds used for high school spring sports, or for adult recreation leagues, to drain off.

And a number of the area’s golf courses are in a similar boat.

At Grover Cleveland, the Erie County­owned course in Buffalo, up to 6 to 8 inches of water cov­ ered at least four of the 18 holes, said Daniel J. Rizzo, commissioner of the county Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry.

Grover Cleveland won’t open for a week or two. The Buffalo Tournament Club in Lancaster

It took some trimming – a few million dollars here, a half­million dollars there – but the Buffalo Public Schools have closed a projected $10.2 million defi it and come up with a balanced budget for next year.

The gap was closed in large part by coordinating the start times at some schools under receivership, allowing Su­ perintendent Kriner Cash to make that move unilaterally and save more than $4 million next year, according to district offi ials.

The district also made cuts in travel and overtime for next year, as well as in other discretionary funding outside the classroom, said Geoffrey Pritchard, chief fi ancial offi er for the school system.

In addition, the district is negotiating with BlueCross BlueShield to increase the rebate the district gets on prescrip­ tion drugs, Pritchard said.

“It’s a lot of little things that balance it out,” Pritchard said, during a presenta­ tion to the School Board on Wednesday.

The schools plan to use $22 million of their reserve fund, including money that was set aside to settle labor agreements, including the new Buffalo Teachers Fed­ eration contract.

The district also got a commitment from Mayor Byron W. Brown to increase school funding from the City of Buffalo – which has stayed at a fl t $70.3 million for the past decade – by a half­million dollars next year.

The mayor this week promised the

See Golf courses on Page B2

See Schools on Page B5

S

ometimes, fancy verbiage is merely annoying.

Just ask those of a certain age who remember when pitchers had speed and control, not velocity and location; when running backs got a gain or a loss, not positive or negative yardage; and when inside the 20 was just inside the 20, before it became color­coded.

But at other times, words have life and death implications – as well as political consequences if you’re an elected offi ial overseeing a jail system best known for its suicides.

Or make that “individual inmate disturbances,” the fancy – and totally misleading – term that Erie County Sheriff Timothy Howard’s department uses to keep the state in the dark when inmates attempt to take their own lives.

In one especially egregious example at the Correctional Facility, an inmate tied a noose made from bed linen around his neck and attached the other end to a cell fi ture. He was found passed out on the fl or, ashen­faced and unable to breath before being revived.

Despite the fact that all of those involved called it a suicide attempt, the jail’s formal report to the state Commis­ sion of Correction, which oversees jails, used the obfuscating “inmate distur­ bance” language.

This deliberate bureaucratic See Watson on Page B2

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

Dan Johnston, greenskeeper for Erie County, traverses soggy Grover Cleveland Golf Course, normally open by now, which remains closed due to flooding from the relentless spring rain.

Region’s rain-saturated courses leave golfers holding the bag

By Stephen T. Watson N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Conditions at many Buffalo­area golf courses are ideal for geese – and fi h – but not for golfers.

The heavy rains that have lashed the region since March have fl oded fairways, fi led bunkers and created new, unwanted water hazards.

The soggy weather has forced a number of courses to close down for days at a time, prompt­ ed others to ban golf carts from their fairways and, in the case of Grover Cleveland Golf Course, kept it from opening at all.

“We could have stocked it with fi h,” said Jef­ frey P. Ehlers, director of Youth, Parks and Rec­ reation for the Town of Tonawanda, referring to the several feet of water that surged Monday on the 15th fairway at the town’s Sheridan Park Golf

INSIDE: Lotteries / Page B2 • Local News / Page B3 • Obituaries / Page B4

B2

The Buffalo News/Thursday, May 4, 2017

Continued from the Cover

Urban artist hopes that ‘this is the beginning of a long series’ MURAL • from B1 back,” Mark Rogovin, who looks af­ ter his father’s estate, said in a phone interview from his home in Chicago.

“They wanted to help strengthen com­ munities.”

On the West Side, where Rogovin was often seen toting his camera from house to house, a long red fence in a community lot owned by PUSH Buffa­ lo features an excerpt from his famous “Lower West Side Triptychs” series.

The trio of portraits, photographed over more than 20 years, shows a smil­ ing young mother and her daughter in three distinct phases of their lives.

A wall at The Foundry, a studio and workshop space for artisans at 298 Northampton St., features a partly com­ pleted mural based on two portraits from Rovogin’s steelworker series. One shows a female welder, and the other the samewomanathomewithhertwosons.

The planned completion of the mural was delayed by Monday’s rain­ storm, but students from BCAT will work with Collins to fin sh the low­ er section sometime in the next few weeks. As part of the project, many of those students have also been working on their own projects based on Rogov­ in’s street photography in a class led by Buffalo photographer Michael Mulley.

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

Max Collins’ three-section mural on Massachusetts Avenue includes this panel based on portraits that famed documentarian Milton Rogovin photographed over more than 20 years in “Lower West Side Triptychs” series.

Collins, who conducted workshops with BCAT fi e arts and photography students in preparation for the mu­ rals, said he has long contemplated a

GOLF COURSES • from B1 has been closed since Sunday.

And Hamburg’s Eighteen Mile Creek Golf Course was closed Tuesday and Wednesday.

“There’s just nowhere for the water to go,” said Scott E. Marble, golf professional at the Buffalo Tournament Club.

The managers of the area’s golf courses are used to dealing with less­than­ideal weather conditions – too much rain, not enough rain, frost, extended heat waves.

But this spring’s near­bib­ Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News lical rains have at times over­ whelmed the courses’ drainage At Grover Cleveland Golf Course, Dan Johnston, greenskeeper for Erie County, operates a pump to remove water systems.

Grover Cleveland, located at from area of fifth hole. Flooding has kept the course closed.

Main Street and Bailey Avenue, opened last year in late April. evation. The course did close 2009.

This year, crews never had a twice during the heaviest rains, The course opened this year chance to get the course ready reopening the next day, and it on April 17, but it had to close to open because it was so sat­ has played for the most part for one day last week and it closed urated from the unrelenting walkers only to avoid carts cre­ again Tuesday and Wednesday rain, Rizzo said, with some ating ruts in the course, Rizzo of this week. holes covered in new “lakes.” said.

“Our elevated greens are “The Canada geese were The Buffalo Tournament almost underwater,” Sulli­ fl ating in it,” he said.

Club opened for the season van said, adding, “It really just Maintenance crews made April 10 and was open as re­ turns into a temporary lake.” progress last week pumping cently as Sunday morning, Course employees know out the fairways, but then the when it had 30 golfers on the that if there’s heavy rain in the latest storms that came over course, Marble said. But the area, the creek will fl od half the weekend and earlier this fir t group only got as far as the an hour or an hour later. week set them back again, Riz­ sixth tee when the rain got too But the course typically can zo said. heavy for play to continue, he open the next day, or two days The worst spots on the said, and the course has been later, Sullivan said. The only course are the fairways on closed since. problem is when the surging holes 5, 6, 7 and 13, which are The course could have creek waters bring logs, limbs toward the back of the course opened for walkers, or for golf and silt onto the course that near Buffalo Veterans Affairs cart use on its cart paths only, have to be cleared, as well.

Medical Center. but Buffalo Tournament Club And the weather conditions “Generally, that is a lower prefers not to put those restric­ play a factor, too. “We’re just area of the course,” Rizzo said. tions on its golfers. taking it day by day,” Sullivan On Tuesday, County Execu­ Now, there is as much as an said. tive Mark C. Poloncarz tweeted, inch of water pooled on some The Town of Tonawan­ “Just toured Grover Cleveland holes, and a dispiriting forecast da closed both of its courses, GC with @ErieCountyParks for the rest of the week. Marble Sheridan Park and Brighton, staff. It isn’t pretty. Might be said he’s hoping to reopen Mon­ Tuesday, but reopened them weeks before it opens due to the day.

Wednesday for walkers only, ‘new’ lakes.”

If any course is used to Ehlers said.

Crews have to wait for help fl oding, it’s the one with Eigh­ “The ground is obviously from a couple of straight days teen Mile Creek in its name. moist,” he said. “We don’t let of windy, warm and sunny con­ “We live and die by that golf carts out.” ditions before they can fi ish creek,” said Luke T. Sullivan, Reopening was an impres­ pumping out the fairways. a recreation supervisor for the sive feat considering the sea Elma Meadows, the coun­ Town of Hamburg, which oper­ of water that washed onto the ty’s other golf course, opened ates the course.

15th fairway at Sheridan Park, for the season about two weeks Sullivan said the course on rising by as much as 10 feet to ago and has not had fl od­ Boston State Road fl ods a cou­ the top of a bridge that carries ing issues, because that course ple of times in a typical year, golf carts over a creek, Ehlers has a different grade and el­ with the most severe in August estimated.

Offi e doesn’t call suicide attempts what they actually are, or follow the state’s defin tion for reporting them. Nevertheless, sheriff’s offi ials claim to be mind readers, able to determine, for instance, that the uncon­ scious, nonbreathing inmate with the bed linen around his neck was just engaged in a ruse to get a cell upgrade.

In other words, the inmate was acting. Appar­ ently, it was a role to die for.

But that’s par for the course for Howard’s depart­ ment, which initially fought the state and feds at every turn to avoid forced improve­ ment, and now has found a new strategy: hiding the truth.

Yet Howard continues to get re­elected, largely on the strength of his opposition to the state’s horrendous SAFE Act. But given that most licensed gun owners are law­abiding people, enforcing the SAFE Act is a minuscule part of his job compared with ensuring the safety of those who enter the county’s jails.

When he seeks re­election this fall, Howard undoubt­ edly will bill himself as a law enforcement leader – which would just continue his offi e’s practice of misusing language.

Issue affects ‘people’s quality of life’ PARKING • from B1

BU-1314508

mumbo­jumbo meant that state monitors had no idea what was really going on in one of Howard’s jails, even though the county’s troubled lockups had been under state and federal oversight for years.

This is the same outfit that also told the commis­ sion that it was an accident when one inmate fractured another’s skull last fall, even after the victim had warned jail staff that his attacker was out to get him.

But don’t get the idea that assaults are occur­ ring in Howard’s jails. No, borrowing from the sheriff’s thesaurus, I’m sure this was just an example of “internal altercation resolution.”

And who can forget the infamous fli ht of Ralph “Bucky” Phillips from the Correctional Facility, or the Holding Center inmate who walked out through an unlocked door, making it to the roof and causing a downtown commotion?

But don’t call these “escapes.” My guess is they were just “unforeseen resident excursions.”

It’s clear why the Sheriff’s

Triptychs.”

“There’s something beautifully simple to the whole format of the trip­ tychs. I remember seeing that and

‘Elevated greens are almost underwater’

Language abuse tries to mask truth WATSON • from B1

project based on Rogovin’s work. His interest in the photography began as a child, when he would page through his mother’s copy of “Lower West Side

thinking of it almost as a storybook,” Collins said. “There’s kind of a popu­ list vein in his process, whom he pho­ tographed and the content of his work that I felt aligned very much with my own intentions as an artist wanting to do public work.”

Collins and Rogovin said they hoped the project would be the fi st in a new wave of recognition for Mil­ ton Rogovin’s work, which chronicled the lives of working people and mar­ ginalized communities in Buffalo and around the world.

Collins’ work is temporary by na­ ture – meaning that the paper on which it is printed will disintegrate and blow away within a year or so. But he sees that as an opportunity.

“I’m hoping that this is the begin­ ning of a longer series,” Collins said. “I think these could exist elsewhere, and obviously these aren’t going to last for­ ever. I think this fi s in nicely as Buf­ falo is progressing and transforming at this seemingly rapid rate.”

Mark Rogovin said, “I think it will show off the communities, the people and it’ll lead to something else. Even­ tually, along the line, there will be oth­ er students, other photographers who will keep doing similar projects.”

The BCAT exhibition, featuring 25 signed Rogovin prints, runs through May 25.

Sherry said that there has been an increase in recent years in the number of satellite parking lots near New Era Field and that the town continues to receive complaints from neigh­ bors about parking on game days. “It obviously impacts peo­ ple’s quality of life who live in that area,” he said. “It can affect the value of people’s homes. We need to take all those issues into consideration.”

Last year, the town consid­ ered, and then abandoned, a proposal to require owners of private parking lots around

New Era Field to apply for per­ mits that would let police on their properties during events at the fi ld, allowing for quick response to public safety issues.

Police Chief Mark F. Pacho­ lec said that many of the issues related to drunkenness, row­ dyism and fi hting, as well as thefts, that occur at the larger private lots, not the “mom­and­ pop” lots on residential streets.

“Typically, those types of neigh­ borhood lots … (are) not where we see the problems,” he said.

Pacholec said the town is developing a plan to deal with unruly fans. The owners of lots parking 10 to 20 cars don’t usu­ ally have a problem, he said.

“If they have something get out of hand, they give us a call,” Pacholec said.

Sherry said the board wants to assess the issue and receive feedback from the town’s Com­ prehensive Plan Implementa­ tion Committee. It’s possible that the town might require private lots to obtain a permit for parking, as required of busi­ nesses.

“The stadium, it’s been here a long time, and it certainly im­ pacts our community. The way it impacts changes over time,” Sherry said, adding that the town expects to resolve the is­ sue before the start of this foot­ ball season.

On Tuesday, Town of Tonawanda Supervisor Joseph H. Emminger tweeted, “This is the 15th Fairway at Sheridan yesterday; I’m happy to report it will be OPEN tomorrow (no carts) due to the gr8 work of the town crews.”

The courses have been open for most of the season since April 19, but employees have asked patrons for their under­ standing. Crews have not been able to groom them to the de­ gree they normally would be­ cause driving equipment onto them would damage the cours­ es, Ehlers said.

As for what the town is do­ ing now, Ehlers said, “We live on the Weather Channel.”

One person in the area who actually wants more wet weather is Michele L. Litwin, manager of The Dome, the en­ closed driving range former­ ly known as the Wehrle Golf Dome in Clarence, and owner of its pro shop.

This time of year, golfers who are itching to swing their clubs after a long winter break from the game turn to The Dome when their courses are water­logged, Litwin said.

She said The Dome, which reopened in February follow­ ing extensive renovations, has seen an uptick in business on the recent soggy spring days compared to days earlier in the spring when the temperatures were in the 70s and 80s.

The Dome also has had some foursomes come over to hit golf balls and eat food af­ ter fi ding out wet conditions forced cancellation of a tee time at their course.

“We couldn’t be happier,” Li­ twin said.

Lottery Picks / Winning numbers for Wednesday

N.Y. Evening Number: Lucky Sum: N.Y. Midday Number: Lucky Sum: Win Four Evening: Lucky Sum: Win Four Midday: Lucky Sum:

045 9 266 14 5928 24 3681 18

Take Five not available Pick 10: 6 16 17 19 21 22 24 25 31 34 35 39 51 53 62 63 65 71 74 79 N.Y. Lotto not available Powerball not available Pick 3 Evening: Pick 3 Day: Pick 4 Evening: Pick 4 Day:

762 275 2109 2270

Late numbers for Tuesday Take Five

5 10 16 33 38

Mega Millions: 5 14 42 43 58 Mega Ball: 1 Megaplier: X4 These numbers are unofficial.

For official New York Lottery results go to buffalo.com/lottery or your lottery retailer.

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Movies • Music • Books • Advice • Society • Lifestyle

SPOTLIGHT Elizabeth Kahn, Assistant Managing Editor 849-5576 • ekahn@buffnews.com

SECTION

G Sunday, March 4, 2007

The Buffalo News

SALE OF THE CENTURIES Antiquities are heading to auction, and the Albright-Knox is buried in criticism.

What will it all mean when the dust settles?

A rare limestone figure of the Buddhist savior Maitreya from 6th century China, valued at $300,000 to $500,000, is one of 207 items to be auctioned by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery this year. Inset above, a black Punu mask from Africa, valued at $400,000 to $600,000.

By Colin Dabkowski N E W S

A R T S

W R I T E R

F

or an extremely rare and famous classical statue, “Artemis and the Stag” has seen its share of warehouses.

It sat in storage for more than 30 years after its discovery, and then was shown only sporadically after the Albright­ Knox Art Gallery acquired it in 1953. The classical bronze statue — by far the most well­known piece in a group of more than 200 antiquities that will be auctioned over the next few months — has become a symbol of the gallery’s deaccession plans.

The crown jewel of the items to be auctioned, “Artemis and the Stag,” is a late Hellenistic/early Roman statue of the goddess of the hunt with an estimated value of between $5 million and $7 million.

The term “deaccession” doesn’t roll off the tongue easily. It de­ scribes a museum’s sale of art to raise funds for the purchase of new work, but it means very little to those uninvolved in studying or col­ lecting art.

Since the term was uttered pub­ licly in November by Albright­Knox Director Louis Grachos, however, it has been a point of contention, not to mention confusion, for many Western New Yorkers.

With all the fury and accusations flying back and forth in the media between supporters of the selloff and its opponents, an important question remains: How will this

sale of works, most of which have been kept in storage for at least the last decade, affect the world­class gallery on Elmwood Avenue and the community it serves?

The gallery’s board and director back deaccessioning in order to in­ crease the museum’s endowment and therefore focus its mission on more modern and contemporary art.

Experts say that in the context of modern museum deaccessions, this one is relatively high­profile.

“There’s buzz on two fronts,” said Karol Wight, acting curator of antiq­ uities for the J. Paul Getty Museum See Deaccession Page G2

“For people who are interested in incredibly rare works of art like the Artemis, this is an incredible opportunity.”

Karol Wight, acting curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum

“This isn’t one of those things where the entire collection is being lost.”

Sandra Olsen, the University at Buffalo Art Galleries director

“My major problem is that the Albright-Knox now has ceased to be, for me, a teaching tool.”

Livingston Watrous, UB art history professor

Art photos courtesy of Sotheby’s; Wight photo courtesy of J.Paul Getty Trust

What’s inside today’s Spotlight Music

Books

Columns

Also inside …

Natalie MacMaster is fit as a fiddle and coming to UB. Page G3.

Irish writer Colm Toibin’s latest is reminiscent of James Joyce. Page G5.

Miss Manners addresses a wedding etiquette question. Page G10.

Complete movie listings. Page G6.

Reviews of the latest CD releases. Page G8.

Radio highlights. Page G9. Poetry Page. Page G14.

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G2

The Buffalo News / Sunday, March 4, 2007

Spotlight: Art LOUIS GRACHOS, ALBRIGHT-KNOX DIRECTOR:

“Interesting contemporary art has become very aggressive … It’s our job to make sure that we bring what we feel are the strongest artists into the collection.”

Deaccessioning is a tradeoff for art lovers A necessary evil

DEACCESSION • From G1 in Los Angeles, which has one of the largest collections of antiquities in the United States. Wight said the sale is noteworthy because of the range of historical periods and cul­ tures represented and the unparal­ leled quality of the objects them­ selves.

“For people who are interested in incredibly rare works of art like the Artemis, this is an incredible oppor­ tunity,” Wight said.

And there will be plenty of inter­ est. According to Wight, Sotheby’s sent packets on the Albright­Knox offerings early this year to major museums. Bidders are expected from the Getty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, representing the three largest collections of antiquities in the United States.

Many objects are just as likely, however, to end up in the homes of wealthy private collectors, a prospect that has added fury to the sale’s mounting opposition.

Quelling concerns Deaccessioning has been stan­ dard practice in American institu­ tions for decades. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, for instance, deaccessions hundreds of pieces of art annually to little fanfare.

But some deaccession practices are less standard than others. Muse­ ums have come under fire for selling artworks to rescue themselves from debt, to upgrade their facilities, or for selling works of art deeply cher­ ished by the community.

In 1988, the New­York Historical Society attempted to avoid bank­ ruptcy by selling dozens of old mas­ ter paintings and other objects. A huge public outcry resulted in a pared­down sale that was mediated by the state attorney general.

In Philadelphia last year, the com­ munity revolted when Thomas Jeffer­ son University attempted to sell its Thomas Eakins masterpiece “The Gross Clinic” for $68 million. A major fundraising campaign has so far raised $37 million, allowing the paint­ ing to remain in Philadelphia thanks to a loan from a concerned bank.

In the eyes of Sandra Olsen, the University at Buffalo Art Galleries director, the Albright­Knox sale is not nearly so ethically questionable, nor so worthy of controversy.

“This isn’t one of those things where the entire collection is being lost,” Olsen said.

One item up for auction, Olsen said, is a Navajo blanket that the museum does not have the expertise to exhibit, much less properly han­ dle. “There’s no one on their staff who would know how it should be stored or displayed. That’s a good reason they shouldn’t really be hold­ ing these things, and my question is, ‘Who accepted them and why?’ ” The gallery has tried to quell con­ cerns about the sale by noting that most of the objects on the auction block were gifts. In fact, only about a third of the 33 items listed in a high­ lights catalog published by Sotheby’s were gifts. The rest entered the gallery as purchases initiated by var­ ious directors and curators, accord­ ing to the catalog.

Still, after the 207 items are sold, the museum won’t look much differ­ ent than it has since 2003, when Grachos was hired to reinvigorate the museum’s exhibitions. The gallery has not exhibited most of the works for many years.

A broken link The sale is a tough tradeoff for art lovers of different stripes. As many opposed to the sale have pointed out, the historical context provided by many of the works up for sale will be lost as a local educa­ tional resource, while the gallery’s international reputation as a great collector of modern art stands to benefit.

The opposition counts among its most vocal members several faculty members at the University at Buffa­ lo and elsewhere, including UB art history professor Livingston Wa­ trous.

For Watrous, the problem lies not in the sale of these specific items, but what he sees as a gradual abandon­ ment of the museum’s educational responsibility to the community.

A 17th century bronze sculpture of the head of a king from the Benin Empire of Africa, valued at $1 million to $1.5 million.

A marble sculpture of a seated Roman poet from about 50 B.C. Valued at $125,000 to $175,000.

Two panels from Giovanni del Biondo’s painting of the Archangel Gabriel and the Virgin Mary. Estimated value is $150,000 to $200,000.

A mummy portrait of a man from 2nd century Roman Egypt, painted on wood with heated beeswax and pigments.

This image appears in major art history books and Roman art books as a definitive example of the Egyptian tradition of mummy portraits. It is valued at $200,000 to $300,000.

Photos courtesy of Sotheby’s

“My major problem is that the Albright­Knox now has ceased to be, for me, a teaching tool,” said Wa­ trous, who teaches the entry­level art history course at UB to 800 stu­ dents per year.

He used to send his students to see the Artemis sculpture and the famous and much­cited mummy portrait of a young man from the reign of Marcus Aurelius — both of which the gallery is selling. But be­ cause of the new mission and likely future deaccessions of premodern artworks, Watrous added, the link

between old and new has been sev­ ered.

“Essentially, the educational link between the Albright and UB has been broken,” Watrous said.

Olsen, also of UB, disagrees. “It’s an extremely important educational resource,” she said, citing the widely acclaimed 2005 UB/Albright­Knox collaboration “The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art.” Regardless of the gallery’s re­ peated assertions that it is playing by the rules, public outcry over the issue continues to intensify.

A group, dubbed “Buffalo Art Keepers” and led by Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Dennis, formed last month to oppose the sale. In the past two weeks, hearings were held on the issue with the Erie County Legislature and the Buffalo Com­ mon Council, which issued a unani­ mous resolution opposing the sale.

Letters and calls to media organiza­ tions from those opposed to the deaccession have not relented since the gallery’s Nov. 10 announcement.

A court challenge from the Art Keepers group is under way.

Meanwhile, gallery officials con­ tend that this is all a necessary evil.

“The deaccessioning project will mean … we’ll still be in the position in the future to move quickly and acquire important work by artists that we feel are really key to the col­ lection,” Grachos said recently.

The increased endowment, he said, will mean more trips to artists’ studios by the gallery’s curatorial staff, more money to spend on the work of midcareer artists, and an ability to make those purchases and decisions quickly in an art market that is anything but kind to small­ time buyers.

“Interesting contemporary art has become very aggressive,” said Grachos. “Even midcareer artists are now commanding substantial prices. One work could be mid­six figures and high­six figures for artists that have received interna­ tional acclaim but are relatively young. It’s our job to make sure that we bring what we feel are the strongest artists into the collection.”

The gallery’s walls will likely con­ tain a much more rapidly rotating collection of work by of­the­moment artists. Immediately, we are likely to see a continuation of Grachos’ ambi­ tious contemporary art exhibitions.

Grachos has also expressed a desire to fill certain gaps in the early 20th century collection, but that art mar­ ket can be even more competitive than that of living artists. An Ed­ ward Hopper painting — which the collection could use — can cost tens of millions.

Right now, the 207 items on the block (the previous count of 196 grouped some items of Chinese porcelain together) represents less than 3 percent of the gallery’s collec­ tion of more than 6,500 works. The sale is expected to bring a minimum of $15 million, which will be added to the museum’s current endow­ ment of about $59 million. Board president Charles Banta said in a re­ cent interview that the $15 million figure is a low estimate and that ac­ tual revenues from the sale could reach three times that number.

The endowment, which is expect­ ed to grow each year as it earns in­ vestment returns, is drawn on by the gallery at a rate of 5 percent per year to purchase new art. The en­ dowment currently makes available $22 million exclusively for the pur­ chase of new artworks, and the money from the auction would go directly into the fund for restricted art. For example, if this sale yields the high estimate of $45 million, the gallery’s budget for acquiring new art would immediately triple to $67 million, or about $3.3 million per year from its current $1.1 million.

With the exception of fiscal years 2001­2004, the endowment has grown every year since 1983, and Banta stressed that he expects that trend to continue for generations to come.

As the gallery tries to compete with institutions in wealthier com­ munities like the Museum of Mod­ ern Art in New York City (with a $650 million endowment), the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles (which draws from a $5.8 billion en­ dowment) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ($111 mil­ lion), it’s clear that money will not be the lone factor in maintaining and improving its reputation.

“I would say we have extremely good risk management,” said Banta.

Selecting art for the permanent col­ lection “is not like throwing darts,” as some critics have suggested, he said.

But that’s not to say there isn’t a certain amount of luck involved.

In the end, the conflict boils down to two groups making the same argument. Each side believes that Buffalo’s future and reputation is at stake, that either the sale or the lack of it will land yet another blow on a city that has suffered too many already.

“It scares me that certain things have been done without our involve­ ment,” said Albright­Knox member and Buffalo resident Madonna Pri­ ore at a recent Buffalo Common Council hearing. “Our artistic life is as important as the Bills, the Sabres or chicken wings or anything else, even more than a bridge that never got built. Art is central to what we are.” e-mail: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

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Uber pays $98,000 fine over lobbying expenses

Failed to list more than $6 million on New York disclosure reports

| BUSINESS • B7

CITY&REGION The Buffalo News

Stanley Evans • Deputy Managing Editor 849­4444 • sevans@buffnews.com

In Murrell, Buffalo has its first female postmaster

By Stacy Fernández

stand the scope of the job, but my husband is thrilled, he’s excited about the po­ Roselle Murrell’s fir t day as sition,” Murrell said. “And Buffalo postmaster landed on actually being the fir t fe­ her father’s birthday, April 15th. male postmaster, he’s pretty It was a day he will never forget, proud. My whole family is. the day his daughter became The kids, I think tomorrow the fir t woman to hold that po­ it’ll hit them.”

Roselle sition in Buffalo.

Her work in the U.S. Post­ Murrell will be installed as Murrell al Service started off casual­ the 45th postmaster of Buffalo ly in 1995, as a person hired at 12:30 p.m. today at Erie Community to alleviate the extra load of letter sort­ College’s City Campus, a former Buffa­ ing during the winter holiday season. lo post offi e. There to see her sworn in Her position, by defin tion, was tem­ will be about 20 family members, in­ porary, but she took an exam to see if cludingherparents,husband,twosons there was a future for her there. and her sister, who is fl ing in from Right before she was to be let go, Germany, Murrell said.

“I don’t think my kids really under­ See Postmaster on Page B2

SECTION

B

Friday, June 9, 2017

Collins’ ethics issues in spotlight over touting of stock to colleagues

By Jerry Zremski

N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

N E W S WA S H I N G T O N B U R E AU C H I E F

WASHINGTON – Rep. Chris Collins’ political – and perhaps legal – problems may have deepened Thursday, with new revelations that he repeatedly touted an obscure Australian biotech company to other members of the House.

Collins is the largest shareholder in that company, Innate Immunotherapeu­ tics,whichisworkingonanexperimental treatmentforsecondaryprogressivemul­ tiple sclerosis.

AndtheClarenceRepublicanisclearly excited about that company, as The Hill, a Capitol Hill daily, reported that a half­ dozen other House Republicans said they heard Collins touting Innate in either of­

Derek Gee/News fi e photo

Rep. Chris Collins is said to have promoted stock to fellow members of House.

fi ial settings or informal gatherings.

That’s a potential problem for Collins – already the subject of an Offi e of Con­ gressional Ethics investigation – for two reasons: • A federal law prohibits lawmakers from investing in stocks in which they have inside information.

• There is a House rule prohibiting lawmakers from using their office for personal gain.

Democrats were quick to pounce.

Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D­Fairport, who wrote the law barring insider trad­ ing among lawmakers, led the way by sending letters seeking thorough investi­ gations from the ethics offi e, the House See Collins on Page B5

Legislature OKs hiring staff to fight opioid crisis $1 million from savings goes to medical

By Sandra Tan N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

A new toxicologist, scene investiga­ tor, and autopsy and forensic lab techni­ cians are expected to soon join the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Offi e in an effort to better track and address the opioid overdose crisis killing residents at a rate of one per day.

The Erie County Legislature ap­ proved the new positions Thursday as part of a larger effort to spend an addi­ tional $1 million this year from county savingsto confronttheoverdosedeaths.

“I’m proud of what we’re doing here,” said Majority Leader Joseph Lorigo, C­ West Seneca. “I think we’ve all worked together in a collaborative way.”

The Legislature also approved spending $112,721 to purchase 3,000 more potent versions of Narcan, an overdose rescue drug credited with sav­ ing many lives locally.

Currently,theErieCountyHealthDe­ partment distributes the generic, 2­mil­ liliter version Narcan to fir t responders and civilians. The generic nalaxone is provided free of charge through a part­ nership with the New York State De­ partment of Health. But because of the high potency of opioid drugs sold and used in Erie County, emergency person­ nel often fi d they need to use multiple doses to revive overdose victims.

The more powerful 4­milliliter ver­ sion of Narcan recently supplied to Buf­ falo police and fi e personnel in areas with the highest number of overdoses See Opioid on Page B2

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

British artist Shantell Martin poses Monday in front of her mural, “Dance Every Day,” which she painted on a wall of the former Houdaille Industries plant on East Delavan Avenue. The piece, Martin’s largest ever, took her a total of six hours to complete on Saturday and Sunday.

New mural signals Delavan’s rebirth British artist’s work, which adorns a defunct factory on East Delavan Ave., has the neighborhood talking – and Albright-Knox keeping watch

By Colin Dabkowski

B

N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

en Caudle has watched the neighborhood around his sprawling East Delavan Avenue auto shop slide slowly off the economic map during the past 50 years.

When Caudle opened Ben’s Tire Center in 1967, the Houdaille Industries plant across the street employed more than 700 workers. The plant meant easy money for Caudle, whose snowplowing contracts with the company and other East Side plants had dried up by the 1990s.

“We had two payloaders at the time, and

“There is something about it that feels welcoming ... to the point where someone ... (will thank you) because they feel like this is for them.”

Shantell Martin

four trucks, all night and day,” Caudle said as a mechanic clanked away at a 20­year­old Buick in the corner of an otherwise empty garage. “I’d like to see all those plants come back.”

The plants Caudle, now 79, served may not be coming back. But the neighborhood is.

And the fir t signal of that rebirth appeared over the weekend in the form of a new mural by British artist Shantell Martin. The artwork, a network of stark, black line­drawings set against a white backdrop, occupies the 200­foot north­facing wall of the former Houdaille plant.

See Mural on Page B2

INSIDE: Lotteries / Page B2 • Local News / Page B3 • Obituaries / Page B4

KATY PERRY BRINGING TOUR TO KEYBANK CENTER Pop star Katy Perry will bring her “Witness” tour to KeyBank Center later this year, the venue announced Thursday.

Tickets for the Sept.

16 show go on sale at 10 a.m. June 16. A random handbill policy will be in effect and a limited number of handbills are now available, according to the announcement. On June 16, custom­ ers who have handbills will line up one hour prior to the on­sale time in numeri­ cal order. The number on the handbill will have no bearing on a customer’s eventual place in line.

Tickets will range from $50.50 to $130.50. They will be available through tickets.com, at the KeyBank Center box offi e or by calling 888­223­6000.

The tour, which now has 53 dates, will run from Sept. 7 to Feb. 5.

– Aaron Besecker

B2

The Buffalo News/Friday, June 9, 2017

City & Region

Martin’s mural marks a shift in approach for Albright-Knox MURAL • from B1 The gargantuan black­and­white drawing is a signal of things to come for the long­struggling neighborhood: Much of the plant will be demolished as part of a $42 million Buffalo Billion­ funded revamp of the Northland Corridor into a hub for light industry and commerce that is being run by the Buffalo Urban Development Corp.

It is the product of a collabora­ tion between the Albright­Knox Art Gallery’s public art program and the University at Buffalo’s fl dgling Creative Arts Initiative, which funded it with a $60,000 grant.

Martin, whose exhibition in the sculpture court of the Albright­Knox is on view through June 22, is known for her playful style of line­drawing. Her work, which is as improvisational as a Charlie Parker solo, features human faces, shining suns, birdlike charac­ ters and an entire shifting catalogue of symbols that she has developed across her young career.

The piece, Martin’s largest ever, took a grand total of six hours to complete on Saturday and Sunday. In that time, she worked with Buffalo artist Scott Bye and used several cans of spray­ paint to transform the whitewashed

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

“What I do is playful,” says artist Shantell Martin. “I feel like a big kid.

What I do, I love it, and I enjoy it.”

wall into what many are seeing as a joyful refl ction of a neighborhood creaking slowly back to life.

“What I do is playful. I feel like a big kid. What I do, I love it, and I enjoy it,” she said. “And even if I come in in a bad mood, like 10 minutes later, I’m in a really great mood because I’m doing something I love. And I think people should do more of that.”

Though Martin’s work is, fir t

and foremost, an exhibition of her personal style and frame of mind, she sees each piece as a refl ction of the place it was made.

“People were stopping by all day, telling me about their stories, telling me about the neighborhood and how they’ve seen it change,” Martin said on Monday. “There is something about it that feels welcoming and feels acces­ sible, to the point where someone from

...

BRING ’EM BACK – Boy Scout Troop 500 will hold a drive to collect returnable bottles and cans from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday in the school parking lot of St. Mother Teresa Parish at St. James Church, 496 Terrace Blvd., Depew. For more info, call Scoutmaster Bob Harhigh at 812­6553.

...

GOOD TIMES – Pony

rides, a petting zoo , carnival games, crafters and raffles are featured at the third annual Family Fun Fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Bacon Memo­ rial Presbyterian Church, 166 59th St., Niagara Falls. Every­ one gets a free hot dog and beverage from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Pets on leashes and stuffed animals will be blessed at 11:30 a.m., bikes, motorcycles and cars at noon. More than a dozen outreach organizations also will have displays. For more info, call 283­5744.

Meanwhile, St. Francis of Assisi Parish, 70 Adam St., City of Tonawanda, hosts its annual Family Fun Fest from noon to 9 p.m. Saturday, with Krolick’s chicken and other picnic food, kids’ games, a bounce house, a garden booth, a baked goods sale, plus music by Switch Back and Slim Chance. Super Raffle prizes –a 50­inch TV, $250 cash and eight others – will be drawn at 8 p.m.

...

BARGAIN TIME – Dela­ ware Hose holds an indoor fl a market from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday in City of Tonawanda Fire Headquar­ ters, 44 Williams St. For info and tables, call 693­2122.

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Alive with Scleroderma holds its fourth annual baked goods sale from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Sunday in St. John’s Lutheran Church, 67 Litchfield Ave., Depew. There also will be crafts, a basket raffle and other prizes. For info, call Amy Gietzen at 675­8824.

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Murrell got a letter inviting her to an interview for a position in the Medina post offi e as a part­ time flexible clerk. Soon after, she got the job.

Since then, Murrell has served in more than a half dozen postal positions across Western New York including in Buffalo, Darien, Middle­ port, Tonawanda, Lockport and Rochester.

“Ilovedthejob,”Murrellsaid.

“I love talking with the custom­ ers in the community and I love working with the employees and seeing the end result. Like

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watching Grandma pick up her package and seeing her smile.”

The potential difference she could make in customer service in Buffalo was Murrell’s motiva­ tion to apply to be postmaster.

She held the position in smaller offi es but wanted to make an impact on a larger scale.

“I’m just honored to be the postmaster of the city of Buffa­ lo,” Murrell said. “To me, that’s the honor, whether I’m the fi st female, that is just a little added bonus.”

As postmaster, Murrell over­ sees all of the ZIP codes that start with 142, she said. She is respon­ sible for about 270,000 business and residential addresses, retail

service to almost 1.3 million year­ ly Buffalo post offi e visitors and about 650 employees, according to a Postal Service news release.

But, at the end of the day, what matters to Murrell is making sure her employees are working safely, that delivery is reliable, consistent and cost ef­ fi ient, and that her customers are happy.

Like her day­to­day work, her speech today will have oth­ er people at the center.

“It’s a special day because it’s about my team,” Murrell said. “I didn’t get here all on my own.

People helped me get here and I want to make sure they get the credit for that as well.”

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which would be responsible for discharging inmates from the Holding Center to outpatient drug counseling.

Several Democratic legisla­ tors objected to the delay in hir­ ing the additional staff. Among them was Legislator Patrick Burke, D­Buffalo, who initially proposed spending $1 million from county savings to address the opioid crisis. He accused Lorigo of hijacking his broad proposal to give $1 million to the Health Department and said the “watered down” pro­ posal unanimously approved by the Legislature could have been done more simply and quickly under his version.

“This is just another delay,” he said.

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showed better responses from overdose victims, according to the county Health Department.

Meanwhile, the Health De­ partment is also taking advan­ tage of the funding windfall to improve staffi g at its Medical Examiner’s Offi e, which em­ ploys far fewer staffers than either Monroe or Onondaga counties, according to health offi ials.

With the additional staff, administrators say, the offi e will continue to conduct full au­ topsies on suspected overdose cases, address lengthy waits for toxicology testing, and assist law enforcement in pursuing

homicide charges against drug dealers who can be linked to fa­ tal overdoses.

The Legislature also ap­ proved setting aside $500,000 in grant money available to treatment providers and other community agencies. They can apply for the grants to improve access to treatment.

The departments of Men­ tal Health and Corrections had sought funding to hire staff so that Holding Center and Cor­ rectional Facility inmates can gain access to drug treatment after they leave jail. But mem­ bers of the Legislature major­ ity decided to delay that fund­ ing in the short term because of confusion over the need for three additional positions, all of

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Holy Name Society of the Church of the Annunciation, 7580 Clinton St., Elma, hosts a chicken barbecue and theme basket raffle at noon Sunday. $11 adults, $5 kids under 12. For more info, call 683­5254 or visit annunciation.cc.

OPIOID • from B1

BU-1325803

lyric from songwriter Cole Porter, born on this date in 1891, “I get no kick from cham­ pagne/ Mere alcohol doesn’t thrill me at all/ So tell me why should it be true/ That I get a kick out of you.”

Dylan Wojciechowski, Tom Barone, Ryan Miller, Rachel Beerman, Cory Haqq, Chris Krzemien, Dean Millar, Colten Kujawa, Molly Bauer, Diane Klajbor, Olivia Stuckel, Sophie Grzybek, Kayleigh Anne Smith, Alexander Goldberg, Pat Weisenburg, Kathy Szlachetka, Maura Graber and Elaine Myszka.

LICKIN’ GOOD – The

“We’re taking away those barriers, where art is not for you because it’s something I’ve overthought and I’ve gone really deep and dark and I’ve put three curators between me and you,” Martin said. “That’s not necessary. It’s a façade. A lot of it is BS. Let’s just show it for what it is, and walk in and enjoy it and feel it and then leave. And then potentially be inspired to do the same when you get home, in your own way.”

The mural, peppered with vaguely optimistic phrases like “dance every day,” “reach,” “peace,” and “no one else you could be,” also signals a shift for the Albright­Knox. The gallery, with some fi s and starts, is now reaching into communities and neighborhoods where it has long been unknown.

Aaron Ott, the gallery’s public art curator, said that the gallery’s two­ pronged embrace of Martin’s work fl ps the traditional museum approach on its head.

“The work that disappears is the work in the gallery. The work that stays is the work in the community,” said Ott, who worked with UB students to scout the site for this mural and other coming public art projects on the East Side. “Shantell is the real indicator that change is coming, that this is going to be an active space.”

Staff can help police catch dealers

Reporters’ Notebook / Bits and pieces of news …

OLAF FUB SEZ: A favorite

across the road will walk across and introduce themselves and thank you because they feel like this is for them.”

Roosevelt Townsend, 79, a retired welder who lives across the street from the mural on East Delavan, gave the classic undecided answer when asked what he thought of the piece. “It’s different,” he said, “but at least it puts us on the map again.”

Townsend said that it has caused quite a stir in the neighborhood since Martin fin shed it Sunday afternoon.

Like most in the neighborhood, he was quick to reminisce about the good days, when shift workers from the Houdaille plant would crowd his stretch of East Delavan, patronizing businesses that have now been long shuttered, including a car wash and a cookie shop popular with neighbor­ hood kids.

The area, he said, has been “badly neglected,” and he was excited about the plans to redevelop the corridor and potentially turn the neighbor­ hood around.

For Martin, who has collaborated with high­profile artists like Kendrick Lamar and recently branched into fashion and music, the kind of art she creates is designed to be instantly appreciated by everyone – no art history degree required.

Cartagena gets 25 years to life for killing daughter | PAGE B1

.

BUFFALONEWS COM

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Copyright 2014

Serving Western New York since 1880

TasTing pierogi is delicious Task

w n y ed iti on

Bills hope palmer helps solve QB problems. Page D1

taste, Page C1

idea of neighborhood schools returns to education debate

stadium consultants narrow list to four sites Outer Harbor, Falls left out due to transportation issues

By Tom Precious n e w S A L B A n y B U R e AU C H i e f

increasingly, community leaders, Common Council members and School Board members are saying that doesn’t make sense. th ey favor a return to neighborhood schools, particularly in the elementary grades. “if the result is, you get better educat­ ed students, then it’s worth considering,” Radford, president of the dis trict Parent Coordinating Council, said of the cur­ rent school choice model. “But if you bus children to integrate schools that they’re failing in, then what’s the point? no t only is there not any point, but it’s harmful to children.” no t everyone – particularly those who fought to integrate the school system – believes that neighborhood schools are a key to fi ing Buffalo’s education prob­ lems.

But more and more community and elected leaders say that busing children

ALBAny – Consultants have narrowed the list of recommended sites for a new Buffalo Bills stadium to four best sites, and it appears all the fi alists are within er ie County. th e consultants’ report for the Cuomo ad­ ministration is still being fi alized, and it also will lay out the possibility for renovation of Ralph wil son Stadium along the lines of the re­construction at Lambeau fi eld in Green Bay and Arrowhead Sta­ dium in Kansas City, ac­ Bills cording to a source with direct knowledge of the stadium report. options in th e price tag for fur­ ther renovation of the draft report current stadium, depend­ • List of sites ing on the level of gutting narrowed to and reconstruction of the three, possibly bowls, was not revealed four tu esday, though it would • All sites in Erie total several hundred County, at least one near down­ million dollars. th e report’s recom­ town Buffalo mendations obviously • New stadium would be non­binding would hold 65,000 on the next team owner, seats but are meant to serve as • Renovation of a road map for the team Ralph wil son and nf L as they consid­ Stadium part of er various stadium pos­ study sibilities. nf L Commis­ sioner Roger Goodell, in a recent phone call to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, again pressed the desire of nf L owners that a new stadium be built for the Bills after a new owner takes over. th e consultants’ study, which examined 13 potential sites from Batavia to ni agara fa lls to the City of Buffalo and the suburbs, was due to be released in mid­July. it could be further delayed until after the trust of the late Ralph wil son picks a new owner of the team. Sources said there is sensitivity that the state does not want to be seen as interfering or affecting the sale process. “w e are paying really close attention to the sales process, and we do not want the study to throw off anything in that process. it seems like it’s coming to an end, and we’re being con­ scientious of that,” the source said. th e Cuomo administration declined to comment.

See Schools on Page A2

See Stadium on Page A2

Charles Lewis/Buffalo ne ws fi e photo

As children and parents begin another year in the Buffalo Public Schools, the decades-old dialogue on busing students to achieve integration has taken a new turn as the system struggles to find the right balance of school choice and neighborhood structure.

Support grows as Buffalo tackles nagging dilemma

Back to neighborhood schools?

Call to end busing brings mixed reaction from leaders in the community

By Sandra Tan

Samuel L. Radford III: “If you bus children to integrate schools that they’re failing in, then what’s the point?”

n e wS St A f f R e Po Rt eR

Stand outside the fr ank e. Merri­ weather Jr. Library at Jefferson Avenue and ea st Utica Street, with its overbur­ dened computer stations and lines of kids waiting. “w alk in any direction,” suggested parent advocate Samuel Radford iii. th ere are 10 public schools with­ in walking distance or a brief bus ride, he said, but not one has an open, after­ hours computer lab, and not one has a classroom seat reserved for a child who lives nearby. th at’s because the Buffalo School dis trict promotes a school choice policy, which is now more than a decade old.

report says internet use stifles debate

By Claire Cain Miller n e w yo R K t i Me S

ne w yo RK – th e internet might be a useful tool for activists and or­ ganizers, in episodes from the Arab Spring to the ice Bucket Challenge.

But overall, it has diminished rather than enhanced political participa­ tion, according to new data.

Social media, like tw itter and fa cebook, have the effect of tamping down diversity of opinion and stiflin debate about public affairs. it makes See Internet on Page A8

Index

Business ...................... B6 City & Region ............. B1 Classifi d .................... d6 Comics ......................... C6

L. Nathan Hare: “At some point, you’ve got to be bright enough to say that I should

stop taking that medicine and find some other medicine.”

Frank B. Mesiah: “There’s no assurance that parents would have any more control over resources ... just by making it a neighborhood school.”

Inside the news

shark girl whets public’s appetite for art Whimsical new sculpture is unveiled at Canalside

U.S. prepares in event of Syria military action

By Colin Dabkowski

wA SHin Gt on – th e United States has begun to mobilize a broad coalition of allies behind potential military action in Syria and is moving toward expanded airstrikes in northern iraq. Story on A3.

n e wS A RtS CR i t i C

american linked to Islamic State killed ne w HoP e, Minn. – An American man killed in Syria has been linked to the islamic State terror group, the same organization holding hostage a U.S. aid worker. Story on A4.

Crossword ........ d7, d1 0 da ily di sh .................. C5 en tertainment ......... C4 Letters .......................... A7

Lotteries ..................... B2 ob ituaries .................. B4 op inion ....................... A6 Picture Page .............. C8

Mark Mulville/Buffalo ne ws

Mark C. Poloncarz, left, Janne Siren, center, and Mayor Byron W. Brown pose with Shark Girl at Canalside on Tuesday.

Scoreboard ................ d5 Sports ............................ d1 ta ste .............................. C1 te levision ................... C9

weather

Sun, some clouds. High 76, low 55. Details on Page B10

on tu esday afternoon, in a surreal scene fi for a da vid Lynch movie, public offi ials from across er ie County lined up behind a podium at Canalside under the blazing sun and sang the praises of a young girl with a great white shark for a head. “i welcome Shark Girl to the banks of the ni agara River!” er ie County ex ecutive Mark C. Poloncarz declared, inviting the entire community to “sit next to her and look out, with her, at the gorgeous view that is the new downtown Buffalo and the See Sculpture on Page A2

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A2

The Buffalo News/Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Continued from the Cover

Hoping to connect students, parents with where they live SchoolS • from A1 all across town as part of a leg­ acy desegregation effort is a waste of money and time better spent elsewhere.

That position has found sur­ prising advocates on all sides of the racial divide and is forcing some school leaders to walk a tightrope of advocating broader school choice, while at the same time promoting a narrower neighborhood school structure.

“That’s a really fair assess­ ment,” said board President James M. Sampson, “that it’s in­ herently contradictory.”

As a Buffalo News analysis showed in April, city schools are just as segregated now as they were in 1972, when parents sued to integrate the Buffalo district.

In the intervening time, propo­ nents of neighborhood schools argue, schools have become more disconnected from their communities and have disen­ franchised thousands of par­ ents.

In a series of education fo­

rums held by the Council’s Edu­ cation Committee from June 26 to July 31, focusing on solutions for Buffalo’s troubled schools, many listed a desire to return to neighborhood schools as a pri­ ority, said L. Nathan Hare, ex­ ecutive director of the Commu­ nity Action Organization of Erie County. “If you have a problem, and you create medicine to solve a problem, and every year you look at the problem, the problem gets worse, and you keep tak­ ing more and more of the medi­ cine,” Hare said, “at some point, you’ve got to be bright enough to say that I should stop taking that medicine and fi d some other medicine.”

Members of the board ma­ jority have also listed neigh­ borhood schools as one of nine structural reforms they want the district to undertake.

Neighborhood school advo­ cates aren’t necessarily promot­ ing the end of citywide schools like City Honors or other special­ ized or high­achieving schools with admissions criteria.

But they do want to see the

majority of struggling, general education elementary schools revert to a neighborhood or community model that can keep parents and children connected to where they live.

Council Majority Leader De­ mone A. Smith, chairman of the Education Committee, said he wants to see more resources de­ voted to neighborhood schools, particularly in prekindergarten through third grade, when par­ ents tend to be most hands­on in their children’s academic lives and when children need the most academic support.

Ideally, he said, 60 percent of all school seats would be re­ served for nearby families, he said. “They would have the fir t rights to a seat at a neighbor­ hood school,” he said.

Meanwhile, board member Carl P. Paladino, known for his promotion of school vouchers and charter schools, said he’s also committed to the elementa­ ry neighborhood school concept.

“This is one of the smartest decisions we can make,” he said.

“We need to sit and come up

with a plan that’s reasonable.”

While he believes in keeping certain citywide schools intact, like those with specialized pro­ grams or those serving children with disabilities, he believes that the district should spend the coming school year developing a phased­in approach to revert all other schools back to a neighbor­ hood format.

Sampson said he believes there’s broad consensus on the board and a lot of support with­ in the community for renewed focus on neighborhood schools and that interim Superintendent Donald A. Ogilvie is in the pro­ cess of doing an analysis of where children live now and where they’ll be living in the future.

That’s the fir t step in creat­ ing some kind of neighborhood school structure, he said.

Some community members, particularly those who helped shape Buffalo’s desegregation plan, don’t agree that neighbor­ hood schools are the answer to chronic underachievement.

“If you’re talking about going back to neighborhood schools,

Stadium • from A1

By Robert J. McCarthy N E WS POL I T IC A L R E PORT E R

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Workers install new benches in the 200 level end zone at Ralph Wilson Stadium during this summer’s renovation project.

package for a new stadium, and the team’s new owner.

State offi ials have suggest­ ed the team and NFL will drive the fi al decision on where a new stadium will be built, if that is the course taken.

The consultants’ study would offer the next owner valuable insights to the benefi s and obstacles for locating a sta­ dium in certain places in West­ ern New York.

The fi al report will identi­ fy all the sites the consultants looked at, with reasons why most were excluded. Access to existing or expanded mass transit opportunities, zoning issues, potential for ancillary development, such as retail or entertainment space and park­ ing were among the consider­ ations in evaluating new stadi­ um sites.

The report will offer a “ba­ sic” stadium plan of 65,000 seats, expandable to 70,000.

Ralph Wilson Stadium’s capac­ ity is just over 73,000.

The report will say that a new open­air stadium would require about 1.8 million square feet of space, while a facility with a roof for multi­ purpose use, such as a conven­

tion center, will require 2 mil­ lion square feet. The source with direct knowledge of the report said construction cost estimates are still being vetted.

Just the stadium, without any parking or other features, will need 20­plus acres of land.

The source said the outer harbor would need four or more new bridges to make the site work for a new stadium, while Niagara Falls, which the source described as a “phenomenal" potential site, also would need too much bridge and road work.

“In Erie County is most like­ ly the best place to do it. Beyond Erie, the options don’t appear to make sense as of right now,” the source said of the recommenda­ tions for a new stadium.

The consultants’ contract with the state also requires them to look at options for keep­ ing the team at the current fa­ cility.

Of several sites near down­ town Buffalo that were exam­ ined, at least one will make the study’s fi al list.

The study, by design, has ig­ nored some considerations or locations. For instance, it looks at the infrastructure needs for a new stadium built in Buffalo,

schools shuttered. Many swaths of the lower and upper East Side now have no operating school within walking distance.

Some have suggested that charter schools could fi l in the gaps, although, by law, they can’t have specifi attendance zones.

That’s one of many issues that proponents of neighborhood schools would need to address.

Whatever plan is developed, leaders said, it should be part of a broader plan to improve district schools and would require sup­ port from City Hall. In addition, neighborhood schools would need to be community centers with resources – like computer labs – and services available to children after hours, they said.

Creating neighborhood schools alone won’t solve all of the district’s problems, Radford acknowledged. “There’s no sil­ ver bullet answers,” he said, be­ fore referring again to the cur­ rent district structure.

“Let’s not waste resources on stuff that’s not working.” email: stan@buffnews.com

Transparency sought in stadium study panel

Basic plan calls for 65,000-seat facility The source, who spoke Tuesday to The Buffalo News on condition of anonymity, de­ clined to identify the locations of the four sites – or what could end up in the fi al report as just three. But consultants are considering stadium sites that could accommodate a 65,000­ seat facility with or without a roof depending on whether the next team owner wants a year­ round facility.

Not making the list of fi al­ ists are Niagara Falls and Buf­ falo’s outer harbor. The con­ sultants determined they are good sites, especially Niagara Falls, but currently there are too many transportation hurdles.

At least one site near down­ town Buffalo will be on the fi nal list, sources have said for months, and consultants are still eyeing a potential site in West Seneca being pushed by a developer.

The study was ordered ear­ lier this year by Cuomo, whose economic development agency entered into a contract with Foley & Lardner, a Manhat­ tan law fi m that represented the state in the 2012 and 2013 talks with the Bills over a lease extension and stadium renova­ tions. The law fi m then con­ tracted with AECOM, a Cali­ fornia­based company that has worked on numerous profes­ sional, college and Olympic sta­ dium projects, including Lam­ beau Field and stadiums home to the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Diamondbacks.

The consultants have spent the past several months visiting all 13 potential stadium loca­ tions and met with developers and other Western New York offi ials and private sector ex­ ecutives about everything from zoning and mass transit issues to environmental reviews and development considerations.

The report being fi alized is intended for two audiences: government offi ials, both state and county, who are likely to be asked to provide some fi ancial

you’re talking about black stu­ dents and schools within the in­ ner city being the last on the list in terms of services, teachers and everything else,” said for­ mer Council President George K. Arthur.

Frank B. Mesiah, president of the Buffalo branch of the NAACP, said good education is the result of good teaching and a good curriculum, not location.

“There’s no assurance that par­ ents would have any more con­ trol over the resources or the curriculum that they’re going to be taught, just by making it a neighborhood school,” he said.

“It’s a good emotional argument for people who have an agenda.”

Smith and Radford don’t view the desegregation effort the same way. They draw on their own traumatic childhood experiences of being bused in the 1970s, having bottles thrown at their windows and getting menaced by white adults while waiting for public transporta­ tion when they were older.

Meanwhile, many East Side residents saw their former

such as adjustments to roads or extension of the transit line, but will not discuss “what political­ ly needs to be done for a particu­ lar site,” the source said.

The study also did not con­ sider any potential sites in On­ tario, a no­brainer for a New York State­funded project in a year when Cuomo is up for re­ election.

The state faces a potentially tricky situation. The state and Erie County, in the 2013 lease extension deal, committed $95 million for existing stadium im­ provements. That’s on top of the millions already spent by the state under a deal cut in 1998

by Gov. George E. Pataki, whose lease extension agreement back then also included a $3 million annual state payment for the team’s operating budget.

Cuomo raised caution fl gs about spending more state money on a new stadium after the recent fl w of public funds into the current stadium, but he has not ruled out that the state could fi d itself opening up its wallet again to keep the team in the Buffalo area. email: tprecious@buffnews.com

A high­level panel with the responsibility of evaluating proposals to build a new stadi­ um for the Buffalo Bills should convene immediately to consid­ er a host of new developments and keep the community in­ formed, according to Assembly­ man Michael P. Kearns.

The South Buffalo Democrat said Tuesday that he has called upon County Executive Mark C. Poloncarz and other leaders of the New Stadium Working Group to update the public on any progress toward a stadium, especially as news reports point more and more toward the Na­ tional Football League’s desire to eventually replace just­reno­ vated Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park.

Although Poloncarz con­ tinues to resist Kearns’ call for the group to end its practice of meeting behind closed doors, the assemblyman said he has obtained the signatures of 18 elected offi ials – including sev­ en county and three state legis­ lators ­ in support.

“We haven’t been able to get any information or update from the New Stadium Working Group,” Kearns said, “and the voters have a right to see its rec­ ommendations and communi­ cations and know about the pos­ sibility of a new stadium. This is important not only to me, but to other elected offi ials, as well.”

The New Stadium Work­ ing Group was created last year through provisions of the Bills’ new lease for Ralph Wilson Sta­ dium, with Poloncarz, Lt. Gov. Robert J. Duffy and Bills Presi­ dent and CEO Russ Brandon as co­chairmen. The 20­member advisory panel comprises rep­ resentatives appointed by the state, county and Bills to study where – or whether – to build a new stadium. It has met only once since its creation in April.

Since then, Kearns intro­ duced legislation in the Assem­

bly to provide for open meet­ ings of the group, though it was never passed into law. His idea for open meetings is supported

by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D­N.Y., a member of the group.

But Poloncarz on Tuesday re­ iterated his opposition to open meetings.

“The county executive has said he does not negotiate in public,” said Poloncarz spokes­ man Peter Anderson, though Kearns has indicated his will­ ingness for the panel to abide by Open Meetings Law provisions calling for executive session dur­ ing discussion of certain topics.

Anderson also said that Po­ loncarz is not inclined to con­ vene a meeting in the near fu­ ture because “much is on hold until a new owner is identifi d.”

Poloncarz said after the group’s fir t and only meeting in April that he would not be sur­ prised if it would continue for two years or more before arriv­ ing at any conclusions.

In his letter to the co­chair­ men, Kearns said he remains concerned about the lack of in­ formation and the delays in a re­ port commissioned by the state regarding possible sites for a new stadium.

“The people are being kept in the dark despite taxpayer mon­ ey being used to fund this study and a deadline not being met,” Kearns said in his letter.

Joining the Kearns letter are State Sen. George D. Maziarz, R­ Newfane; Assemblymen John D. Ceretto, R­Lewiston; and Da­ vid J. DiPietro, R­East Aurora; County Legislature Chairman John J. Mills, Orchard Park; and Legislators Patrick B. Burke, D­Buffalo; Lynne M. Dixon, I­ Hamburg; Kevin R. Hardwick, R­City of Tonawanda; Joseph C. Lorigo, C­West Seneca; Ted B. Morton, D­Lancaster; and Ed­ ward A. Rath III, R­Williams­ ville. email: rmccarthy@buffnews.com

The sculpture already has its own anonymously run Twitter account SculptuRe • from A1 wonderful future in front of us all.”

Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown, not to be outdone, issued his own warm welcome to Casey Riordan Millard’s new sculpture, Shark Girl, which has already become one of the most buzzed­about new public artworks in the city’s recent history – if only because it is one of the few.

“I also want to welcome Shark Girl to the City of Buffalo,” Brown said.

“While she is an Erie County resident, her residence is physically in the City of Buffalo, and we are very proud of that.”

Robert Gioia, chairman of the Erie County Harbor Development Corpora­ tion, encouraged visitors to take selfies with Shark Girl, which they promptly did once she was properly unveiled in all her toothy glory.

The buzz surrounding the sculpture, the fir t permanent piece of public art to emerge from a new partnership between Albright­Knox

Art Gallery and Erie County that recently expanded to include the City of Buffalo, began to build immediately after the unveiling.

In perhaps the defin tive measure of a successful meme­worthy public persona, the sculpture already had its own anonymously run Twitter account (@sharkgirlbfl ) within an hour of Tuesday’s event. An example tweet: “Have a seat. I don’t bite. #SharkGirl”.

Reaction to the sculpture at Canalside, where many passers­by shot inquisitive looks at the sculpture and eventually paused to take a picture, was downright ebullient.

Judy Petz, of Depew, who was visiting Canalside for the fir t time, dubbed the sculpture “Sharknado Girl” in honor of Buffalo’s role in the fi ming of the cult cable hit “Sharknado II.” But her enthusiasm didn’t wane when she was told that the fi m and the sculpture, chosen by Aaron Ott, Albright­Knox’s new public art curator, weren’t tied together.

Buffalonian Rosie Evans was an immediate fan, but her husband, Dennis, had to go up for a closer inspection.

“It’s cute,” she said. “With all the stress in the world, it’s very whimsical.

It made me smile.”

Dennis Evans returned from his critique with a profound question about Shark Girl: “Did the shark eat the girl, or did the girl eat the shark?”

The answer was not immediately clear.

The debut of the statue, which is about as unintimidating and inviting as public artwork gets, follows last week’s installation of a temporary mural created with painters’ tape on the side of the Central Library that will be on view through Friday.

Erie County, Albright­Knox and the City of Buffalo on Tuesday also announced plans for two more public art projects this fall, including a partnership with Lamar Advertising that will feature art on area billboards.

Another project will feature a large­ scale painting created by members

of the community under the supervi­ sion of Buffalo­born artist Charles Clough in Hilbert College’s Swan Auditorium in Hamburg on Oct. 25.

The painting will be installed on the side of the Hamburg Public Library in mid­December.

Ott, whose salary is funded by Erie County, chose Shark Girl because of its whimsical nature and out of a desire to entice passers­by. Future works that are part of the burgeoning public­private art initiative, he said, will be more conceptually based and challenging.

“I was familiar with the artist for a decade, so I had a lot of faith in the work. I think people were like, ‘You’re giving us a Shark Girl?’ They were a little like, ‘I don’t know man,’” he said.

But any skepticism had vanished by Tuesday, when everyone from Brown to the kids who huddled around the statue immediately after its unveiling was treating Shark Girl like a new best friend.

Beyond the cheekiness of the

sculpture, though, the project heralds the beginning of a new era for public art in Erie County, which has long lagged behind other communities in which public art is a fi ture.

“For as many people who spend time in the local museum, there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands more who live in our community who never set foot in one,” Poloncarz said.

“If we can bring the art to them and enrich their minds, they’re better for it.”

Albright­Knox Art Gallery Director Janne Sirén, who helped to conceive of the new partnership, praised the city and county for getting on board.

“I have lived in seven different cities in seven different countries, in cities polka­dotted with public art, and yet nowhere have I seen the type of enthusiasm that surrounds things visual as here in Buffalo,” he said. “It’s an extraordinary thing that we have and we should be very, very proud of it.” email: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

The Buffalo News

JUNE 10, 2018 » SECTION D

Arts, entertainment + books Alan Pergament: CBS, hospitals, ‘Chicago’ are ratings winners. Page D3 Books: Interviewers take on the country’s Trump coalition. Page D4 Biography: 19th-century author of ‘Frankenstein’ comes alive. Page D5 Theater: Survey hints at who is bound for glory at Tonys. Page D6

SUNDAY

Photos by Derek Gee/Buffalo News

The Gelmac elevator is reflected in a new rainwater retention pond at Silo City. Details include, from left, an installation from a University at Buffalo School of Architecture project; hoppers inside the Perot elevator; and an art installation in the top of a column inside the Marine A elevator.

Experimental artists find an intriguing canvas in the postindustrial complex B Y C OL I N DA BKOW SK I /

T

N E W S A R T S C R I T IC

here is perhaps no more idyllic picture of postindustrial decay in America than Silo City, a sprawling complex of dormant grain silos and rusted warehouses along the Buffalo River that has been revived by artists, architects, musicians, poets and citizens seeking new adventures in ancient surroundings.

All of this is thanks to Buffalo businessman and cultural impresario Rick Smith, the mustachioed, cowboy­hatted maverick of depthless entrepreneurial vim who purchased the site in 2006. Since then, he has worked with a rotating crew of col­ laborators to transform the space into Western New York’s most sought­after cultural destination.

Silo City is a perfect 716­cen­ tric paradox: It is inextricably tied up with the industrial histo­ ry and erstwhile identity of the city. At the same time, thanks to Smith and his charming caretaker Swannie Jim, it attracts some of

the most experimental artists and thinkers in the region and the country to push the boundaries of their chosen forms.

This only stands to reason, as the elevators and their intricate mechanics represent an early American innovation that inspired and informed entire fields of architecture, design and construction that followed.

Torn Space Theater, for example, hosts summer­ ly spectacles in and around the silos. Architectural experiments built by students and faculty at the University at Buffalo rise like strange flora from the wilder sections of the campus. Musicians experiment with the silo’s natural reverberations and poets try out new prose as part of the Silo City Reading Series.

Smith, who is also the CEO of the nearby company Rigidized Metals, recently led a 30­minute tour of the site on a sunny spring afternoon. As the venue gears up for a busy summer of concerts, theater produc­ tions, readings and festivals, take a walk with Smith through Buffalo’s most popular summertime culture destination.

Bet you didn’t know: A closer look at the hot cultural destination / Page D2

Silo City once ‘fed the world’

The grounds are still healing

The longest natural reverb around

Buffalo’s grain elevators inspired generations of architects

Fertile ground for innovation

D2

The Buffalo News/Sunday, June 10, 2018

5 Cool Things to Know About Silo City

On BuffaloNews.com: Take a walking tour of Silo City with Buffalo businessman Rick Smith and a drone tour with News Chief Photographer Derek Gee.

Photos by Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Silo City towers over Buffalo’s waterfront. More than a decade of work has turned the facility into a destination of many uses. One example, left, is a swing installation at the American Flour Mill and Warehouse. Work continues in other areas, including property around the Lake and Rail elevator.

Enormous concrete silos held tons of grain 1. Silo City once ‘fed the world’ At full capacity, the four enormous grain silo complexes that anchor Silo City’s cam­ pus stored 11 million bushels of grain. Each individual silo, according to Smith, holds up to 67,000 bushels of wheat. Each bushel makes 42 pounds of fl ur. If you fi ure one pound of fl ur per loaf of bread, that means Silo City could store the makings for 462 million loaves of bread at one time.

“That’s a lot of millions of sandwiches,” Smith said.

2. The grounds are still healing

During decades of industrial produc­ tion, the grounds that surround Silo City’s warehouses and silos became polluted with the byproducts of storing, packaging and shipping grain and barley. Right now, Smith is overseeing a large­scale restoration of the campus’s natural landscape that includes the creation of a new meadow, trails and other features meant to bring the land back to its preindustrial splendor.

It begins near Ohio Street, with Dyosowa Trail – for “land of the basswoods” in the Seneca language – that leads into the wild section of the campus. Smith recently hired ecologist Joshua Smith as director of ecology for Rigidized Metal, and he has been hard at work developing projects designed to draw ecotourists to the site.

Dirt from the reconstruction of Ohio Street has been moved in to create a new to­ pography, on which Smith has planted foli­ age to attract monarch butterfl es, a garden to be pollinated by a resident colony of bees and cleared a sprawling meadow from the surrounding patches of mugwort.

“We think that ecotourism is some­ thing that’s going to become quite a big deal,” Smith said, “and Buffalo is a great place to begin this healing of the industrial grounds.”

Old rail beds are incorporated into a new nature trail at Silo City, a part of the effort to restore the grounds around the complex.

3. The longest natural reverb around

A note played on a piano in the Marine A grain elevator – the main attraction for performers and artists due to the fact most of the equipment has been stripped out of it – will reverberate for at least nine seconds.

Good luck achieving a natural reverb like that in your home recording studio.

Smith demonstrated this by plunking out a pair of notes on a weathered piano in one of the silos, and the note refused to die. This quality of nondigital reverb has drawn doz­ ens of musicians to perform in the space, in­ cluding two – Bean Friend and Ralph White – who have recorded records there.

“It provides for an interesting sound, and I think that’s what makes it special. It’s your own reverb thing, but it’s authentic, not forced or fake,” Smith said. “We’ve had didgeridoos and we’ve had double­bassoons.

We had the Philharmonic trumpeters and trombonists in here – and that will make anybody’s hair stand up on their arms.”

4. Buffalo’s grain elevators inspired generations of architects The imposing concrete structures that held so many millions of bushels of grain were not invented in Buffalo but they were perfected here.

American, the long, white structure that

forms part of a natural outdoor amphithe­ ater, was produced using the fi st “monolith­ ic pour” of concrete in history – a technique of pouring concrete foundations all at once rather than in sections – that is now univer­ sal.

What’s more, the accomplished French architect Le Corbusier was so impressed with the functional simplicity and ingenu­ ity of the structures that he called them “the magnificent fi st fruits of a new age.”

“The American engineers overwhelm with their calculations our expiring archi­ tecture,” he is reported to have said. He and many of his contemporaries, Walter Gropius and others, were inspired by elevators here and in other industrial cities, which bore direct infl ences on the development of the International Style and 20th century mod­ ernism.

That style, practiced by European archi­ tects and predicated on unornamented and mass­produced forms, was later refracted back upon American and Buffalonian ar­ chitecture – a fascinating cultural feedback loop that began where Silo City sits today.

5. Fertile ground for innovation

Since the fi st artistic projects began ma­ terializing at Silo City around 2012, it has drawn various festivals, performance proj­ ects, experimental theater productions, con­ certs and unclassifi ble cultural pursuits.

It’s all tied up with the historic innova­ tion of the site, Smith said. That spirit seems to live in the space, and it’s something that creative Western New Yorkers seem to in­ stantly identify with when they walk onto the campus.

“It plays to our innovation back in the day,” he said. “That’s what we’re hoping to drive through the arts and celebrating the culture we’ve got in Buffalo: [We’re] trying to get that innovative spirit back and sort of why we’re embarking on all this fun.”

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Movies • Music • Books • Advice • Lifestyle

SPOTLIGHT Elizabeth Kahn, Assistant Managing Editor 849-5576 • ekahn@buffnews.com

SECTION

F Sunday, March 30, 2008

The Buffalo News

Jennifer Steinkamp is part of an optical trick that happens when you stand in front of her 2003 piece “Loom,” part of a major exhibit at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Photos by Bill Wippert/Buffalo News

Enlightened

THE MAGNETIC APPEAL OF DIGITAL ARTIST JENNIFER STEINKAMP’S EXHIBIT AT THE ALBRIGHT­KNOX LEAVES VISITORS DELIGHTFULLY SHOCKED

“TV Room,” a major piece by Steinkamp, mimics the scan patterns of a television.

By Colin Dabkowski /

N E W S

A R T S

W R I T E R

‘‘ T

rippy” doesn’t begin to describe it.

On a recent Saturday at the Albright­Knox Art Gallery, the stunned looks on gallerygoers’ faces were enough to clue you in that the current exhibition by digital artist Jennifer Steinkamp is not your grandmother’s idea of high art.

Chances are it’s not yours either – and by all accounts, that’s a good thing.

Seldom do contemporary art shows find so many unlikely, visibly excited viewers in one place at one time. In fact, the collection of Steinkamp’s large­scale, abstract digital projections on view at the gallery had students, parents and children of all ages literally jumping up and down and performing acrobatic feats normally confined to school gymnasiums.

Such is the magnetic appeal of Steinkamp’s mysterious, inter­ active projections, where the viewer’s shadow is subsumed into the art itself, fading in and of out being depending on the viewer’s location and triggering often surprising optical effects.

A mix between a painting in perpetual motion, an exercise in advanced shadow puppetry and a psychedelic playground, the roomwide piece “Wreck of the Dumaru” is one of the largest and more whiplash­inducing pieces of art the gallery has displayed in years. With violent red waves undulating over a liquid blue backdrop, the projection frames the gallery’s entire north­facing wall. It paus­ es in the middle to accommo­ date the window looking out on Hoyt Lake, which from the right vantage point perfectly frames Shayne Dark’s driftwood statue “Into the Blue” on the grass out­ side. The resulting image is over­ whelming, imploring viewers to consider it for long awestruck seconds before eventually allow­ ing themselves to actively inter­ act with it.

“Her work is about the view­ er’s perception. It explores archi­ tecture, space, motion and the phenomenon of perception,” said Holly E. Hughes, an associate cu­ rator at the Albright­Knox. “She is always thinking about how the viewer will interact with the work and how it plays into the space.”

As critic David Hickey put it in the show’s extensive exhibi­

Seven-year-old Vivian Hunt gazes into Steinkamp’s roomsize projection “Jimmy Carter.”

tion catalog (which originated, along with the show itself, at the San Jose Museum of Contempo­ rary Art): “Within the domain of her pieces, children go manic and scamper, adolescents vogue, and adults stroll casually around, generally unaware of the fact that they are being moved, that they are dancing with the art.”

At the Albright­Knox, though, plenty of adults seemed to be dancing along in step. One ener­ getic group of five students from Buffalo State College and the University at Buffalo had fun making complex patterns on the wall. They’d stand in a line and flap their arms to simulate a bar­ rel­rolling airplane, attempt to crush one another’s silhouetted heads with their fingers or See Exhibit on Page F2

What’s inside Spotlight People

Fashion

Books

Also inside …

Comedic views of Stephen Colbert enlighten non-political types. Page F3.

Designers look ahead when it comes to new fabrics. Page F5.

Did power plays and incompetence accommodate 9/11 attacks? Page F7.

Complete movie listings. Page F9.

Reviews of the latest CD releases. Page F12.

Radio highlights. Page F14.

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F2

The Buffalo News / Sunday, March 30, 2008

Continued from Spotlight Cover

Photos by Bill Wippert/Buffalo News

Water imagery factors heavily into Steinkamp’s work, with “A Sailor’s Life Is a Life for Me” (foreground) and “Wreck of the Dumaru” (background).

Work is ‘a whole new frontier’ Steinkamp moments

EXHIBIT • From F1 engage in shadow­puppet faux­fist­fights.

“We were having a fight with a little kid over there,” said one of the UB students, Jennifer Wehrfritz, pointing to a young boy in front of “Dumaru” who was actively engaged in a larg­ er­than­life karate routine. “He totally won.”

For this generation, a group not often given to extended bouts of focused attention, Steinkamp’s art speaks directly to their digital dispositions.

“Everybody thinks art should just be paint­ ings on a wall, or pictures or something like that. But art’s really not only that. It’s what you make art. Art’s all around us,” said Matthew Herrington, an art major at Buffalo State. Un­ like the well­mined territory of painting, where originality is a tough proposition, he added, Steinkamp’s innovative use of seamless and entirely computer­generated abstractions is “a whole new frontier.”

A

Of architecture and space Any curator or art professional will tell you that an important element of Steinkamp’s work is the way it dematerializes architecture and space. That means that many of her pul­ sating animations of trees, flowers and com­ plex abstract forms are specifically designed to transform walls, ceilings and passageways into something far more interesting than mere sup­ port structures. After she’s through with them, plaster and marble melt into liquid pallets that seem to resonate with living consciousness.

And that transformation of space is part of what makes Steinkamp’s work so important to collectors, museums, for­profit corporations (like the band U2 and the Staples Center in Los Angeles) – and so compelling to viewers.

The result of many of her earlier works, Steinkamp said in a recent interview at the gallery, is a phenomenon “in between the image space or virtual space and the real space, the ar­ chitecture. What they were about was transform­ ing the real to the virtual, and at the same time the virtual becomes transformed by the real.”

The implications of that statement for a world straddling digital and communal culture, lost somewhere between Facebook and the out­ side world, are staggering. And Steinkamp was the first to make that statement – exclusively using the self­referential language of zeros and ones long before its time.

Born in 1958, Steinkamp is that rare Genera­ tion X artist whose work applies and appeals to younger and future generations far more than existing ones, or even the disaffected population of her own. Her work is hailed as much for what it embodies as what it prognosticates for the fu­ ture of 21st century art – exactly what those five college students were musing over as their shadows engaged in sophisticated horseplay.

A suspension of disbelief In the case of an untitled 1993 piece, ac­ quired by the gallery in advance of its revolu­ tionary “Extreme Abstraction” exhibition in 2005, the floor itself becomes a brilliantly col­ ored cross between a breathing creature and a heaving river. That seminal piece, which Steinkamp calls her “epiphany,” is cast onto the floor space between two staircases by two pro­ jectors mounted overhead near the entrance to the gallery’s Clifton Hall Link.

truly comprehensive survey of Jennifer Steinkamp’s work would no doubt occupy several football fields, but in addition to “Dumaru” and the untitled 1993 piece near the Clifton Hall Link, the Albright­Knox show contains some of the watershed moments in her career and manages to present a com­ pelling sketch of the artist’s meteoric trajectory in the art world over the past two decades. Some highlights: • A 2003 piece called “Loom” duplicates the viewer’s silhouette and projects it onto two different spaces at once, alternately revealing and obscuring horizontal and vertical lines in a fascinating optical trick.

• The 1998 “TV Room” is a space with three abstract images projected onto three horizontal bars, each separated by several inches. Behind it, another image is projected onto the gallery’s back wall, making the piece shift in dimension and depth as the viewer approaches.

• “Jimmy Carter,” perhaps the most immersive, and cer­ tainly one of the most popular pieces in the show, is an entire gallery consumed by strands of undulating flowers. It was cre­ ated in 2002 as a quiet protest to the war in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. For anything but its name, it seems more like a beautiful, decorative meditation on botany. At several points along the four walls, viewers’ shadows somehow disappear and reappear within the projec­ tions, giving you a sense of anonymity, a kind of “Secret Garden” of your own to hide in.

• “Dervish,” a large­scale projection of a pulsating tree, is the sole piece installed in the gallery’s darkened sculpture court. With the knowledge that it was originally stunningly projected, along with a series of other trees, in a cistern in Istan­ bul, the appearance of the tree can’t help but seem a bit under­ whelming and out of place.

It does, however, accomplish a needed counterbalance of subdued darkness to an otherwise technicolor ocean.

The Albright-Knox purchased this projection, “Dervish,” a moving tree meant to mimic the snake-filled hair of Medusa, the Greek mythological figure who turned onlookers into stone.

“This piece made me realize, just like [Dan] Flavin, actually, that I could dematerialize space with light,” Steinkamp said in a recent lecture at the gallery, referring to the work of the seminal light and space artist whose work similarly broke out of the artistic boundaries of its time.

In order for that perceptual trick to work, the viewer has to willfully forget that what they’re seeing comes out of high­tech video projectors and painstakingly designed computer algo­ rithms. Hughes noted that to fully appreciate Steinkamp’s work on more than a simply aes­ thetic level, a suspension of disbelief is required.

Fortunately for viewers, unlike the more traditional light and space artists from the re­ cently closed “Panza Collection” exhibition, the artist makes that jump exceedingly easy with meticulously installed pieces that often ob­ scure the means of their production.

“I wouldn’t say that Jennifer considers her­ self to be a video artist per se,” Hughes said.

“She’s a new media artist, in the sense that she’s creating these works completely on the computer. She creates the imagery, she ani­ mates the imagery. Projection is just a means for getting on the walls.”

Steinkamp’s approach to transforming ar­ chitecture came out of a long artistic tradition with roots in the ’60s, a decade that saw groundbreaking contributions from artists who dealt with light, environment and space like Robert Irwin, James Turrell and, especial­ ly, Flavin. Works from all three of those artists factored prominently into the Panza show at the Albright­Knox, and Steinkamp’s inclusion ties in nicely for those interested in where she fits in the spectrum of modern art.

A hot commodity Steinkamp remembers when she decided to dedicate her practice to digital art. She was a student at the California Institute of Technolo­

gy in 1982, taking a class from Gene Young­ blood, a professor who wrote the influential book “Expanded Cinema.”

“In 1982, I saw some of the first computer animation stuff and my head exploded,” Steinkamp said, referring to groundbreaking digital films by the artist Ed Emshwiller. “I had what Buddhist priests try to get after. And I haven’t had it since, but it’s a cool feeling, re­ ally. Maybe it’s just some weird synapse thing in your head: You have to do this.”

That “weird synapse thing,” whatever it was, has made her one of the more sought­af­ ter artists of the last decade. She is a hot com­ modity with museums, collectors and many critics, who think, as Hickey wrote, that “Steinkamp is the first artist whose work demonstrates the likelihood that the most sig­ nificant painters of the 21st century will be us­ ing computer­driven projections to create and present their work.”

To help viewers appreciate Steinkamp’s work on more than just a shock­and­awe level, Hughes has incorporated a reading room into the gallery. With explanatory wall panels, books and chairs, the room seems more apt for a library. But Hughes, on a personal mis­ sion to include more context in the shows she curates, saw an opportunity here and went with it. The room also includes a computer for visitors to leave comments and have discus­ sions about the show.

“It incites dialogue for people to talk about artwork, even for people who maybe are un­ comfortable talking to each other about art­ work,” Hughes said.

“I feel her work evokes a third eye for those who do not use recreational chemistry,” an anonymous commentator said. “For me, it just enhanced it.”

The next comment? “Word.” e-mail: cdabkowski@buffnews.com

On buffalonews.com: For more on Jennifer Steinkamp’s work at the Albright-Knox, visit the ArtsBeat blog.

( MAGENTA ) ( BLACK )

Josh Allen’s drive to succeed started early

As 9-year-old Pop Warner star, his coaches let him call plays at times | PAGE C1

Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Copyright 2018

Schneiderman’s exit shakes up N.Y. political scene Conventions spur jumble of hopefuls

By Robert J. McCarthy N E WS POL I T IC A L R EPORT E R

New York’s Democrats and Republicans will descend upon two downstate venues Wednesday and Thursday, and thanks to former Attor­ ney General Eric T. Schneider­ man’s sudden departure from the scene, these party conven­ tions will prove anything but staid.

Also credit Cynthia Nixon, who is giving Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo fi s in her intraparty challenge to the Democratic incumbent while also inject­ ing an optimistic buzz into the GOP for the fir t time in years.

Republicans think the actress­ activist may beat up the in­ cumbent enough in the pri­ mary to make their candidate – Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro – more than competitive come November.

All of this plays out at Hof­ stra University on Long Is­ land for the Democrats and the Sheraton Towers Hotel in Manhattan for the Republi­ cans during conventions that offi ially kick off the contest for governor. At least some of the “down ballot” consider­ ations for lieutenant governor, comptroller and attorney gen­ eral also promise to command the delegates’ attention.

That includes smooth sail­ ing now guaranteed for Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul on the Democratic ticket after Cuomo forces a month ago attempted to dump her and insert her into the race against Rep. Chris Collins, R­Clarence. And on the GOP ticket, Molinaro over the weekend named Julie Killian of Westchester County as his running mate.

Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown, who is also the state Democratic chairman, said the attorney general vacancy cre­ ated by Schneiderman’s May 9 resignation is touching off a scramble among potential successors seeking 25 percent of the convention vote to qual­ ify for the September primary ballot.

“I’m not quite sure how many will vie for the endorse­ ment,” he said, “but I assume there will be multiple candi­ dates who will certainly make the process much more dy­ namic and interesting.”

Brown’s Republican coun­ terpart, Edward F. Cox, will capitalize during the conven­ tion and throughout the cam­ paign on Schneiderman’s res­ ignation following allegations of physically abusing women, as well as corruption charges touching Cuomo’s inner circle.

He points to the March con­ viction of Cuomo confidant Jo­ seph Percoco and the June 11

Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Ram Ramanujam, plant director at the General Motors engine factory in the Town of Tonawanda, announces Monday that a new, more fuel-efficient type of V-8 engine for the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck will be produced there.

See Shakeup on Page A6

R

am Ramanujam, plant will preserve 635 good­paying director at the General manufacturing jobs at the River Motors engine factory Road factory. in the Town of Tonawa­ But these days, manufactur­ nda, had plenty of reasons to ing is a constant struggle to stay smile Monday. competitive.

And it wasn’t just be­ It requires a productive David Robinson workforce. cause the Tonawanda En­ gine Plant announced that It takes regular invest­ BU F FA L O ’ S BU S I N E S S it would be making a new, ments to bring in cut­ more fuel­efficient type of V­8 engine for ting­edge equipment and more effi ient the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck processes, and the money that GM is that will go on sale this fall. spending on the new engine line is just a It was more than that. Much more. bit more than 10 percent of the $296 mil­ Sure, the new engine line, part of a See GM on Page A6 $33.7 million upgrade by the automaker,

Trump’s dual strategy aims to undercut probe N EW YOR K T I MES

WASHINGTON – Frustrat­ ed and impatient, fed up with waiting and eager to fi ht back, President Trump has embarked on what amounts to a two­pronged strategy to contain the threat and under­ cut the credibility of the esca­ lating investigations targeting him and his associates.

The blizzard of Twitter messages combined with a string of public statements by his lawyer Rudy Giuliani in recent days seemed aimed at turning the focus away from the conduct of the president or his team to that of their pur­ suers while laying out a series of red lines to limit the reach

and duration of the primary inquiry.

“I think we’re fi ally seeing some semblance of a strategy emerge,” said Alan M. Der­ showitz, the Harvard Law School professor emeritus who speaks with the president from time to time but has declined to join his legal team. “They have now decided that they need to be more proactive, more aggressive and more an­ ticipatory, and I see that hap­ pening.”

Trump’s latest assertion of bad faith by the Justice De­ partment and the FBI resulted in an extraordinary meeting at the White House on Monday where the president pressured

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

See Probe on Page A6

The Central Park­area church is a fine example of 12th­century Northern Italian architecture with many terra­cotta touches. See photos on Page B1 and the Picture Page, C12.

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Mathias Svalina delivers his poetry to a customer on Henley Road early Thursday morning.

Letters ......................... A9 Lotteries ..................... B2 Obituaries .................. B4 Opinion ....................... A8

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“It’s a vote of confidence in the plant’s workforce. ...

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Meet Mathias Svalina, deliverer of dreams

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Every day in May before dawn, Mathias Svalina rises from his bed in a Main Street hostel, packs his bag with 37 pink, hand­ addressed envelopes and sets out into the sleeping city.

On his 1985 Raleigh Kodiak bicycle, he pedals past potholes and winds through dimly lit parkways. Sometimes he stops to admire the spiders, foxes, rabbits and deer that crawl across the city’s streets and paths at night.

By now, about halfway through his monthlong project, Svalina has mostly memorized his stops: anonymous apartment

buildings and single­family Vic­ torians; businesses tucked into urban plazas; and a metal fac­ tory on Ohio Street he reaches after a nightly ride along the Lake Erie shore.

At most of those addresses, one of Svalina’s clients lies sleep­ ing as the Denver­based poet de­ posits a short poem he wrote the previous day through the mail slot. Or he wedges it in their door so that it falls to the ground when they open it.

For a cool $45, each client gets a different poem every day of the month delivered by their own weaver of dreams. (Thir­

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A10

The Buffalo News/Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Meet Mathias Svalina, Deliverer of Dreams

Photos by Mark Mulville/Buffalo News

At top and above left, Mathias Svalina delivers his poetry to a customer on Henley Road on May 10. Above right, the traveling poet heads off before dawn in the pouring rain to deliver pink envelopes filled with his dream-inspired daily poems to customers in Buffalo.

Poet gets ‘trapped in his own bubble of whimsy’ POET • from A1 ty additional subscribers outside a 4­mile radius get their dreams by mail.) The poems are written in the impossible language of dreaming, each one its own surreal, self­con­ tained narrative about things that could only take place in the human subconscious.

On a recent ride through Buffalo, as his bike clattered across the Metro Rail tracks near the KeyBank Center, Svalina made an off­handed com­ ment about the effect those tracks can have on bikers.

Later that day, a poem emerged: “It is morning. The sun is just about to peek over the buildings of the city & you are riding a large tricycle around an unfamiliar warehouse district. You ride over a set of train tracks, which bump & jostle you. The train tracks jostle you so hard that a baby begins to grow in your belly.”

The narrative continues, getting stranger and stranger, until it ends with the image of a smoke­spewing train and “the bracing sound of its whistle cutting through the dark.”

Near Front Park, Svalina spotted a fox and pursued it down a winding bike path until it disappeared into a nearby waterfront neighborhood of cookie­cutter houses.

At a house on Jersey Street, dis­ tracted by a reporter’s questions, Svalina accidentally deposited the wrong dream through the mail slot.

So he wrote an email to his subscrib­ er to apologize. The subject line was “Dream Error.”

But errors like this are an essen­ tial of the process.

Top left, one of Mathias Svalina’s signature pink envelopes. Bottom left, Svalina types out a poem on his laptop. Above right, Svalina takes a moment to ponder a line of poetry in Public Espresso + Coffee after making his deliveries in Buffalo on May 10. The coffee shop, which is one of Svalina’s customers, provides him with free coffee in exchange for a month of dream poems.

“I just get trapped in my own sort of bubble of whimsy,” he said. “Some­ times I feel like I live in a rejected Miranda July movie.”

Svalina, 42, began his unortho­ dox poetry­delivery service in Denver about two years ago.

A former academic who continues to publish books of poetry, Svalina came up with the project on a whim after realizing that his adjunct teach­ ing gig at the University of Colorado in Boulder had dried up.

“I suddenly realized I had no idea how to pay my rent for three months, and came up with this as a joke,” he said on a recent morning at Tipico, a coffee shop on Fargo Avenue. “So

that led to trying to fi ure out ways to do more biking long­distance and bike camping, which then led to try­ ing to do this project in different cit­ ies, to sort of integrate these things that actually make me happy.”

Things that make Svalina happy include biking long distances, writ­ ing surreal poems and exploring new cities.

Things that don’t make Svalina happy include academia, desk jobs and living in houses.

His life in the last few years, he said, has been about “figuring out that actually I feel better when I’m in a tent in the middle of the desert.

That’s where I feel like I belong.”

So he bikes, writes, sleeps in tents and explores the streets in cities like Austin, San Diego, Tuscon and Buf­ falo, occasionally stopping to prop up his bike on a lamppost, trudge up some steps and deposit a strange dream narrative before anyone in­ side wakes up.

Then he sets himself up at one of Buffalo’s many coffee shops – Public Espresso is a favorite, and a client, which provides Svalina with free coffee in exchange for a month of dreams – and types away. On a typi­ cal day, he’ll write 20 to 30 pieces.

And he always makes sure, at least a couple of times per month, to write a separate dream for each individual

subscriber.

For 37 subscribers in Buffalo, Svalina’s ritual has become a daily source of fascination, and even com­ fort.

Christine Slocum, who signed up for the service after seeing it adver­ tised by Just Buffalo Literary Center, which brought Svalina to town, has made it part of her family’s morning ritual. After she gets her kids ready for school, she reads the day’s dream to them over breakfast.

“The economics worked favor­ ably to justify some impulse patron­ age. And I thought it would be cool for my kids to see, to expose them to different types of art,” Slocum said.

“It has defin tely made the morning more whimsical than it was before.

The thing that’s very hope­giving to me is that this is a very interesting business model. I thought it was cool that he found a way to use his work by going directly to people without having to go through a publisher.”

After Svalina fi ishes his month of dream deliveries in Buffalo, he will spend a few weeks as an artist­ in­residence at the Chautauqua Insti­ tution. After that, he said, he hopes to develop his project into a large­ scale attempt to deliver poems to all the residents of select small towns.

“There’s a little town in Colorado called Leadville, it’s the highest in­ corporated city in America. I’ve been fantasizing about doing that there,” he said. “I’m trying to put all of my energy into the things that I can do well. I’m not going to claim that I’m the greatest or most profound writer, but I can do this kind of writing.

Part of this project is seeing how far I can take that.”

MAN KILLED BY GENESEE DEPUTY HAD TROUBLED PAST | PAGE B1

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BUFFALONEWS COM

Friday, April 13, 2018

Copyright 2018

Notes from a tulip farm in Netherlands

BISONS LOSE HOME OPENER, 2-1

Dwight Smith Jr.

SPORTS, PAGE C1

Senecas sue N.Y. in long dispute over Thruway on tribal land

W N Y EDITION

Serving Western New York since 1880

HOME & STYLE, PAGE D1

Mattis cautious over imminent strike on Syria Walks back Trump’s threats amid rise in worry on Russia, Iran involvement

By Helene Cooper and Thomas Gibbons-Neff N EW YOR K T I MES

Photos by Mark Mulville/Buffalo News

Vehicles travel Thursday on rough stretch of New York State Thruway in southern Erie County that Seneca Nation of Indians has disputed at least since the early 1990s, contending that motorists are trespassing on sovereign land.

Seek compensation, end to tolls on 2.7-mile area

By Dan Herbeck N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Lawyers for the Seneca Nation of Indians filed a lawsuit against New York State on Thursday, alleging that the state broke federal laws more than 60 years ago when it built a 2.7­ mile section of the Thruway through Seneca territory in southern Erie County.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Buffalo demands that the state compensate the Senecas for its use of the land, and it also seeks to stop the state from collecting tolls

Sign put up by the Seneca Nation on disputed part of Thruway indicates that, based on traffic, tribe is owed more than $675 million by the state.

on the Seneca’s Cattaraugus Terri­ tory near Irving.

“After decades of seeing our prop­ erty invaded without authorization from the federal government that is required to protect our native land, we find it necessary to take legal ac­ tion against these state officials,” said Seneca Nation President Todd Gates.

“We are not seeking to cause any disruption, but rather to ensure that the New York State authorities com­ ply with federal law and gain approv­ al from the Department of the Inte­ rior for the Thruway that encroaches on 300 acres of land that has be­ longed to the Nation and our ances­ tors for generations.”

See Senecas on Page A7

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary James N. Mattis took pains Thursday to walk back President Trump’s threats of an imminent strike against Syria, reflecting mounting concerns at the Pentagon that a concerted bombing cam­ paign could escalate into a wider conflict involving Rus­ sia, Iran and the West.

An afternoon meeting of the president’s national secu­ rity team ended without a de­ cision on an attack, said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Defense Department officials noted that it may be difficult to ex­ tricate the Trump administra­ tion from a military strike, giv­ en the president’s Twitter post a day earlier that U.S. missiles “will be coming, nice and new and ‘smart.’”

“We are continuing to as­ sess intelligence and are en­ gaged in conversations with our partners and allies,” Sand­ ers said in a statement. She said Trump would be speak­ ing later Thursday with Prime Minister Theresa May of Brit­ ain and President Emmanu­ el Macron of France, the two main partners expected to join in any military action.

Defense officials said Mat­ tis was urging caution and consideration of a wider strat­ egy – including trying to get

Senate GOP leader assesses Democrats N E W S A L B A N Y B U R E AU C H I E F

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

Jeremy Twiss, who had never painted before and had no formal art training, painted the Tabernacle over the course of a year.

INDEX

Business ...................... B6 City & Region ............. B1 Classified ..................... E1 Comics ......................... D4

Crossword .......... E3, E6 Dear Abby....................D2 Home & Style...............D1 Horoscope....................D5

Letters ...........................A9 Lotteries ..................... B2 Obituaries .................. B4 Opinion ....................... A8

Jeremy Twiss just needed a job.

So, when the wayward 26­year­old walked into Sweetness7 Café on Grant Street one day in 2013, he told owner Prish Moran he was willing to perform any task she required.

“What are your strengths?” Moran asked Twiss during their first encounter.

“Well, I hate people,” he replied.

They both broke down laughing.

And just like that, one of the most remark­ able artist­patron relationships in 21st century Buffalo was born.

Neither of them knew it that day, but Moran and Twiss’ friendship would later blossom into the Tabernacle, Buffalo’s own unlikely, low­ budget version of the Sistine Chapel. The space, which the now 31­year­old untrained artist spent a year decorating with large­scale murals in a remarkable variety of styles and techniques

ALBANY – “Hardcore poli­ tics” and “extraordinary pres­ sure” from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo drove the timing of last week’s decision for warring Senate Democrats to unite, a move prodded by pressure that the governor is feeling from his primary challenge by activist Cynthia Nixon, according to the Senate’s top Republican.

“Did I think it was go­ ing to last longer? Sure. Was I hoping it was going to last longer? Sure,” Senate Major­ ity Leader John J. Flanagan Jr., R­Huntington, said of the now­defunct alliance that Sen­ ate Republicans enjoyed until last week with the Indepen­

See Painter on Page A6

Picture Page .............. D6 Scoreboard ................ C5 Sports ............................ C1 Television ................... D2

WEATHER

See Syria on Page A5

Election pressure seen as spur to Albany unity

By Tom Precious

Novice painter transforms Grant Street space into Buffalo’s Sistine Chapel

more commitments from al­ lies of immediate help after any strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad. Mat­ tis also underscored the im­ portance of a preponderance of evidence linking Assad to Saturday’s suspected chemical weapons attack on a suburb of Damascus, the capital, the of­ ficials said.

The Trump administration has not yet confirmed the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.

In a morning hearing, Mat­ tis told the House Armed Ser­ vices Committee that retalia­ tion had to be balanced against the threat of a wider war.

“We are trying to stop the murder of innocent people. But on a strategic level, it’s how do we keep this from escalating out of control – if you get my drift on that,” Mattis said in response to a question by Rep. Niki Tsongas, D­Mass.

He also assured lawmak­ ers that they would be noti­ fied before any strikes against Syrian weapons facilities and airfields – similar to the Pen­ tagon’s alert before an April 2017 cruise missile attack on Shayrat air base following a chemical attack on Syrian ci­ vilians.

Earlier Thursday, Trump said he would make a decision “fairly soon” about a military strike. On Twitter, he insisted that he had never telegraphed

Clouds and sun, a shower. High 52, low 38. Details on Page B8.

dent Democratic Conference, or IDC, a breakaway group of eight Democrats.

“There’s no question in my mind” Flanagan said, that the Democratic unity deal came about under pressure caused

by Nixon’s challenge to Cuo­ mo’s re­election bid and pri­ mary challenges facing mem­ bers of the former IDC, headed

by State Sen. Jeffrey D. Klein, D­Bronx.

Flanagan, in his first inter­ view since the Democratic uni­ ty arrangement was unveiled last week, said Cuomo and the IDC senators are “under intense pressure” from what he called middle­ and far­left activists that “make Bernie Sanders look like a fiscal dis­ ciplinarian.”

The unity arrangement came together days after Fla­ See Flanagan on Page A7

STATE TESTING HITS ROUGH SPOTS The start of state tests in English Language Arts hit some technical obstacles and objections from some teachers. Story on Page B1

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A6

The Buffalo News/Friday, April 13, 2018

Continued from the Cover

The Tabernacle, a newly renovated space on Grant Street, is set to open soon as a bar and restaurant. Owner Prish Moran, below, asked one of her cooks, Jeremy Twiss, to paint the entire space. Though he was adept at drawing, he had never painted before. The project took an entire year. Twiss incorporated themes from various religions. Above is some of his border work.

Photos by Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

The Tabernacle, painted by Jeremy Twiss, right, includes a mixture of medieval and renaissance-style art with urban decay style. The walls above have geometric glitch graffiti.

Work features pop culture, religion, philosophy PAINTER • from A1 in near­solitude, is slated to open in the next few weeks.

‘I can’t paint’

Back on that day in 2013, im­ pressed by his brutal honesty and the proverbial cut of his jib, Moran hired Twiss on the spot to work in the café’s open kitchen.

As a quick­tempered cook prone to arguments with café staff and generally disdainful of authority, Twiss was not exactly a hit with his co­workers. Most café owners, after a few years of dustups and fl red tem­ pers, would have let him go.

Not Moran. Always on the look­ out for a staff she treats more as her own children than her employees, she hatched an idea better suited to Twiss’ personality and talents.

“Jeremy had reached a pinnacle of stress with what happens in a busy, busy coffee shop,” she said. So she asked him to help her paint the building she had purchased next door to the café; she planned to convert it into a bar and restaurant space catering to Grant Street’s di­ verse, bohemian neighborhood.

“He kind of looked at me, and he goes, ‘I can’t paint. I don’t know how to paint.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you can.

You’ve got to do something. You can’t keep driving everyone crazy out there.”

As it turns out? The kid can defi nitely paint.

Psychedelic power

The Tabernacle, Twiss’ artis­ tic masterpiece housed in a former house of worship on Lafayette Av­ enue, is a breathing marvel of cre­ ativity unlike any other art installa­ tion or public art project in Western New York.

Its sprawling murals and decora­ tive fl urishes, painted in a remark­ able variety of colors and styles over the course of a year, cover every inch of the walls and ceilings.

It features motifs borrowed from Renaissance artists like Michelan­ gelo and Leonardo; Egyptian hiero­ glyphics surrounding mythological scenes drawn from Twiss’ imagina­ tion; graceful mandalas inspired

by Buddhist traditions and set off by meticulous wildlife illustrations; swirling abstract clouds out of Van Gogh; Japanese calligraphy; Dali­ esque surrealist dreamscapes dot­ ted with digital circuitry; and sci-fi stories from “Star Wars,” “Dune” and “Jurassic Park” remixed into strange and fever dreams.

The whole color­drenched land­ scape is punctuated and connected by networks of fl orescent graf­ fi i borrowed from the language

Clockwise from left: The first ceiling panel shows the flower of life surrounded by angelic beings called seraphim. The next one, over the stage, contains the Hindu symbol Om, which some believe is the primordial sound of the universe. The next ceiling panel is a play on Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam.” The final panel is dedicated to the sun and the power and life it gives. Hands around the sun is an Egyptian motif.

of the street. It is infused here and there with spontaneous phrases like “NOTHING IS PERFECT” and “tsk, tsk,” each one hinting at the artist’s insecurities about his own talent and his anxious state of mind.

“I understand now why so many painters go crazy,” Twiss said on a recent afternoon in the space, as the sound of an electric sander seeped in from the other room. “There were days where I would be so focused that I would start to not really know what was real.”

The psychedelic tone of the proj­ ect bears this out.

The challenge was complicated, Moran and Twiss said, by the ex­ traordinarily difficult conditions un­ der which the work was created. The unheated space was bone­chillingly cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer. Twiss suffered through it all, spending long nights on rickety scaffolding he sometimes feared would collapse and navigat­ ing around furniture and equipment from Moran’s former bar and restau­ rant on Parkside Avenue.

“There were plenty of times where I’d work myself to death for 15 hours straight, and then I couldn’t move the next day,” Twiss said.

The resulting artwork, which echoes with ideas transposed from

On B uffalO news . cOm

See West Side restaurant in all its colorful glory See more of Jeremy Twiss’ artwork in a Buffalo News photo gallery from the Tabernacle, due to open in the next few weeks on Grant Street.

pop culture, religious traditions and philosophy, is like walking directly into Twiss’ hyperactive brain.

“I think it’s incredible,” said Steve Zaionz, a cook and manager at Sweetness7. “It was fun to see him teach himself how to paint as he was working. He improved drasti­ cally over a very short period of time, I think because he was working so constantly.”

Philosophically thinking

Twiss grew up in Lackawanna and West Seneca in what he called a “fundamentalist Christian” house­ hold. He studied philosophy at the University of South Florida for a short time before moving back to Buffalo and later did a stint in the comparative literature program at the University at Buffalo before drop­

ping out for lack of money.

Though he was interested in art from the time he was in middle school and was fond of drawing, he had never made any attempts at painting as an adult and pursued philosophy instead.

For Twiss, the works of Spino­ za, Nietzsche, Kant and Heidegger were places where he could get lost in ideas and ask the deep questions that had preoccupied him since he was a child. He still regularly reads philosophy.

“I was raised religiously and I started asking questions,” he said, “and I realized that philosophy was the place where you go to ask ques­ tions and sort out your mind a bit, and then have your mind unsorted.”

But art, as he learned over the last year, serves that purpose just as well.

“I love being in here,” Twiss said.

“I’ve heard actors say, ‘Oh, I never watch my own movies.’ But I sit in here, and I think about every little thing that I was thinking about when I was painting. All the weird memories, and the pain, and the nice points, too.

“There’s just so much embedded in here, and it was where I found a lot of pieces of myself that I had for­ gotten or that I didn’t know I had.”

Every panel in the space tells its

own strange story, from the famous Michelangelo panel he adapted for the entranceway to a smaller wall painting featuring a sumo wrestler and penguin fl ating against an im­ pressionistic backdrop out of Monet next to an illustration of Alaska and repeated renderings of the Japanese archipelago.

Another panel, Twiss explained, features a fi ure designed as a com­ bination of Anakin Skywalker, Ju­ lius Caesar, Jesus Christ and Paul Muad’Dib from the “Dune” series.

He’s holding a large green lightsaber against a desert landscape as a Bud­ dha fi ure calmly leads a skeletal ve­ lociraptor to the edge of the frame.

This panel, one of Twiss’ favorites, is designed as a complex narrative about the application of great power to peaceful ends, like art. The goal, he said, was to mimic the experience of entering a great cathedral.

“Seeing the form, seeing the ge­ ometry, seeing the fl ing buttresses, seeing all the stained glass: That is what activates so much in a human,” he said. “You see all this compound­ ed effort pressed into this relatively small space. I realized that if you want something to be all mystical and psychedelic and crazy, you’ve got to pour everything into it.”

Joy versus happiness

By his own accounting, Twiss ad­ mits his skills aren’t as developed as he’d like.

“There are thousands of artists out there who are way more techni­ cally proficient than I am,” he said.

“In my head, I want to be like that one day. It’s crazy and unrealistic for me to think that I could have started out that way and that could have been the product here. But nobody thinks that this is terrible so far.”

Nor, aside from those who refl x­ ively dismiss “outsider art,” are many likely to think so. Moran agrees.

“To see someone that I love, who has worked for me for so long, just the personal happiness and the growth that was right in front of my eyes?” she said. “He’s not my child, but I had that same feeling.”

Though the process was extraor­ dinarily difficult, Twiss called it the greatest accomplishment of his life.

“It’s the difference between joy and happiness,” he said in response to a question about sacrificing his sanity, sleep and friendships in order to complete the work. “Joy can be a deep, solemn thing. It’s not necessar­ ily smiles and rainbows. Joy is like, you’re content and you’re resolute and there’s an underlying warmth.

Even though there might be this hor­ rible storminess going on, you’re still there, and you’re doing it, and you haven’t lost.”

Construction firm to be bought by employees

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CITY&REGION The Buffalo News

Stanley Evans • Deputy Managing Editor 849­4444 • sevans@buffnews.com

SECTION

B

Friday, July 1, 2016

Public praise for Cash counters private reviews New board faces union talks, looks to push superintendent’s reform

By Deidre Williams and Jay Rey N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER S

The Buffalo School Board will have a new look Friday.

Following a tumultuous May election that changed the makeup of the fractious board, three incumbents kept their seats, and three newcomers – Hope R. Jay, Jen­ nifer L. Mecozzi and Paulette Woods – will be installed.

But what difference will having a new, nine­member board really make?

Look for it to try to settle the long­

awaited teachers contract – even though boards before it have tried and failed.

Look for it to press ahead with the su­ perintendent’s reform agenda – smaller class sizes, innovative high schools and ex­ tended days – even though members don’t know how they’ll pay for it all.

And maybe – if you look closely – you’ll see a new board that shows less rancor and more civility, even though most of the key players won’t change.

Most obvious will be new leadership, with former President James L. Sampson See Schools on Page B2

Belton-Cottman, Nevergold gave low scores

By Deidre Williams N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Barbara Seals Nevergold and Sharon BeltonCottman both gave Cash a rating of under 3 out of 4.

At a public meeting to evaluate Buf­ falo Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash Wednesday, board members went around the conference table heaping praise and compliments on him for his work.

Board member Barbara Seals Nevergold even gave Cash a big hug, an apparent show of approval.

But the scene that unfolded publicly contrasted with private reviews by Never­ gold and fellow board member Sharon Bel­ ton­Cottman, who both pushed to get the evaluation done before a new board is in­ stalled Friday.

The two gave Cash the lowest scores of anyone on the board, coming down par­ ticularly hard on him for not keeping the board informed and criticizing him for not including some board members in conver­ sations about the direction of the district.

Cash has enjoyed a broad base of sup­ port both on the board and in the com­ munity since he took the helm of the dis­ trict in August. He was appointed with a unanimous vote. Since then, board mem­ bers have remained supportive of his plans to implement community schools, lower class sizes and create a network of innova­ tive high schools offering specialized pro­ grams.

That universal support seemed to be the case at Wednesday’s meeting, when the board reconvened publicly and unani­ mously agreed to give Cash a 2.5 percent See Cash on Page B2

Activists want freeze on tower Group says harbor site requires more study

By Melinda Miller N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

Local activists who feel like they were shut down and ignored during public hearings about a planned waterfront de­ velopment have fi ed a lawsuit demand­ ing the project be put on hold until envi­ ronmental studies can be completed. The development plan calls for demolition of the Freezer Queen building on Buffa­ lo’s Outer Harbor and construction of a 23­story apartment tower.

The suit is asking for a temporary re­ straining order that would prevent any site preparation work, as well as a prelim­ inary injunction against new construc­ tion while the case is being heard.

In 70 pages of court papers fi ed Tues­ day, the group accuses the developer, Queen City Landing, and the city’s Plan­ ning Board and Common Council of act­ ing in concert to “fast­track” approval of the project, which fir t was presented to the Planning Board three months ago. In doing so, the group says, actors ignored zoning and environmental impact re­ quirements.

The suit fi ed in State Supreme Court notes that for the fir t seven years that the property was owned by Queen City, See Lawsuit on Page B5 Mark Mulville/Buffalo News

The Albright-Knox Public Art Initiative by artist Roberley Bell is installed at the Tifft Nature Preserve in Buffalo on Thursday.

Artist answers the call of the wild Project aimed at drawing attention to the ongoing efforts to plant more than 2,000 trees at Tifft Nature Preserve

Kensington Heights site up for sale

By Susan Schulman N E WS STA F F R EPORT ER

By Colin Dabkowski N EWS A RTS W R I T ER

Visitors out for a walk this summer through South Buffalo’s Tifft Nature Preserve will encounter some unexpected new forms of wildlife.

To the beavers, sparrows and woodland creatures that call Tifft home, artist Roberley Bell has added a menagerie of unsettling fauna: concrete deer painted bright colors, white sculptures of birds roosting on branches of bright blue metal and an enormous yellow cage housing a single sapling.

Her project, “Locus Amoenus,” is a collabo­ ration of the Albright­Knox Art Gallery’s public art program and the Buffalo Museum of Science, which is responsible for maintaining and promoting the 264­acre refuge on the site of a former municipal garbage dump.

The work is designed to bring attention to conservationists’ efforts to plant more than 2,000 new trees throughout the preserve in part to improve the habitat for migratory song birds, which could be heard chirping away

An artwork of a deer with blue head and neck by Roberley Bell is installed at Tifft Nature Preserve.

during a news conference Thursday afternoon.

The project, said Albright­Knox public art curator Aaron Ott, was created “in the hopes that it will enlighten you to the vast work going on throughout the preserve itself.”

“Each element here has some sort of response to the specifi work that the science museum and the nature preserve are doing to stabilize this environment,” he added.

David J. Spiering, an ecologist at the preserve, especially praised Bell’s efforts to highlight the caging designed to protect the newly planted trees from deer and beavers who would otherwise destroy them. As part of the project, Bell painted those cages bright purple or blue in an attempt to get visitors to look for the cages and saplings throughout the preserve and to think about the work of conservationists.

“I felt somewhat honored that the work I did for nature primarily was viewed in this completely different context,” Spiering said. “I really was happy to see that other people view

The fi ancially strapped Buffalo Mu­ nicipal Housing Authority wants to sell its long­vacant Kensington Heights hous­ ing development, scrapping its previous plan to fin sh knocking down the com­ plex and building new housing at the site.

After spending some $10 million – more than three times the initial cost es­ timate – to demolish fi e of the six towers, the BMHA is looking for a less costly way to fi ish the project, and bring in needed revenue at the same time.

Given that, the BMHA board voted Thursday to try selling the 16.8­acre site, located at 1827 Fillmore Ave., and visible from the Kensington Expressway.

“The time has come for the BMHA to write the fi al chapter on Kensington Heights. We believe the site’s easy access from the 33, recent investment in the sur­ rounding neighborhood, plus the avail­ ability of brownfield tax credits, make it an attractive property,” said BMHA Ex­

See Tifft on Page B6

See BMHA on Page B6

INSIDE: Lotteries / Page B2 • Local News / Page B3 • Obituaries / Page B4

B6

The Buffalo News/Friday, July 1, 2016

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Natalie Jorgensen picks peas on Hunters Creek Road in Wales on a warm, pleasant Thursday. On Friday, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a 40 percent chance of rain and possibly thunderstorms in the middle of the day, according to the National Weather Service. The high temperature for the day will be in the mid­70s.

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Fake, real BMHA wants a cheaper way animals to rid itself of dilapidated complex join at Tifft the work that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing here all sorts of ways. I think it draws attention too. You can come to see the art, but maybe then you come and enjoy nature.â&#x20AC;?

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just what Jacob Benoit and Jessica Mason were doing Thursday when they came upon the instal­ lation, which sits about a half­mile into the preserve. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just nice to come here right from downtown,â&#x20AC;? said Benoit, who said he was visiting the preserve for the first time since he was a chld. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We saw a couple deer just jumping around, and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beautiful.â&#x20AC;?

Mason, on her first visit, said she was impressed with the wildlife she encountered in a short visit, including Bellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unexpected additions. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think to see all this,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a nice little surprise.â&#x20AC;?

For Buffalo Museum of Science Director Marisa Wigglesworth, who was flanked at the news confer­ ence by a group of Buffalo schoolchildren, the project is directed at continuing the museumâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission to improve Tifft for visitors ­ both human and otherwise. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We do have to work proactively here to protect and preserve our environ­ ment,â&#x20AC;? she said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the message we hope all visitors to Tifft leave with.â&#x20AC;?

surface parking lots.

The site is empty, but the BMHA continues to cover maintenance and insurance costs. If a reasonable tempo­ rary use presents itself, we would entertain it to defray our costs, Sanders­Garrett said.

Prior to announcing plans to sell the site, the BMHA as of last year was talking about clearing the site, then working with a developer to build senior citizen housing, stores or some other project where the towers once stood.

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ecutive Director Dawn E. Sand­ ers­Garrett.

With one empty tower shell remaining at the site, the BMHA is willing to sell the property with the tower on it, to be demolished by the new owner or, depending on the of­ fer, the BMHA might consider knocking the final tower down, said Michael Seaman, chair­ man of the authorityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s board.

Seaman estimated it will cost $280,000 to demolish the tow­ er. The tower is basically a building shell, and it is asbes­ tos­free, BMHA offi ials said.

The former public housing development was built in 1958 and has been empty since 1980.

Demolition began in 2010, and the BMHA expected the six towers to be down by the end of that year.

But the ill­fated demolition project was delayed by a scan­ dal involving unsafe asbestos­re­ moval procedures. That led to a federal investigation and crimi­ nal convictions of nine business­

es, businessmen and public safe­ ty inspectors. Charges against two other firms were dismissed after the companies shut down.

Five towers were down by 2014. The BMHA remediated the final tower, but did not have funds to demolish it.

The drawn­out process led to increased costs.

Authority offi ials said the demolition costs exceeded orig­ inal expectations largely be­ cause of how much it costs to properly remove asbestos.

The authority spent the $5 million that it received for the project in 2007 from the state Dormitory Authority and used another $4.8 million in cash re­ serves.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has declared the entire site, including the re­ maining tower shell, asbestos­ free, BMHA officials said.

The BMHA is open to fair market value offers for the en­ tire parcel or portions of the site, officials said, adding that it also will consider lease of­ fers for temporary uses, such as construction a staging area or

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APRIL 29, 2018 » SECTION D

Arts, entertainment + books

SUNDAY Colin Dabkowski A PPR ECI AT ION

A lost era echoes from walls of the Underground

I

f not for the drag queens smok­ ing cigarettes on the corner, passers­by would hardly know the Underground Niteclub existed.

That was the way we liked it – the way it was supposed to be – in the Buffalo we used to know.

For more than 40 years, in that anonymous basement bar on Delaware Avenue – hidden behind a frosted glass door, down a flight of dingy stairs – Buffalo’s gay community converged over cheap vodka sodas, trashy drag shows and bad karaoke.

They met there in different eras, under different ownerships, during different crises.

The space first opened as a gay bar called the Hibatchi Room in the mid­ 1970s and later rebranded itself briefly as Me and My Arrow, a Studio 54 clone, in the early 1980s. In the ’90s it became Buffalo Underground, later dropping the “Buffalo” and becoming just the Underground, a name that recalls a host of instant associations good and bad, for countless members of the city’s queer community.

The defining ethos about the Underground? Everyone was welcome, as long as they behaved: Leather daddies and bulldykes, drag queens and curious closet cases, club kids, day­drinkers, musical theater majors and tenants of the housing complex upstairs who trickled down to become part of the crowd.

And yeah, even straight people.

Sometimes there were spilled drinks and sometimes there were unprintable acts in anonymous stalls. Sometimes the carpet crunched underfoot, and it was best not to ask why. Yes, some­ times the cops showed up, but mostly they left the patrons alone.

One time, on a rainy Pride Parade afternoon in June 2007, this writer kissed his boyfriend for the first time near the comically tiny Underground dance floor. Eleven years later, we’re still together: Must have been some­ thing about the discount disco ball or the smell of stale Blue Light.

No matter who walked into the place, there was always a sense of being safe from prying eyes. Cliques dissolved. People who under no circum­ stances danced felt free to dance there.

All of that – “the good and the bad and the indifferent,” as one longtime patron put it on a recent evening – will become part of the long and sordid history of gay Buffalo today, when Underground closes its doors after a 30­year run.

Owner Nick Tiede, who bought the bar six years ago after bartending there for years, lamented the fact the bar is being forced to close because the federal department of Housing and Urban Development is denying the renewal of its lease.

The closure of Underground portends the end to a vanishing era of Buffalo’s bar scene, when drinks were priced to move, rooms were designed for comfort rather than style.

“When I was growing up going to the gay bars, I feel like they were kind of more like this, a little more divey, and now they’ve kind of gotten more upscale and pretentious,” Tiede said. “I feel like this kind of held onto

Theater review: ‘Once’ cannot leave your heart untouched. Page D2 Opera: Fredonia alumna again makes it to Met Grand Finals. Page D2 Books: In China, failure was best option for this U.S. general. Page D3 Theater review: Restaged ‘Phantom’ earns applause at Shea’s. Page D4

‘What Is Trending?’

CHANNEL 2’S KATE WELSHOFER IS TRENDING

Photos by Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

WGRZ reporter used a YouTube channel to hone her creative side

BY ALAN PERGAMENT N E W S T V C R I T IC

W

hen Kate Welshofer was in middle school at Perry Central, she came home very upset from a Career Day. Classmates said they planned to be a teacher, nurse, veterinarian and firefighter when she didn’t have a clue about her future.

“I told my mother ‘I don’t know what I am going to be when I grow up,’” Welshofer re­ cently explained. “She said, ‘It is all right if you haven’t figured your whole life out at age 13.’”

Three decades later, Welshofer appears to have finally figured it out.

Her infectious enthusiasm and quirkiness have quickly established her as the most talk­

“For the first time, what I’m doing really feels what I should be doing, which is a very cool place to be.”

Kate Welshofer

ed about new TV personality in recent memo­ ry as she performs a variety of roles at WGRZ­ TV (Channel 2) in her 21st year in television.

“I was joking that my journalism career is old enough to drink now,” cracked Welshofer.

She most notably appears on the morning program “Daybreak” as the provider of the offbeat “What Is Trending” in the news and as an occasional fill­in anchor.

“For the first time, what I’m doing really feels what I should be doing, which is a very cool place to be,” she said.

She arrived at Channel 2 after 10 years each in cable news in Rochester and Albany.

She is a 1996 graduate of St. Bonaventure, where she was a cheerleader when the bas­ ketball team included Harry Moore, David Vanterpool and Shandue McNeill.

Her late father, who taught Western civili­ zation and philosophy at Genesee Community College, graduated from Bona.

“I didn’t go there because he went there,” she said. “I just liked it and the connection See Welshofer on Page D4

See Underground on Page D4

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The Buffalo News/Sunday, April 29, 2018

Continued from the GustoSunday cover

Dive bar was a safe haven that welcomed all UNDERGROUND • from D1

Photos by Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News

The Underground Niteclub will close its doors today after a 30-year run. Nick Tiede, top, a former bartender, has owned the club for six years. At right, Underground patron TK Robinson dances during a recent party at the legendary gay bar.

Shooting one video per week, Welshofer learned storytelling WELSHOFER • from D1 there in some way. It was a great decision to go there.”

After graduation, Welshofer started working at a mall clothing store when she got a call from the cable news channel in Rochester.

An unpaid intern as part of her college program at what is now Spectrum News, she was hired as a producer with zero experience but having proved she could follow directions.

She was on the air in a few years, sparked by her creation of lighter segments for kids.

“My feeling was you don’t see kids on TV unless they are playing sports or getting ar­ rested,” she said.

She wrote and produced the segment, which grew to a half­hour program.

“I was probably 24 or 25 when I was doing that,” she said. “It was a great way to put something on the air that didn’t exist.”

She also covered numer­ ous events at a time people at the cable news channel were constantly asked “How do you do 24 hours of news a day in Rochester?”

“People would say: ‘What are you doing here? What aw­ ful thing happened to bring you here?’” she recalled. “No, ‘We are here to cover this event.’ We got a reputation of not just coming to town if City Hall is burning down.”

After 10 years, she headed to Albany as an evening an­ chor. She didn’t apply for an­ other job in 10 years because she was still stuck in middle school.

“I didn’t know what I want­ ed to do,” she said. “The jour­ ney to answer that question went on for a very long time.”

She wasn’t sure news was a good fi but she enjoyed sto­

rytelling and working with creative people. So she started a YouTube channel to use a creative muscle that anchors don’t need or use reading a teleprompter.

It was inspired by a video she did for a friend’s 30th birthday.

“I was sad that it was over,” she said. “It was very much a personal creative endeavor.”

She shot the fir t video on a laptop and challenged her­ self to do one video a week.

If she was doing it in a year, she planned to get a proper camera and do three videos a week.

“It was really something I was doing for myself and other people were watching it,” she said.

The most­viewed was for her discussion of “Ship Your Enemies Glitter,” about a guy who charged $10 for an enve­ lope of glitter.

The YouTube channel was perfect for someone who just wanted to have creative fun and was tired of running into people who said they don’t watch the news because it is so depressing.

“There also was a compo­ nent of feeling a bit like the Grim Reaper,” she said of an­ choring the news. “I feel like I am putting so much out to the world that sometimes even for myself is a lot and it can be very, very heavy. This (the YouTube work) was really for myself. It makes me laugh. I can laugh at myself.

“The fact that I was getting feedback that ‘It is so weird and off­the­wall’ made me smile. That made me happy that I was able to balance the scales a little bit from what I was doing professionally. It was something I needed for my health.”

She didn’t expect it to lead to anything before hearing

from Channel 2 late last year and getting a compliment from General Manager Jim Toellner.

“He said, ‘I have a lot of people who do news and I don’t have anybody who can do what you can do,’” recalled Welshofer.

Toellner’s comment shat­ tered her long­held belief that no one was going to hire and pay her to do the fun, creative work she was doing. He hired her to be the new glittering personality to bring some­ thing “different and new.”

For all the things she re­ veals about herself on You­ Tube or in Channel 2 pieces, Welshofer is a private per­ son. She will reveal her age, 43, which may be the biggest misconception about her. She looks much younger.

“That is probably the thing I get the most,” she said. “‘You probably aren’t old enough to remember’ – fi l in the blank.

I start laughing, I actually do remember that.”

She was once named Per­ ry’s Sea Serpent Queen and has a cat she named Brian Williams before the anchor got into controversy that cost him his job heading “NBC Nightly News.”

“People ask me all the time why don’t I rename him Les­ ter Holt,” she said of Williams’ replacement. “Because his name is Brian.”

She also is asked why she didn’t change her challenging name, which her father said can be pronounced properly if you think of “good driver.”

“Here is the thing,” Welshofer said. “America can say Schwarzenegger. If you can say it, you can say Welshofer.”

She has made a name for herself so quickly you could say she is “What’s Trending” in local television.

something that the bars used to be like, and we’re kind of the last one that stuck with that.”

The bar, said longtime patron Omar Parra, “has always been a safe haven for anybody that wants to express themselves. So to lose that element, it’s kind of devastat­ ing. The next generation won’t know. That’s what we lost.”

Mickey Harmon and Nicholas Blazier, who co­organized a series of spectacular theme parties at Underground called “She Lives” over the last few years, hailed the Underground for its unpretentious and welcoming vibe.

“It was kind of like a seedy bar, but sometimes those are the best places. It was the ultimate gay dive,” Harmon said. “You could kind of be yourself and do what­ ever you want when you’re there.”

Blazier, like many Underground patrons, will miss the space’s protective, almost speakeasy atmosphere.

“It’s just kind of sad that some place like this, a diamond in the rough, is disappearing,” he said.

“I actually remember at one of the fir t events we had there, I was speaking with this straight guy.

He said, ‘This is the coolest bar I’ve ever been to.’ It really is. It was like a little funhouse he did not expect.”

Much more than a funhouse, the Underground was a refuge for a population in need of protection.

It played that role in the ’70s, a decade of gay liberation and politi­ cal struggle. It played that role in the ’80s, providing a hidden room for collective healing during the terror of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Vestiges of those struggles live in the architecture of places like the Underground. Some of them close naturally, as customers fall away and fi d other homes above ground.

But when they die prematurely, as the Underground is being forced to do, it feels like an insult to history, another needless loss in a community far too familiar with the concept.

So, let’s all raise a glass and say a toast: Here’s to the Underground, where we became ourselves.

At Shea’s, restaged ‘Phantom’ earns applause

By Colin Dabkowski N E WS A RT S CR I T IC

You can’t quite restage the sexism out of “The Phantom of the Opera,” but you can certainly distract us from it with retina­burning pyrotechnics.

That’s pretty much the gist of Laurence Connor’s darkened, coarsened and reshuffl d version of “Phan­ tom” that opened Friday night in Shea’s Performing Arts Center to an adoring crowd.

It was, true to its promise, as gaudy and overblown a theatrical spectacle as we are likely to see for some time.

Because of our proximity to its long­running Toronto version, Western New Yorkers have an unusually intimate familiarity with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical about a maniacal fi ure seek­ ing control over a woman who resists him.

Today, we might describe the Phantom as a member of the Incel movement, a bastion of toxic masculin­ ity that wants to punish the world for the perceived slights of women against men. Disfigured in visage and mind, the Phantom dwells in a subterranean lair beneath a Paris opera house, engineer­ ing an elaborate terrorist plot to ensnare the opera singer Christine, the object of his terrible affections. When this fails, he kidnaps her and forces her to commit to him by threatening to murder her boyfriend.

What an interesting guy.

Even so, she is fi led with

Theater Review “The Phantom of the Opera” ΩΩ½ (out of four) “The Phantom of the Opera” runs through May 6 in Shea’s Performing Arts Center, 646 Main St. Tickets are $37 to $82. Call 847­0850 or visit sheas.org.

sympathy for her torturer, driven by an innate need to submit to him and to fulfill her task of “fixing” his tortured soul. The men who write our most popular stories have long imagined this to be the raison d’être of the female sex, and it has become so central to our literature – “Beauty and the Beast” written today would be seen as a direct endorsement of sexual abuse – that we don’t even recognize its toxicity.

“Wandering child, so lost, so helpless, yearning for my guidance,” the Phantom sings in “Angel of Music.” “You resist, yet your soul obeys.”

And so, despite a few weak protests, she does.

To be fair to producer Cameron Mackintosh and Conor, this production does its best to portray the Phantom not as the smoldering sex symbol of yore, but as a truly dangerous character less worthy of adoration.

To that end, Quentin Oliver Lee gives us a lithe and energetic Phantom, more of a tortured young man than a embittered eminence.

This stands in unsatisfying contrast to Eva Tavares’ completely anodyne Christine,

Did YOU know?

a papier­mâché fi ure with painted emotions but a beautiful voice. As Raoul, Christine’s suitor, Jordan Craig is, as written, a very lifelike prop with an excellent singing voice.

It is likely, however, that crowds fl cking to Phantom over the next two weeks are not too concerned about the outmoded ideas in the show.

They’re there for shock­and­ awe gothic drama, beautifully rendered on spectacular sets and with eye­popping stage tricks, and soul­haunting music delivered by trained voices.

On all those counts, this production delivers. Paul Brown’s remarkable sets, anchored by an enormous rotating cylinder complete with stairs that appear and disappear magically, are beautifully rendered.

A restaged version of “Masquerade,” one of the show’s weakest songs, is a visual delight replete with technicolor costumes by the late Maria Bjornson and well in keeping with the rococo too­muchness of the show.

The orchestra doesn’t miss a note, and despite perfor­ mances that could benefi from a bit more human emotion, Webber’s most beautiful melodies – “Think of Me,” “The Music of the Night” and “Angel of Music” – get the performances they deserve.

For those of us raised on “Phantom” and its genuinely addictive melodies, there’s much to enjoy in this produc­ tion. As long as we look at it through the right lens.

If you find a lost pet, you can put a FREE, 3-line “Found” ad in The Buffalo News Classifieds.

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Books • Advice • Lifestyle • Movies • Music • Travel

SPOTLIGHT The Buffalo News

Elizabeth Kahn, Assistant Managing Editor 849-5576 • ekahn@buffnews.com

SECTION

F

Sunday, August 9, 2009

The ‘Wall Rockets’ exhibit at the Albright­Knox celebrates the unique vision, curious perspective and immense influence of legendary California artist Ed Ruscha

‘THE COOLEST ART IN THE WORLD’

By Colin Dabkowski /

N E W S

A R T S

W R I T E R

I

Photos by Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News and courtesy Albright­Knox Art Gallery

The “Wall Rockets” exhibition, above, at the Albright-Knox celebrates the work and influence of California artist Ed Ruscha, pictured in a portrait by Jim Torok, top right. Other works on display, clockwise, from top left, are Ruscha’s “Public Stoning”; the gun by Robert Lazzarini; the Torok portrait; Ruscha’s 1963 oil, “Electric”; McDermott and McGough’s 2007 work, “In the Hush of the Night 1965”; and Ruscha’s 2000 painting, “Wall Rockets.”

t was the dead of winter in 2006, and James Frey was in a bad way.

His best­selling memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” had recently come under fire in the national me­ dia for factual inaccuracies. He had just appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to defend his work, and Oprah, once a fervent Frey supporter, had torn the author into a billion little shreds.

It seemed that everywhere Frey looked – on blogs and talk shows, in newspapers and magazines – someone was gleefully waiting to vilify him.

Others of lesser conviction might have fled to the hills of New Hampshire or Vermont to become J.D. Salinger­esque recluses, never to set foot in the public spotlight again. But Frey was never much for convention. In his time of need, in­ stead of seeking refuge in alcohol or drugs or even therapy, the embattled author turned to the art of Ed Ruscha.

“I’ve had odd professional experiences,” Frey said on a recent visit to the Albright­Knox Art Gallery. And after the odd professional experience that was Frey’s messy eviscera­ tion on “Oprah,” Frey’s French publisher called to console him after what she called his “public stoning.” The phrase stuck in Frey’s mind.

“When all that stuff was happening, I don’t know why, I was like, ‘I’ve got to get Ed Ruscha to paint me a picture that says ‘Public Stoning,’” Frey said.

The painting Frey commissioned from Ruscha now hangs in the Albright­Knox as part of “Wall Rockets,” a See ‘Rockets’ on Page F2

“When all that stuff was happening, I don’t know why, I was like, ‘I’ve got to get Ed Ruscha to paint me a picture that says ‘Public Stoning,’ ” – Memoirist James Frey

What’s inside

Flipside: Today’s back cover

Music

People

Books

At 67, Sir Paul is just letting it be.

Page F3.

Travel

Hilbert president began her career in the ICU. Page F5.

Pat Conroy is in top form with “South of Broad.”

Page F9.

Old City, born anew Rediscovering Cartagena. Page F14.

One-tank trip. Page F13.

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The Buffalo News / Sunday, August 9, 2009

F2

Continued from Spotlight Cover

Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News

Painter A.J. Fries, pictured between Will Cotton’s “Insatiable” and a 2003 work by George Condo, was entranced with “Insatiable”: “God, they’ve got to be careful.

I’m stealing that thing,” he said.

People come to Ruscha for many reasons fumes from a Will Cotton painting called “Insatiable,” maybe more like an addict on a bender.

“God, they’ve got to be careful.

I’m stealing that thing, I’m walking off with it,” Fries said, entranced by the piece. “It still smells like oil.”

Fries once painted a large­scale self­portrait (which a Toronto art crit­ ic mistakenly interpreted as a por­ trait of former Vice President Dick Cheney), with Guinness Oatmeal Stout and Yellowtail Shiraz. That’s di­ rectly owing, he said, to Ruscha’s use of coffee, blood, gunpowder and oth­ er uncommon substances, a tactic that also shows its somewhat sinister head in the work of Lazzarini.

‘ROCKETS’ • From F1 sprawling tribute exhibition inspired by the work of the legendary Califor­ nia artist. It runs through Oct. 25.

Humor and defiance

People come to Ruscha for many reasons. For Frey, Ruscha’s work contains a kind of sublime humor and defiance. Visual artists gravitate toward Ruscha’s use of unorthodox materials, like blood and gunpow­ der, his curious use of perspective or, perhaps most profoundly, his myste­ rious use of printed words in his paintings. All those reasons, and dozens more, are on view in the ex­ hibition, which provides a window onto Ruscha’s cool­handed practice and its mammoth influence on sub­ sequent generations of artists.

The majority of the show consists of recent works, many of them com­ missioned specifically for the exhibi­ tion, from top contemporary artists who owe serious debts to Ruscha’s work. They include long­established artists such as Cindy Sherman, John Baldessari, Richard Prince and the late Robert Mapplethorpe, along with dozens of mid­career and emerging artists.

With more than 85 participants, the show is nothing if not unwieldy.

But given Ruscha’s eminence, it could easily have been five times as large and still not have penetrated the surface of his influence.

As the brainchild of collector and hedge­fund manager Glenn Fuhrman, “Wall Rockets” originated at the FLAG Art Foundation in New York City, where it was on view for more than eight months. At the Al­ bright­Knox, the show is bolstered by more than a dozen works from the gallery’s permanent collection that serve to expand both the show’s historical reach and, organizers hope, its public appeal.

Quintessentially hip

The idea for the show originated several years ago with Fuhrman’s purchase of its namesake piece, “Wall Rockets,” from Ruscha. The artist, fa­ mously reticent about ascribing meaning to his work, told Fuhrman that the piece was a metaphor for a great work of art. Ruscha told Fuhrman that “great works of art shoot off the wall like a rocket.”

“To me, it was a metaphor for a collector,” Fuhrman said. “We’re all looking for wall rockets, and what I think is a wall rocket may not be what you think is a wall rocket.” So Fuhrman went on a wide­ranging hunt for “wall rockets” that some­ how pointed back to Ruscha’s groundbreaking work. And what he soon found, unsurprisingly, was un­ bridled enthusiasm from artists far and wide.

“It was incredible how broad and far­reaching Ed’s connection is to contemporary artists,” Fuhrman said. “It was definitely so great that

A wide-angle view

Photos by Harry Scull Jr./Buffalo News and courtesy Albright­Knox Art Gallery

The diverse work in “Wall Rockets” includes Schrumpel No. 26, left, by German artists Julia Venske and Gregor Spanle; Ken Solomon’s “Google Portrait” of Ed Ruscha, above right; and Israeli-born Nir Hod’s “The Night You Left.”

artists felt such a connection to Ed and at the same time wanted to make new work because this is something so resonant.”

Frequent visitors to the Albright­ Knox are probably already familiar with Ruscha’s 1963 oil painting “Elec­ tric,” an iconic blue canvas with the word “ELECTRIC” printed in capital letters with a yellow­to­orange gradi­ ent. The piece evokes equal shares of derision and reverence among view­ ers, some of whom see it as a mere exercise in graphic design.

Others, like the organizers of the exhibition, see it as an early encapsu­ lation of Ruscha’s groundbreaking approach of mixing the kitsch and accessibility of pop art with the near­ obsessive simplicity of minimalism.

As a case in point, Karl Lagerfeld, the fashion designer, claims “Electric” as a favorite painting.

Ruscha, 71, is a rare artist who has been able to maintain his ineffa­ ble appeal among the cultural cognoscenti (hence followers like Lagerfeld, Frey and other A­listers) while remaining accessible to large audiences of defiantly non­elite view­ ers. His work, which ranges from a series of revered books of photo­ graphs on the commercial land­ scapes of Southern California to his peculiar use of words and phrases in his paintings, has always carried something ineffably cool about it.

Like the trumpet playing of Miles Davis, or, as the critic Dave Hickey wrote, the late West Coast jazzman Chet Baker, Ruscha’s work has a sty­ listic ease and allure that no other visual artist has been able to repro­ duce. He is, for painters, the quintes­ sence of hip.

“Ed’s like the coolest guy in the world. Literally, in my opinion, the coolest man on the face of the plan­ et,” Frey said. “He makes the coolest art. It’s funny, it’s smart, it’s sophisti­ cated, it’s aesthetically beautiful. The first time I met him was with my wife and we were just hanging out, and he’s totally mellow, easy­going, funny. He’s great­looking. My wife was like, ‘I sort of want to sleep with him.’ And I was like, ‘Well, for him, it’s OK.’ ”

‘The Night You Left’

For Nir Hod, an Israeli­born artist, his painting “The Night You Left” shares a certain sense of loneli­ ness with Ruscha’s work. The piece, four long streaks resembling lines of cocaine on a black mirror, is titled “The Night You Left.” Hod talked about the painting as a a reflection on memory and beauty.

“It’s not about the cocaine, it’s more about the title, ‘The Night You Left,’ because ‘The Night You Left’ is a beautiful title. It’s something so ro­ mantic, but at the same time it cap­

tures something tragic. I like this combination of beauty and tragedy, or something very socializing and very high­lifestyle and very decadent. … But at the same time there’s some­ thing very lonely about it, there’s something very sad with this title.”

Robert Lazzarini, who has two pieces in the show, was inspired by Ruscha’s “Stains” series, which used material like blood and gunpowder to create pieces with slightly disturb­ ing overtones. In his sculpture of a gun stretched as if it were skewed in Photoshop, Lazzarini drew on Ruscha’s anamorphic paintings, in which he stretched and skewed words and images to create strange and difficult­to­decipher images.

Of course, Ruscha’s influence doesn’t stop in the high­falutin’ art­ world circles of Los Angeles, where he lives, or New York City, long the center of the contemporary art uni­ verse. It trickles all the way upstate to Buffalo. More specifically, it filters, in its way, to artists like A.J. Fries, an accomplished Buffalo­based painter whose work belongs to several local collections.

In a recent trip through the gallery to check out “Wall Rockets,” Fries, who is feverishly finishing a series of paintings for a show at Hallwalls in November, was like a kid in a candy shop. Or, judging by the way he was literally sniffing the

Artists like Fries and J­M Reed, a local photographer who also counts Ruscha as an influence, depend on exhibitions at the Albright­Knox to draw inspiration for their work, which can’t help but reverberate into smaller galleries and exhibi­ tions around Western New York.

Fries seemed, in the short span of 40 minutes or so, to gain a refreshed perspective on his art.

“I saw like nine paintings that I couldn’t even dream of doing,” he said.

But Fries also caught a glimpse of paintings by Nir Hod, Peter Cain and McDermott & McGough, which had a clear affinity with his own cur­ rent project and prompted him to reflect on his own painting process.

“This actually makes me feel real­ ly good. I’ve been struggling with all this stuff,” Fries said, examining Cain’s black and white painting of a Dodge Charger. “I have a tendency to try to make my stuff way too per­ fect, and then to see this, I have to remember that I work in a com­ pletely ass­backwards way than any­ body else does.”

For curator Jessica Dennison, who winnowed down Fuhrman’s se­ lection of artists for the show for its run at FLAG in New York City, the Albright­Knox incarnation of the show is an opportunity to give the public a more wide­angle view of Ruscha and his legions of disciples.

“Most people who are seeing the show may not know Ed Ruscha, but here you have a different dimension by having ‘Electric’ and the works on paper. It really helps enhance [the show],” Dennison said. “The point is that it’s great to be able to think about this collection, and to bring more works of Ruscha in, which I think helps the public, but also gives it a meaning.”

Fuhrman agrees.

“It’s just very accessible to every­ body and you don’t have to have this whole education to understand what the meaning is,” Fuhrman said.

“That’s one of the things that I’m ex­ cited about, just bringing people to see contemporary art that might not otherwise have an opportunity to see it.” e-mail:cdabkowski@buffnews.com

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