Living and Dying Just Off Exit 55
Dec. 7th, 2008 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThe irony was not lost on me as we headed to Handel's Messiah tonight- that the exit from the Thruway for the Basilica is the same one most folks from the Northtowns and from East Points would take to get to a Bills game.
The famous edifice we went to tonight was built in the early half of the 1920s for the then-staggering cost of three million dollars. It anchors the main intersection of the city of Lackawanna, which seemingly remains in existence solely to make Buffalo seem prosperous in comparison. Inside, it is as impressive, and as moving, as it must have been when this was one of the biggest and boomingest areas of the country. You can just feel the sacredness of the space as you look around, and just as impressively when you look up. (You can virtual-tour the place here, but it doesn't begin to do it justice.) Tonight's guests were a chorus of singers, a contingent of Buffalo Philharmonic accompanists, and a Standing Pew Only audience of music-lovers who Georg Frederic Handel once again brought to their feet with his movingness of his movements. It was all I could do to resist crying out, in the spirit of the Latin setting, Avis Absolvo!
----
Meanwhile, a few miles past our turnoff from Exit 55, another famous edifice lay fallow.
It was built in the early half of the 1970s, for a now-bargain price of 22 million dollars. It anchors virtually nothing else in the southern suburbs of Buffalo, and for the past decade has only truly come alive on eight fall and winter days when our vestigal NFL team chooses to play a home game there.
This afternoon, the end of that tradition began, as the annual home game count went down to seven. Today's Bills "home game" was 90 miles to the north, in a much more booming metropolis in Canuckistan. They lost, and nobody, seemingly, was there who even cared.
This arrangement will continue for four more seasons, unless our ancient owner assumes room temperature before that. Whichever comes first, a larger market will surely swallow us up, and we will be left only with memories of coming oh so close on occasions increasingly long ago, and with little else to do with that billionaires' playpen in O.P. - unless, somehow, UB continues its remarkable run toward NCAA respectability and assumes the Bills' role in our collective consciousness.
Ironically, the Ralph may be the more appropriate place for our prayers right now than the OLV Basilica. And I'll choose to stand and sing along with the Hallelujah Chorus rather than that stupid "Shout" song any day of the week. Even a Sunday.
The famous edifice we went to tonight was built in the early half of the 1920s for the then-staggering cost of three million dollars. It anchors the main intersection of the city of Lackawanna, which seemingly remains in existence solely to make Buffalo seem prosperous in comparison. Inside, it is as impressive, and as moving, as it must have been when this was one of the biggest and boomingest areas of the country. You can just feel the sacredness of the space as you look around, and just as impressively when you look up. (You can virtual-tour the place here, but it doesn't begin to do it justice.) Tonight's guests were a chorus of singers, a contingent of Buffalo Philharmonic accompanists, and a Standing Pew Only audience of music-lovers who Georg Frederic Handel once again brought to their feet with his movingness of his movements. It was all I could do to resist crying out, in the spirit of the Latin setting, Avis Absolvo!
----
Meanwhile, a few miles past our turnoff from Exit 55, another famous edifice lay fallow.
It was built in the early half of the 1970s, for a now-bargain price of 22 million dollars. It anchors virtually nothing else in the southern suburbs of Buffalo, and for the past decade has only truly come alive on eight fall and winter days when our vestigal NFL team chooses to play a home game there.
This afternoon, the end of that tradition began, as the annual home game count went down to seven. Today's Bills "home game" was 90 miles to the north, in a much more booming metropolis in Canuckistan. They lost, and nobody, seemingly, was there who even cared.
This arrangement will continue for four more seasons, unless our ancient owner assumes room temperature before that. Whichever comes first, a larger market will surely swallow us up, and we will be left only with memories of coming oh so close on occasions increasingly long ago, and with little else to do with that billionaires' playpen in O.P. - unless, somehow, UB continues its remarkable run toward NCAA respectability and assumes the Bills' role in our collective consciousness.
Ironically, the Ralph may be the more appropriate place for our prayers right now than the OLV Basilica. And I'll choose to stand and sing along with the Hallelujah Chorus rather than that stupid "Shout" song any day of the week. Even a Sunday.
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Date: 2008-12-08 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-08 11:43 pm (UTC)I wish I'd been able to hear Messiah instead of "Miami goes to 8 and 5!"