South Buffalo: The Flows of Time and Space

I grew up in Central Illinois. The economy of the area was dominated by heavy industry and farming. If you can imagine dominant economic landscape features, they would be factories and grain elevators. Cultural elements were layered on top of each other. The original immigrants, tied to farming, were German and English and protestant. They became the business people as well. Layered on top of this were the later immigrants—Croatian, Italian, and Polish Catholics who became the laborers in the factories. Names that I grew up with were include: Yerbic, Tomlianovic, Petrovic, Zaborac (I’m not even sure that I can even spell them anymore)..

Recently I explored South Buffalo and Lackawanna. The area reminded me of why Buffalo feels more Midwestern than Eastern to me. I started by following along the lake shore from north of downtown all the way south as far as Lackawanna. The area along Lake Erie has been designated as the Industrial Heritage Trail. The lake side of the road is lined with abandoned grain elevators. Once the St. Lawrence Seaway was opened in up 1959, Buffalo was bypassed as a break in bulk point for shipping grain from the Midwest. Today the area is slowly being transformed into recreation uses. The inland side of the road is lined with abandoned factories.

Lackawanna itself was a steel town with Catholic immigrants. This heritage is present in the Catholic churches and the prominence of Our Lady of Victory Basilica. Even the brick of the Catholic school reminds me of the Catholic school down the street from where I great up. Like Central Illinois, much of the industry shut down by the early 1980s.

I see so many parallels that make it evidence that Central Illinois and and the area around Buffalo share a common history and are connected by both this history and the waterway of the Great Lakes that shaped their common paths. Today, both areas are attempting to re-invent themselves. In Buffalo, the lake shore is being turned into a recreational amenity. In Central Illinois, some of the wetlands are being restored for the same reason. In both areas also, you see attempts to bring in new industries that use the old industrial sites with limited success.

The journey to South Buffalo reminded me that often we see only what is in front of us in the moment. We need to take time to reflect on how, in the end, we are part of a larger narrative. We cannot discern the pattern of change in the moment but I have learned that change is hard, yet inevitable. I cannot stop the flows of time and space.