It's true - our growing season is short, and that's what makes the fact that we're becoming known nationally for our Garden Walk Buffalo even sweeter. Buffalo expatriot Andrew Sprung guests on Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish blog, part of The Atlantic Monthly Online, to extoll the more beautiful aspects of Buffalo, which includes our outrageous zeal for gardening.
In the blog, Sprung writes:
But Buffalo
has elements of beauty dear to a few doughty hearts (e.g., my wife's - she's a
native). These include Olmsted-designed boulevards radiating from an Olmsted
central park (Delaware Park); a number of early twentieth-century architectural
icons; lots of big, boxy beautiful Victorian houses that can be had for a
relative song; a handful of long, graceful commercial and residential avenues
that make a vital urban enclave; a surprisingly vibrant arts community; and prices that make it almost like living in another country.
In recent
years, too, Buffalo has become a site of the triumph of imagination over
physical reality in two ways that have caught my heart. The first is the inkpool spread
of neighborhoods that have gone mad with gardening. Really. Gardening,
like happiness and obesity, is contagious, and urban pioneers on the West Side have
inspired neighbors to garden and so attracted new urban pioneers. Call it
clear, grow and build. The movement has been driven in large part by the
mind-blowing Buffalo Garden Walk, America's best event of its kind, held the last weekend in July.
Sprung married a WNY girl, Cindy Gaelota, and lived here from 1992 to 1997. Though the couple currently lives in South Orange, New Jersey, Cindy gets home to visit her parents almost monthly, and Andrew tries to join her for at least half of those visits. Sprung says his memories of snow in Buffalo may stem from the fact that his driveway on St. James Place "was indeed long."
Sprung's own blog is
xpostfactoid. He says, "Like Sullivan's Dish, it's mainly political, and Buffalo has only made a couple of Cameo appearances." We're glad he squeezes Buffalo in when he can.
Also noted in the blog, Sprung gives kudos to local artist
Peter Fowler (above), whose works help keep beauty nearby all year round.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4e2a0c4b-6ef6-4554-972c-4e0e28f13e54)
