Grain Elevators and Thought Elevators
I come from Buffalo. I wasn't born here, but I have now been here longer than anywhere else I've ever lived. Long enough to get ornery at anyone who talks down to my city. Mind you, I can tell you every single way in which this town is provincial and covered in ice and snow for the 10 months we call Winter. But anyone who's not from here who talks down to me about should prepare to be socked in the nose. I'd never do that of course, just saying they should gird themselves. But I digress. Buffalo has some of the most incredible architecture of any US city, and among the most impressive structures are the most elemental. The magnificent grain elevators that line the Buffalo River to the Lake Erie coastline, massive clusters of exposed reinforced concrete tubes 200 feet high and 10-feet thick. People who aren't from here may find them ugly, and these people should refer to the penultimate sentence of the previous paragraph. Kayaking down the Buffalo River with these ...