We could just about call this the “perfect day”.

Abundant sunshine, nice temperatures, our great nation’s capital which hums and vibes to the beat of a real city.

There is nothing like riding the Washington Metro. You can get from any point to any point in this city quickly and efficiently, and we did the park-n-ride lot at Greenbelt and took the train into downtown, starting our day at the Newseum, a massive museum dedicated to media and journalism.

We’ll have a separate post on that experience, because it is deserving of one, but that part of the day went too quickly, and we ended up at a nice sports tavern in the neighborhood, where we reconnected with Mark Byrnes. Mark is kind of a legend here at WNYMedia, one of our most ardent and passionate writers and an unabashed Buffalo booster. Alas, perfect career opportunities in WNY have eluded him, so he has moved to the DC region to continue his graduate studies and work down here. We immediately caught up on Buffalo doings, development issues and things going on in our lives over tavern food and beer. Not to mention exchanging snark and sarcasm about all the idiocy over recent Buffalo b.s. that is choking our community. Good times, really!

Back in 2008 when the USRT first set foot at Nationals Park, the entire Navy Yard district around the ballpark was a work in progress, and I was anxious to see if the area had been transformed into the Canalside type mixed use vision that we have for Buffalo. What we found when we stepped out of the rail station and into the light was that nothing much had changed. Still lots of construction fencing, murals of “coming soon” attractions and shovels in the ground in other areas. A seedy park along the Anacostia River has been cleaned up, with portable docks and landscaping replacing a dank place where nefarious things happened after dark. And there are pockets of construction here and there, including a nice greenspace and bridge crossing a faux canal a block or two away from the ballpark. Someday this will be the coolest neighborhood in Washington. But not just yet.

Another fella we got to reconnect with in DC was Don Steiger, a road tripper extraordinaire from St. Loo. He has been traveling around to see his Cardinals and farmhands all over the country this summer, and we met up with him earlier this month at Dwyer Stadium in Batavia. In fact, we arranged for him to throw a ceremonial first pitch there and he received a team autographed baseball, a reward for his final stop in the Cardinals minor league chain. Don was full of cheer and great stories from his trip. Unfortunately, it was not a good night for his team, as the Cardinals got shelled by the Nationals 14-5.

It was an energetic and great crowd at the ballpark, as Mark said, “the largest crowd for a non-Strasburg or non-Philly game.” Nationals Park really is a pretty nice venue to enjoy baseball. After squishing through the narrow and congested concourses at Target Field last month, it was a pleasure to be reminded how comfortable a venue can be when attention is devoted to canyon wide public spaces.

So after a nightcap at Don’s hotel it was back to our own hotel in Beltsville, and today we point the car back northward. A 2PM matinee in Harrisburg and Metro Bank Park. The Harrisburg Senators are a AA team in the Eastern League. We visited there back in 2006, but since then they literally leveled their old ballpark and rebuilt an entirely new venue from the ground up. The stadium sits on an island in the middle of the river across from downtown Harrisburg and is one of the prettiest sites for such a venue. We are looking forward to seeing what they have done to the place.

You’ll find Mark working at the team store in the Verizon Center this fall, but he promises to still bleed Sabres blue and gold!

The cleaned up riverfront, right across the street from the stadium

Buildings like this will be getting a new life here at Navy Yards near the ballpark

The Yards

Imagine tacking on NEW construction and lofts atop an existing building…. From Tielman, Fisher and Goldman…. nooooooooooooooooo!

Buffalo’s head coach is reserving the right to make a final evaluation, but even Chan Gailey had to admit after Saturday night’s performance by Trent Edwards in the Bills’ 35-20 win over Cincinnati...

Escape the Urban is a new regular feature exploring the outdoors near Western New York.

What more is there to be said about Letchworth State Park, the Grand Canyon of the East, a regular destination for families and tourists from Western and Central New York. Perhaps you have driven the winding roads, walked along the stone walled gorge edge, and enjoyed a waterfall or two. You may have had tea at the Glen Iris Inn, or marveled at the railroad bridge crossing high above the canyon. The western edge of the gorge is very car friendly, civilized, accessible, and, if you don’t mind me saying so, paved.

For a different perspective, try the other side of the gorge. The eastern, unpaved, uncivilized side, where a different view is possible.

Upper Falls from the east

This eastern side follows old canals and railways, hidden valleys and streams, and provides a completely new appreciation for a park many of us have already visited often.

Middle Falls

For my son’s first overnight backpacking trip, I chose a nine mile trek from Portageville in the south to a bivouac shelter up in the hills above the Genesee River. Nine miles is the perfect mix of misery and accomplishment, exhaustion and achievement, to provide the true backpacking experience: tired feet and shoulders, aching back, empty stomach, and the exhilaration that you trudged sleeping bags, tent, food and water up a path only accessible by your hard work and sweat.

Our trip was exclusively along the Letchworth Trail, a spur trail of the mighty Finger Lakes Trail, that connects Allegheny State Park with the Catskills, and provides access to the Great Eastern Trail, Appalachian Trail, and Long Path along the way (more about our unlikely and tremendous national footpaths in a future column). Those nine miles, only one third of the Letchworth Trail’s total length, cover a wide variety of Western New York history and habitat.

The southern end of the hike, climbing out of Portageville, and up the eastern side of gorge, quickly picks up and follows the old Genesee Valley Canal, this section built in the 1850′s and used into the 1870′s to connect Rochester to Olean via waterway, by skirting the massive falls of the Genesee River. The path is relatively level, just wide enough for the mules that used to ply it, and splits the gap between the gorge on one side and the abandoned canal on the other. All that is left of the canal itself, a massive construction undertaking rendered obsolete in less than twenty years by new rail lines, are massive ten foot timbers, the rotting former walls of the canal, and beaver dams backing up the water in low pools not yet filled with rock slides and debris.

The end of the gorge

The Letchworth Trail leaves the old canal bed after a couple miles, and takes a nearly half mile detour around a massive landslide, before joining the old bed of the Genesee Valley Railroad, the progeny and successor of the canal system, and now the Genesee Valley Greenway. The railroad was, astoundingly, not removed until the 1960′s, though throughout much of its life, construction equipment was permanently stationed on the gorge wall to repair track done in by the natural processes of erosion. Now these old right of ways provide transportation opportunities of a different kind: hop on your bike in Letchworth, and you can peddle to Genesee Valley Park in Rochester via the Greenway.

Inspiration Falls from Inspiration Point on the east rim

The Greenway/Letchworth Trail continues along the gorge edge, past Inspiration Point (with a view a Inspiration Falls), and then plunges into the hills, leaving the fading rock walls behind. The Greenway leads to an old DEC road for a short time, and then becomes a true footpath again, across Dishmill Creek (ingeniously named for the industry that used to occupy its shore), and fording innumerable tributaries that form the Genesee Valley watershed. The beauty here is more subtle, and less dramatic, than the wide views of the canyons and waterfalls left behind. Stands of long needled White Pine and Shagbark Hickory. Solitary giant oaks and maples, remnants of the old growth before the logging. Narrow slate bottom creeks, rock tabled from years of erosion, where one could imagine a smaller Falling Water being right at home. Up, and down, and across, five more miles later, my son and I spotted our shelter with weary gratitude.

A different view of the famous railroad bridge

On C.J. Spiller’s first three carries of the game he had a grand total of minus-16 yards. Buffalo’s offense didn’t go very far on their opening drive either, but things changed dramatically for the...

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(WECK 1230) — Some thoughts from press row as the Bills hosted my pick for the AFC title, the Cincinnati Bengals.

– Clifford “C.J.” Spiller is faster than most mere mortals, and overcame horrible blocking on his first few runs to electrify the crowd at One Bills Drive. Twelve carries for 52 yards would be even nicer if he didn’t start off carrying thrice for negative-16. If you haven’t heard our “Spiller” song, check it here.

– Special teams could be a major cause of concern come Week One if we’ve seen any semblance of Bruce DeHaven’s first unit. The kickoff units in general have been brutalized by all three opponents, and I have to wonder whether Chan Gailey’s early talk of allowing special teams-only players was just lip service. Over the past few seasons, Bobby April has been allowed to keep players for their ST service alone. Justin Jenkins, John Wendling, Jim Leonhard and Sam Aiken are gone.

– Gailey called a gem of a drive to get the Bills in the end zone on drive No. 2, but don’t get me wrong — playcalling isn’t anything unless your team executes. Trent Edwards completed some nice tight passes, especially his first nod to David Nelson. The long throw last week was nice, but no one’s going to call him Captain Checkdown if he rips apart defenses with a bunch of 8-12-yard connections. You don’t need to go Uncle Rico and throw a football over the mountains, but being accurate on intermediate routes will help. A completion to Roscoe Parrish despite shooting him eye-lasers was a successful mistake that shouldn’t be overlooked.

– That same touchdown drive started with an 11-yard loss to Spiller, who almost saw Rey Maualuga take the handoff from Trent Edwards thanks to Cornell Green’s remarkable nothingness.

– Not a terribly inspiring first series for the defense, as Carson Palmer was fairly methodical in his offense, his only incompletion coming on a play negated by defensive holding. The Bengals ran each of their runs to the right side at Marcus Stroud and Chris Kelsay.

– Conversely, Spiller had problems on each of his first two runs, which were to the left and outside. On the third play of the three-and-out, the heat came from blind side, when Green was exploited for a sack by pass rushing linebacker Michael Johnson.

Green has been downright awful. In one of those “imagine that” situations, a guy who wasn’t re-signed by an awful Raiders offensive line looks brutal. At the 8:33 mark of the second quarter, with the Bills having two touchdown drives under their belt, no one in my press row could recall a successful play run to Green’s side. Green is the likeliest starter on the field to be a healthy pull by Week Four. Well, at least he’s never gotten in trouble with the law for choke-slamming… Oh.

– Terrell Owens was booed after his first catch of the game, and then the cheers were nearly regular season-style when Leodis McKelvin nearly picked off the next pass intended for No. 81. You’d like someone drafted where McKelvin was to be a starter on your team entering his third season, but I’m not sure the Bills expected Drayton Florence to play anywhere near the level he was at in San Diego after a miserable campaign in Jacksonville. Buffalo has an A-corner in Terrence McGee and two solid Bs.

– I’m starting to see the promise two coaching staffs in Buffalo have identified in Demetrius Bell. The kid can run block and has very good speed for his size. Of course, he’ll have to get over the “Holding, No. 77″ disease that plagued him on so many passing downs during his rookie campaign, as well as a few injuries.

– Owens was good for the Bengals, as he was for most of last year. Lots of folks would excuse Owens last year with the “Look who he has at quarterback” reasoning, and I tended to side with those fans. Today at least, Owens vindicated people in his camp.

– Scary moment when Brandon Ghee injured himself hitting Bills running back Chad Simpson. The Bengals cornerback went helmet-to-helmet with Simpson in the third quarter, requiring an ambulance to enter the field. Fortunately, Ghee came around and walked without having to use a stretcher or the ambo.

Ghee has no one to blame but himself, or the coaches who haven’t convinced the aggressive player not to lead with his head. Just a few plays earlier, he belted Fitzpatrick on the back with a head-first hit, causing my neighbor in the press box, Vic Carucci, to remark that Ghee should see a fine. Now, Ghee is simply lucky he embodies the homonymn.

– James Hardy made a nifty catch up the sideline for 30 yards but dropped a pass as well. Hardy seemed to run his routes well and was open, but clearly he doesn’t have the confidence of his quarterbacks.

– Another wide-out, Naaman Roosevelt, certainly helped his cause again. The UB product will have a massive game on Thursday night while his alma mater kicks off their 2010 campaign back home in Buffalo.

Stat line I enjoyed:
Bills quarterbacks, 19-of-27, 230 yards, 2 TDs

– In terms of quarterbacks… trust in Chan. I believe he’ll do the best he can with what he’s been given, and perhaps he’s knocked some gumption back into No. 5. Ryan Fitzpatrick was a pretty inventive signal caller as well.

Stat line I didn’t enjoy:
Bills third down offense, 3-of-10
– Now 7-for-33 this preseason. For the third-straight week, this part of the game was no good.

Game balls:
Spiller and Edwards

Lastly…
It’s the preseason

Next Saturday:
A short work week could mean a lot of Brian Brohm and Levi Brown against the Detroit Lions on Thursday night. The Immediate Reactions column will be super late (read: Friday), but you like me should DVR the game and go check out UB’s opener. Jerry Davis and the Bulls host Rhode Island at 7 p.m. EST.

More to come: nickonweck@gmail.com

The start of the high school football season is just around the corner. Teams around Western New York are set to kick things off this Friday. For players at the nine Buffalo city schools that field teams, this fall will be a season of new opportunities.

Currently available for lease is the beautiful space formerly occupied by Juniper restaurant, located in The Neighborhood Collective building at 810 Elmwood Avenue. This building was brought to life a few years ago by Collective owner and well-known jewelry designer, Annie Adams. She resurrected the building after a lengthy shuttering. It had previously been the home of May Jen restaurant. The Collective is located near Elmwood Avenue and Auburn Avenue, one of Elmwood's most active intersections.

The split-level space has a lofty feel and is enhanced by a wall of windows which allows indirect natural light to flood the 3,800 sq. foot dining room and bar. The basement is home to two walk-ins and a dishwashing area. Equipment included in the lease are a recently-inspected ancillary system, two stoves, a sandwich unit and a bar with reach-ins.

The most recent tenants, Juniper, made a number of upgrades and improvements to the building, including stripping down some of the more ornate woodwork and improving the restrooms. The next restaurant to occupy this space has all the ingredients necessary to be a lovely one. There are more images available here.

Interested parties should contact owner Annie Adams.

So maybe this isn’t quite Ali-Frazier or even Flutie-Johnson. However, it is an important battle for the Bills to resolve before the start of the regular season. With Trent Edwards on sure footing as the starter at this point, and Levi Brown likely to be the third string QB, so the Bills don’t lose him to teams scouring practice squads, there is just one spot left for either Ryan Fitzpatrick or Brian Brohm on the Bills’ roster.

To this point, both Fitzpatrick and Brohm have had one chance to show what they can do in the preseason. Fitzpatrick was 9-14 with 61 yards and 1 td against the Redskins, while Brohm was 14-21 with 125 yards against the Colts. There isn’t too much difference in those statistics, with Brohm playing in the cleaner game for the Bills’ offense. There are reasons to want/not want each QB.

Ryan Fitzpatrick: Fitzpatrick, a 7th round selection by the St. Louis Rams out of Harvard, brings experience to the table. He’s been in the league for 5 seasons and has played in 28 games. He really has been the starting QB in some capacity in each of his last two seasons. In Cincinnati in 2008, he took over for Carson Palmer after his season ending injury, and started 12 games. In Buffalo in 2009, due to Edwards’ injuries and then ineffectiveness, he became the preferred starter for interim head coach Perry Fewell. Fitzpatrick was much more aggressive down the field than Edwards, and has a little more mobility. He’s run 91 times for 445 yards and 3 tds in his last two seasons. However, Fitzpatrick appears to be a finished product. His numbers last season were pretty commensurate with what he has done the rest of his career. While it was refreshing at times to have a QB who would try to utilize the high-priced wideouts the Bills had, his accuracy is too poor for him to be an effective starting QB. Despite replacing Edwards, his passing numbers were statistically worse. Fitzpatrick completed just 55.9% of his passes (he completes 57.8% in his career) and averaged just 6.3 yards per attempt, compiling a 69.7 rating. Edwards had a down year by his previous standards, and still managed to complete 60.1% of his passes, with 6.4 ypa and a 73.8 rating. Luckily for Fitzpatrick, however, he is competing with Brohm, and not Edwards, for the roster spot.

Was Brohm's showing against the Colts enough to overtake Fitzpatrick?

Brian Brohm: As the most unknown entity of the Bills’ three “veteran” QBs, there was hope that perhaps Brohm could take over as the starter this season. The backup QB tends to be one of the most popular players among fans. Brohm was a 2nd-round pick out of Louisville by the Green Bay Packers in the 2008 draft. Brohm came out of Louisville a fairly well-respected prospect with some great numbers. With Aaron Rodgers already on their roster, the Packers selected Brohm to be the long-term backup QB behind Rodgers, or perhaps to even compete with him for the starting, if Rodgers were to falter. Needless to say, Rodgers turned out to be a great passer, and you’d be lucky to have him on your fantasy team this season. Brohm, on the other hand, was pretty much let go without a fight by the Packers, disconcerting for a player they selected in the 2nd round. Word out of Green Bay is that Brohm didn’t practice well, and didn’t have the best showings in his preseason outings. From what I hear out of Bills camp, Brohm has worked very hard this offseason. Brohm has good size, good arm strength and appears to make decent decisions with the ball from what I’ve seen out of him thus far with the Bills. He seems to play a more conservative style of QB, closer to Edwards than Fitzpatrick. Brohm logged his only start against Atlanta in Week 16 last season, where he was an unimpressive, but not disastrous, 17 for 29 with 146 yards and 2 ints. I like to look at yards per attempt as the best barometer of how a QB moves his team, and Brohm’s was a paltry 5.0. Tough to say if that’s his doing, or the responsibility of the ultra-conservative previous coaching staff.

With their preseason play pretty much a wash to this point, it will be interesting to see who Chan Gailey selects as his second QB in the rotation against Cincinnati tonight. I may not have thought twice if Gailey had just stuck to a rotation, and allowed Fitzpatrick his turn. However, the fact that he’s keeping his QB rotation close to the vest may be an indication that he’s leaning one way or another in the backup QB battle.

If I were Gailey, I’d probably be leaning towards keeping Brohm at this point. I know Edwards is injury prone, and the backup is likely to get a chance to play. This would seem to favor the more experienced player. On this young team, though, keeping Fitzpatrick doesn’t make quite as much sense to me. While Fitz certainly is not an old QB at just 27, he is, as previously stated, seemingly a finished product. He has made 28 starts to Brohm’s one, and would need to be much more impressive to make sense for the Bills at this point, which I don’t think he has been. If I was residing over a team with Super Bowl aspirations, I’d be leaning towards Fitzpatrick. Since I’m a Bills fan, I’m leaning towards Brohm’s upside on a young team.

The Christian Science Monitor pretty much just nailed a summation of Buffalo as a place with stable real estate values, while throwing a couple of extra kudos in for good measure (see here). Buffalo rounded out the top city bucking the real estate slump, and at the same time threw in a sweet photo of a couple of kids tubing at the Outer Harbor. Even the couple of digs towards the end wasn't enough to sour the sweet taste of the overall tone, which ended with, "Forbes magazine earlier this year rated it the 10th best place to raise a family in the US." Here's a taste of the good stuff:

"Buffalo is tops among metro areas in terms of home-price appreciation. The median sales price of existing single-family homes has risen from $104,000 in 2007 to $121,400 in the second quarter of 2010, a 17 percent increase. Employment, buoyed by the presence of several health-care facilities and the State University of New York at Buffalo, is at an 11-month high and the unemployment rate is well below the national average."

Property - Buffalo, NY

Time for another edition of Cracka Boy Rhymes, real life excerpts of white teenager gangsta rap lyric attempts. Though a few years old, they are as fresh and relevant as they ever were, which isn’t saying much… OH NO! -Yea I just said tha Shots just missed, Cops cuff ya up in tha world and [...]

Earlier this month the Buffalo Bills placed injured wide receiver Marcus Easley, their fourth round pick in this year’s draft,  on injured reserve with a major knee injury, making him ineligible to take the field for the team for the 2010 season.
But according to a report by Aaron Wilson of the National Football Post, he [...]

Continuing a long tradition of promoting pipe dreams, the Committee for Economic Growth—which is the Political Action Committee run by Andrew Rudnick’s Buffalo Niagara Partnership—is now plastering this message on NFTA bus stops, blaming Antoine Thompson because UB2020/PHEEIA legislation didn’t make it through the legislature. This hunk of propaganda bemoans 20,000 UB2020 jobs lost. Let’s [...]

Continuing a long tradition of promoting pipe dreams, the Committee for Economic Growth—which is the Political Action Committee run by Andrew Rudnick’s Buffalo Niagara Partnership—is now plastering this message on NFTA bus stops, blaming Antoine Thompson because UB2020/PHEEIA legislation didn’t make it through the legislature. This hunk of propaganda bemoans 20,000 UB2020 jobs lost. Let’s [...]

The Lafayette Hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 19.  While the circa-1904 building has been a long-time official city landmark, its listing on the National Register was pushed by developer Rocco Termini.  Termini needs federal preservation tax credits that are available to listed properties to help finance his $35 million reuse plan for the property.  The National Register is administered by the National Park Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The seven-story hotel may be a bit shabby today, but it has a distinguished past and a potentially bright future if Termini can work his proven magic on the property.  From the Buffalo as an Architectural Museum website:

Like a number of hotels and small apartment buildings in Buffalo, the Lafayette Hotel was planned to be ready for the expected influx of visitors at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. But financial problems delayed the hotel opening until 1904.

A handsome red brick and white terra cotta French Renaissance-style building, it was designed principally by Louise Blanchard Bethune of the respected Buffalo architectural firm of Bethune, Bethune and Fuchs. She was the first professional woman architect in the country, the first female member of the American Institute of Architects, and the first woman to be made a Fellow of the A.I.A.

The National Register of Historic Places is the Nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. Authorized under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Register is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect our historic and archeological resources. 

(WECK1230) — We’ll have to wait until we have the full story, but I have to say this latest Bills injury story certainly bears the “more things change, the more they stay the same” aura.

Marcus Easley is one of the top wide receivers of the Bills very young, or at least inexperienced, corps. It follows that it was a big letdown when he was shut down for the year after suffering a major injury that required surgery.

Little did we know that Easley’s ability to heal is downright Poslusznical.

The National Football Post’s Aaron Wilson is reporting that, according to an NFL source, Easley has healed from his knee surgery and is already off crutches. While it was thought to be an ACL tear, it was not, and Easley reportedly could have returned some time in September.

While the Bills have retooled their strength and conditioning squad, the problem may have been with diagnoses. A couple years back Paul Posluszny healed well ahead of schedule and last year Leodis McKelvin was ready before the end of the year, but were placed on IR and therefore could not return. That’s without even mentioning the shunning and shutdown of Angelo Crowell for not disclosing planned surgery early in camp.

All of this sets the stage for a loud discussion. Who is making these decisions for the Bills? If this isn’t the call of the coach or general manager, then some of the criticism lumped on former bosses should be diluted. Perhaps this happens all over the league, but Bills are healing quicker than most. Maybe it’s their top-notch rehab docs, but whoever is making these decisions needs to be called in for questioning. I’m not sure post-preseason game is the time to ask Chan Gailey who makes these calls, but our answer should definitely come by early last week.

It’s not a major loss to lose a rookie wide-out for the year, as we learned by the limited rookie impacts of Devin Thomas, Malcolm Kelly, Limas Sweed and James Hardy a few years back. At this low-depth position, however, it could be a bigger hit for the Bills on a relative scale.

Again, this is just a report, but we’ll continue to follow this story.

Email: nickonweck@gmail.com