Reader’s Digest names Buffalo, NY the nicest place in America. The community of Buffalo, NY is stronger than ever despite the huge snowstorms, mass shooting tragedies and the troubles that the Buffalo Bills have endured.
December 23, 2022, started as a nice day but then come afternoon the temperatures plummeted, winds were blasting, and snow was falling fast and piling up quickly. News teams were urging people to get home quickly and find shelter as soon as possible. Despite being told to close the doors, Craig Elston kept his barber shop open and soon was bombarded with at least 40 people begging for warmth and safety, he stayed with them and kept them warm, alive, and fed for 5 days. Elston says that his neighborhood is kind of like you "can go in and buy a gun like it's a loaf of bread", but it is also filled with immigrants and families that have lived there for generations and generations to come.
Not long ago, the city was America’s most prosperous. Buffalo has suffered through some of the hardest things that could happen to a community, including; the Great Lakes economy losing jobs and the economy, one of the most horrific mass shootings with 10 people killed in a Tops Supermarket. But, one thing has never changed Buffalo is still the “city of good neighbors” You just have to know who to talk to and who to be around.
During the storm, Miller, now a retired businesswoman, was stranded in her office for a couple of days but she remembers just seeing hundreds of people stranded in their cars, strangers helping strangers get out and find shelter/food. In the garage under her office, there was a woman delivering a baby b/c she was unable to get to the hospital, and ambulances were unable to reach her - she said “It really didn’t matter who you were; if you needed help you were going to get it.”
Multiple people have expressed “It is hard to live here due to seasonal depression, but they can’t imagine living elsewhere.” Buffalo NY has struggled economically and physically in recent decades - in the 1950’s the population was 600,000 but by the 1990’s it dropped dramatically to 300,000, the positive attitude of everyone has just made the city stronger and stronger by the day.
~Jocelyn Kita, Marketing Intern 2023
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