Under Construction

There was no post yesterday, nor was there a walk with the dog to start one on. I was up early enough, because I heard the arrival of the day's road gang outside. They were back to continue, if not finish, the job of repaving our street that began last Thursday with the demolition of the ancient asphalt. Once again, for whatever reason, they chose to do this on garbage day and the arrival of the competing trucks THAT involves, with the added sight this time of the school transportation company sending full-size buses out on our street for pre-September practice runs. I moved both cars out onto an unaffected cross street while the asphalt warmed up in the back of this beast:

Before I left, the recycling truck managed to get through and pick up their totes from our street. At some point after I left, another crew got through with their truck to empty the four latest cans of yard detritus that Eleanor had been accumulating all week. The one remaining one, with our stinking garbage-garbage, still remains out there. Maybe they’ll pick it up, maybe they won’t.

I got out of Hot Dodge for an utterly unproductive workday on the road. My time in the Rochester office consisted of figuring out a totally new timekeeping system that's been inflicted on them by Intushit; attending a luncheon for a coworker about to birth her second baby; and finally going over about a dozen client accounts I can no longer access through the new timekeeping thing, to figure out who has and has not paid and why I have and have not received anything from the ones that did. I also had more than my usual share of miscommunications and forgetfulness with things back at home, which didn’t help either. But we think the pavement is finally laid, and they only have to steamroll it and finish curb cuts on the corners.

It’s not all constant activity out there while they work. With labor shortages, the highway department is still trying to fill some of their most important positions, like "the guy who leans on the shovel" and "the guy who looks in the hole." Eleanor even heard a couple of them on a break yesterday talking about the big news of the day, the latest Trump  indictment summarized by Charlie Pierce even more succinctly than the charging instrument did:



The guys out on the road gang said they are pretty convinced that he’s just going to use it as another excuse to raise money.

I had no idea you had to be that smart to work construction.

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It’s another matter altogether to be intelligent and PLAN construction.

Several months ago, I posted about visiting a bar and music venue in the Allentown section of the city here. They’ve been having quite a hard time of it this year because the city has been doing a major reconstruction project on Allen Street. I remember thinking at the time, well, at least they should be done by the time Emily comes up for the Allentown Art Festival. It was not, and as of my last visit to Nietzsche’s, it still was a war zone down there.

The bar, fortunately, in in the process of being sold, but the neighborhood has claimed a casualty, one of its oldest and most treasured food establishments:




Towne Restaurant, a longtime staple at the crossroads of Buffalo's Allentown neighborhood, has suddenly shut down for good with no notice to employees.

In a letter shared with 7 News, co-owner Eleni Konstantopulous, daughter of the late co-founder George Scouras, apologizes to staff for "the sudden closure of the restaurant" on Monday.

"There were several factors that played into our decision to close and end operations at the restaurant," the letter said. "We apologize for not notifying the closure at an earlier date. We would like to thank each of you for your dedication to our restaurant while you were our employee."

Neither Konstantopulous nor her brother, who co-owned the restaurant with her, had any further comment. A sign on the door reads "Temporarily closed during construction."

The intersection of Allen and Elmwood has once again been closed to traffic as part of Phase II of the Allen Street Complete Project. It is expected to remain closed through August.

Towne was founded in 1972 at Elmwood and Allen by Scouras and his brother Peter, "two brothers of Greek descent" who "fled war-torn Europe to the United States" in 1951, according to Towne's website. The brothers founded Bison Painting and Decorating before later opening Towne Red Hots. The name was later changed to The Towne Restaurant.

We weren't regulars by any means, but the place has lived on in our lingo for ages. Even before moving here, we'd  been there for dinner or after-show food, and during one of those visits, our overworked waitress cried out to the back room in exasperation, Peter, you're giving me a migraine! Damn, it took over 30 years, but we finally learned what Peter's last name was.

Who knows what caused the sudden demise? Certainly the pandemic didn't help, but I have to think the construction down there was the death blow. I'd also seen the creeping gentrification of that section of the Allen Street strip coming from the direction of the recently relocated UB Medical School at the Main Street end of the block. Doctors gotta have their fancy places to eat and exercise and get massages, and those places are taking over former dive bars and vintage clothing shops that gave Allentown its look and feel in all the years I've known it. It won't surprise me if the Towne turns into condos, or a fancier sitdown restaurant.

Or maybe even, given its history, a medical office specializing in migraines....

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Closer to home, one other odd view, where the construction has now passed.

Somebody has opened an actual charm school here, in a plaza next to the Wegmans where Eleanor used to work. Last month, one of those portable signs first went up advertising them as specializing in “modeling and etiquette.“ We first saw it on the day that a DOT milling machine, just like the one on our street yesterday morning, was parked right out in front of it.  It's gotta be hard to walk in an evening gown and heels through hot asphalt, but hey, we're a blue collar town, so who knows?

Now, though, it appears the Ladies of Grace are all cleaned up, and it’s time to put on a show!



Interesting choice of musical, if you ask me. I had no idea that sashes and tiaras came in tweed.