Thread by @Chris_arnade

So begins my walk, from Tonawanda to Lackawanna, (How Seuss-ian!) around some nice old school charm.

Hopefully to end in a bar in time for happy hour

Only ten minutes in and already the Buffalo as a physical Buffalo thing is getting old

Whatever the theological issues, can we agree Protestants (Pentecostals aside) got the worst aesthetics of all Religions. I mean. This is great and all, but this is a town hall. No soul lifting sacred-ness here

They seem to like this thing called the Bills here

Are you a McDonald’s?

Dollar Tree. Liquor store. Massive radio towers. That is like my photo bait

Attention shoppers!

Insert Looney Tunes joke here

Cart down! Cart down!

Whatever else Buffalo is, it has great aesthetics

I will not start drinking at 9am. I will not start drinking…

Made out of Legos. Can’t convince me otherwise

Buffalo has royalty?

Man. I do not wanna live on this avenue

My people!

After 9 billion Bison/Bills references/cartoons/illustrations i applaud a different & less obvious alliteration. But bengals?

Burmese & Congolese markets. Your normal Rust Belt demographics (really. Lots of refugees resettled communities in Rust Belt cities).

And Nepalese apparently

— BOSS REVOLUTION YOUR VOICE
— CALLING CARD

Only thing that would make this more Buffalo is a Bison plowing into the snowman

The owner (Yemenis-American, like every bodega owner in cities it seems), didn’t believe I was taking pics because I loved the colors/look. But I do!

Unapologetic Rainbow Stan

Just your normal building with a fish motif

Just your normal Verdi statue

This could feel poignant but right now it is feeling really really depressing

Feels like someone hit the Gentrification button on my walk

Uh. I take that back.

There is a lot going on here.

This building is cool enough, but you need the sound effects… (next tweet)

Hmmmmm.

Sitting on this bench in the middle of traffic as an act of utilitarian defiance

Yes. Please do stop making these hideous soulless buildings

Dear lord Buffalo. You have that absolutely amazing city hall, then you go and do this??

Ok. You win again. Well done Buffalo

I do love walking under expressways.

Really does smell like Cheerios here

I been hooked!

I don’t know anything about local politics (keeping it that way this walk), but I can guess what side this is on

If you made a movie set like this, nobody would believe it.

South Buffalo, like Twitter, is fed up with Matt’s

Now this is a draw bridge. All pretenders can go home

Just some tiny local company nobody on Twitter has opinions about. Wonder who CEO is.

“CDS destroyed Wall Street & created the financial crisis!”

This came out of nowhere

Nickle City?

This little guy wandered far away from home and is now lost

Ok. My phone is dying and there are so few places to get a beer around here. Two more miles to my goal

How quickly neighborhoods change in Buffalo

Anyways. Turning off phone. This was fun. I think. 17 miles.

Here is an old (more thoughtful) piece I wrote about last time I was in Buffalo

theguardian.com/society/2016/j…

Also. Please join my Substack, where I am doing a series of longer pieces on walking America.

intellectualinting.substack.com/p/walking-amer…