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Written on Sunday, September 30th, 2007 at 7:05pm by Christopher Smith | 13 Comments

"It's about a city"

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Pano’s.

The mere mention of Pano’s Restaurant or owner Pano Georgiadis seems to drive the typical BRO reader into a frenzy of condescension and anger.

I’ll spare us all the discussion that will ensue if I discuss the merits of of Pano’s demolition of the building adjacent to his restaurant and instead focus on the plans he has for renovating his extremely popular restaurant on Elmwood Avenue.

Newell Nussbaumer wrote an agnostic thread without agenda about Pano submitting his plans for the renovation of his restaurant. However, the publishing of that post on BRO seemed to light the Bat-Signal for every armchair planner and condescending hipster in the Elmwood Village and beyond.

About 40 or so comments into the discussion, WNYM’s BuffaloPundit made an appearance and offered this bit of wisdom to counter the rhetoric about Pano being the devil incarnate and the presentation of this design being a critical juncture in Buffalo’s history:

Such heated discussion and vitriol over a diner.

It’s a diner, for f*ck’s sake. A diner.

To which Dave Steele rebutted:

No Pundit. It is a discussion about much more than a diner. It is a discussion about a city.

Is it really “about a city”?…

Of course it isn’t. What is about a city?

- As of 2006, 46 of the 76 Buffalo public schools were designated as failing or in need of improvement by the state or federal government.

- A violent crime rate that is more than double the national average and a property crime rate that is nearly double the national average.

- An economy that is dying on the vine.

- Corrupt politicians with their hands out at every turn and a “pay to play” economic development system in the City of Buffalo.

- Housing inspectors harassing citizens at the behest of [strike]city officials[/strike] anonymous complaints over gardens while large swaths of our built environment descend into arson and crime

- Members of the Buffalo Control Board who own homes in flagrant violation of city ordinances

- Predatory house flippers picking at the carcass of our neighborhoods

Shall I go on?

For the love of fucking Christ, the number of curb cuts surrounding Pano’s, the size or presence of a strip of grass, the size and shape of the windows, etc…none of it matters without a concerted effort to rebuild the bones of this city. Arguing over the window dressing makes us look small, petty, arrogant, and reeks of a “Nero fiddles while Buffalo burns” mentality. When the city is again economically viable due to the loosening of the leash which Albany perpetually keeps wrapped around the neck of Buffalo, these types of subjective design arguments will no longer seem so vapid.

I would love it if as many people contributed positively to the issues that matter as do a thread about a diner at BRO. If that ever happened, Buffalo might actually begin to rise.

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13 Comments

  1. Michele Johnson says:
    September 30, 2007 at 7:33 pm

    I dont think I have ever agreed with any post as much as I agree with this one…You hit on so many points here Chris.. We have major issues going on in this city that many think will go away on their own or maybe if we dont talk about it its not real…Well as I keep reminding all if we dont work on the problems plaquing one area it will soon effect yours..
    They say ignorance is bliss I know I was alot less worried when I didnt know what was really going on!

  2. Denizen says:
    September 30, 2007 at 8:54 pm

    Pundit’s “debate” with the commenter “Frankster” was pretty entertaining if no sad on his/her part.

    Frankster’s insistence that Grant St’s downfall can be attributed to the proliferation of parking pads in front of people’s houses along the street is pretty damn laughable.

    Though, splitting hairs over a stupid grass strip seems to sum up the general absurdity of what certain people deem to be major problems with the city.

  3. Fed-Up in WNY says:
    September 30, 2007 at 9:12 pm

    This whole Pano’s thing baffles me. Maybe it’s just me…. we talk constantly about the need for independent investments in our city and yet when an independent invests people get all twisted over it.

    Btw- Until this city is renamed “Pano, NY” it’s a conversation about a diner. ;)

  4. Buffalopundit says:
    October 1, 2007 at 2:51 am

    There’s another thread on there where Steel comments positively about an Umbra store building in Toronto. My first comment on there is that design is subjective, and it’s downright pointless to have a debate about it in the comment section.

    Of course, this one and that one comments with authority about the design.

    It’s a nice distraction from the real problems.

  5. Buffalo Bloviator says:
    October 1, 2007 at 7:23 am

    Pano’s is the epicenter of our city’s “ghetto of enlightenment”. For the “free-range” residents forced to live within its boundaries, it is the only city they know. We should all try and be more sensitive to their life condition because being enlightened carries with it a great burden. The least of which is having to pay seven dollars for a dozen eggs.

    Now, in their defense -If only we could bottle their community spirit and then somehow export it to some of our other neighborhoods, we could put Poland Spring out of business. Here’s to their fussiness spreading to our other neighborhoods!

    Sure it can be argued that their domain lacks any of the diversity that they preach about, but credits do abound. For example, remember when they caught those graffiti guys? They strung ‘em up! I love them for that.

  6. Mike In WNY says:
    October 1, 2007 at 8:12 am

    I long for the day when it was “hip” to save a whale instead of pondering curb cuts.

  7. starbuck says:
    October 1, 2007 at 11:42 am

    Arguing over the window dressing makes us look small, petty, arrogant, and reeks of a “Nero fiddles while Buffalo burns” mentality.

    But who’s the “us”? A few commenters hurting the city?

    Although I agree with you that those are ridiculous argument topics, I just looked at that thread and only a small handful of commenters – Steel, “Hamp”, and very few others – were making any big heated deal out of that kind of stuff.

    Most commenters seemed to be saying it’s not important, or were complimenting Pano, or made jokes mocking the few extremists.

    So to have about 5 or so people (one in Chicago) spew heated vitriol about curb cuts, window style, lawns, etc., doesn’t sound like it’s indicative of anything really. For whatever reason, those are issues those few people feel passionate about. Most people have some passions and issues that others find pointless. (They might not care about beer brewing or NFL football, for example.)

    I do think it’s good that those few people don’t have much if any real power to affect public policy here. It could always be worse, and their type of extremism would add even more road blocks to business.

    Btw – about your list above of serious issues facing Buffalo, I’m with you that those are much more important topics.

  8. JohnMartin says:
    October 1, 2007 at 12:30 pm

    Actually Bloviator, I think bottling the “community spirit” off the Elmwood Village would be counterproductive to the rest of the city. It is an elitist, arrogant, and intellectually xenophobic set of ideals which has created an environment in which little gets accomplished and much is debated.

    Reading threads at BRO is akin to walking the streets of the EV and there is no place I’d rather avoid than a BRO thread.

  9. Buffalo Hodgepodge says:
    October 1, 2007 at 5:44 pm

    What utter pretension on this thread. Who are all of you to declare which of the city’s problems are “real” and which are less so? I, for one, am completely flummoxed with the recent of shortage of Guatemalan coffee beans at the Lexington Co-op.

  10. starbuck says:
    October 1, 2007 at 8:30 pm

    by Buffalopundit – October 1st, 2007
    … My first comment on there is that design is subjective, and it’s downright pointless to have a debate about it in the comment section.
    Of course, this one and that one comments with authority about the design.
    It’s a nice distraction from the real problems.

    More so than ideology is subjective?
    And there’s a point to this one and that one comenting that liberals suck or conservatives are doody heads and I know you are but what am I?

    The multi-dozen comment pillow fight today about whether or not some unnamed 20 year old UB kid chickened out of protesting Michael Moore was a nice distraction from real issues too.

    Let’s face it:
    Much of life is distractions from real issues and nothing is too subjective or pointless for some people to argue about in a comment section. Different blogs have different focuses. Some people think architecture trivia is worth arguing about (with or without any real point, with or without anyone listening to alternative views), other people think local political skirmishes or almost-skirmishes are worth arguing about (also with or without the same things).

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