Are there any good menopause doctors or support groups in the area?

anyone know which restaurant in the western new york area has the best variety of dips?

edit: I should’ve clarified that a dip in this situation would be like buffalo dip or hot pepper dip etc

Hello! I’m trying to get back in the work force after being a stay at home mom for over a decade! I would love a work from home job but any I’m seeing you need a bachelors/masters. I only have my associates in ECE so not much available for WFH. Any certificate programs in the area I could do to help find a job? I don’t want to go for another degree. I looked into Bryant and Stratton and ECC but all I could find were degree programs. Or do you know of any entry level work from home jobs? Any help is appreciated- thank you!!

My father is getting older and we are thinking about converting our garage to an ADU to easily move him closer. Has anyone done this in the city of Buffalo? If so, how much did it cost you? Also any contractor recommendations for this kind of project.

What is the process required in order to paint a mural in the city? I run an after school youth group in the city and wanted to give my youth a stake in their community.

I’m finding an application through the Buffalo Arts Commission and it seems pretty straightforward. But are there additional steps/ things I should be thinking about before the application?

I’m starting at ground zero here. Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Would anyone be able to give me a ride to & from a food pantry on Thursday or Friday this week?

Rent is behind, I've been sick a lot lately & I'm about out of groceries. My son's hours at work got cut too, so everything is shit right now. I'm not even sure what pantry I can go to, I will figure that out when I get home after work.

I don't expect this for free, I can pitch in $10 or so for gas. I would Uber, but that's getting very expensive in itself & also, if I'm going to be spending upwards of $50 round trip, I could put that $ towards groceries.

Anyway, it's a long shot, but you people in the Buffalo subreddit are pretty rad so I figured I may as well try.

I have some fairly lightly used clothes and household items (pots/pans/tools) that I’d like to donate to an organization that will get it to the people who need it instead of goodwill. Any recommendations would be appreciated!

Hi all,

I have almost 10 years working as a data/BI analyst, mostly in healthcare. I've always worked in small departments so I had to wear a lot of different hats, including some data engineering. I'd like to move more in that direction. I was wondering if there was anyone in Buffalo who works primarily as or supervises data/analytics engineers and would be willing to talk for a bit? Basically to discuss my experience and how to best market myself while looking for those types of jobs.

So I’m 16. I’ve lived in the Buffalo area for 8-9 years now. I live in a smaller town in the Hamburg/Evans area. I have parents that would be willing to take me out to do things and friends i can do things with. However no matter how hard i look, i cannot find anything fun. I dont bike, i dont smoke, i dont drink, i dont do anything that other people my age do. Essentially im a nerd. I like D&D, minecraft, art, sculpting, computers, coding, learning, blah blah blah… I have major anxiety and find it hard to do a lot of things with new people. However im willing to try and meet new people. I want to make new friends and do things i enjoy.

I mainly looking for youth groups, clubs, or things of that sort to do.

I will preface, im a very opinionated person. Im an LGBTQ+ person and i believe in human rights etc… etc… So as long as a group or club isnt any sort of hateful group, i should be fine.

If anybody has any suggestions of group, clubs, programs, or just things to do, please, please let me know! Im not looking to spend my 2025 year cooped up inside 😅

EDIT: gosh, thank you all so much for the great suggestions and stories! Im already looking into a lot of the things suggested and they definitely seem interesting. A lot of these things i didn’t even know existed!! Very grateful for the community on here for helping out 🩷

Driving by I see they are installing a new cone at Kone King after it got run down over the summer. It's good they are doing it now, wouldn't want the ice cream to melt...

Hi there! I currently work around the Seneca One area and I'm a new EV owner. Currently I am trying out to park in Seneca One ramp which has an AmpUp Level 2 charger there. But it seems like it's very expensive. It will cost me around $10/day and $0.6/kWh. I wonder if anyone has a better recommendation? I was thinking that if the parking is paid, then the electric charging is free as well but I guess not for this Parking Ramp.

I just started a new job with the state and am looking through the health insurancd options and don't know which to choose. The HMOs (Independent Health and Highmark) are significantly more affordable and look great on paper, but I've always had PPO plans so I'm not sure what I'm missing. We have 3 kids, no major health issues, and try to travel out of the area a couple times a year but don't plan to seek non-emergency healthcare except near home.

Anyone have guidance or experiences with the HMOs or going with the Empire Plan? I've read the Empire Plan is great but also that a lot of people in WNY have good luck with the HMO so not sure if the extra $100 a month for the Empire Plan (plus higher copays) is worth it.

Buffalo’s ‘power structure is the problem’ (Investigative Post)

Government policies pushed by the region’s traditional power brokers — real estate developers, bankers, law firms and other business interests — have been “a disaster for the people of Buffalo,” a new report concludes.

Tax abatements and subsidies are contributing to “a deepening commercial real estate crisis” downtown, according to the report, released last month by Our City Action Buffalo, a progressive community advocacy group that is a frequent critic of the city’s elected officials.

Opposition to affordable housing projects has exacerbated the city’s poverty problems, according to the report.

What’s more, Buffalo is staring at a fiscal crisis engendered by a mayor and Common Council who for two decades embraced the business community’s distaste for raising taxes, even as the cost of providing essential city services increased.

“The ‘renaissance’ talk is increasingly unconvincing,” the report’s author writes, warning city residents against accepting more of the same from candidates for Buffalo mayor as they declare themselves in the weeks to come.

“We have to be crystal clear: the power structure is the problem, and the false solutions it advances will only further damage the city.”

“Who Rules Buffalo?” catalogs the individuals and business interests that hold sway over the region’s elected officials, government agencies, nonprofit boards and other influential entities, with a particular focus on the City of Buffalo.

The report further outlines how those individuals and entities flock together in support of a shared agenda, which, according to the report, centers on “cutting taxes, reducing regulation, privatizing services, and providing major subsidies to the private sector.”

It’s an agenda embraced by former Mayor Byron Brown, who resigned last month after 19 years in office.

Brown frequently measured his administration’s success by tallying the price-tags of downtown and waterfront real estate projects — almost all of them heavily subsidized with public dollars. He presented these as evidence of an economic renaissance, a narrative embraced and echoed by the city’s business elite.

The report, on the other hand, describes “an extraordinary disconnect between Brown’s story of Buffalo and the realities the city is facing.”

Those realities include 40 percent of the city’s children living in poverty, a shortage of affordable housing, crumbling public infrastructure, an epidemic of lead poisoning, alarming rates of illiteracy, a stagnant political environment, and the city’s “mounting fiscal crisis, with a budget gap of up to $55 million looming next year.”

The region’s power elite, according to the study, encouraged Brown to implement policies that “largely ignored those crises and in many ways contributed to them” — in part by depriving the city of tax revenue.

The region’s top 10 real estate firms control nearly $1 billion in city property, according to the study, but pay about two-thirds of the on-the-books tax rate. Those tax abatements deprive the city of nearly $6 million each year.

Among the report’s other findings:

• M&T Bank is among the region’s most influential and highly connected companies, as measured by its 34 representatives on boards of directors and elite club memberships. Rich Products is second with 26; the law firm Hodgson Russ is third with 24.
• Jonathan Dandes, a Rich Products vice president, has 12 such board and club memberships all by himself. That puts him at the top of the study’s list of 50 most highly connected individuals.
• The region’s power elite, as defined in the report, are nearly two-thirds male, with a median age of 63. They tend to live in wealthy suburbs such as Williamsville, Snyder and Orchard Park, or in the affluent city neighborhoods surrounding Delaware Park.
• The elites organize privately through informal planning groups. The newest of these is the Downtown Roundtable, also called Downtown 2030, which is a successor to the 43 x 79 group, which was a successor to the Group of 18 founded in the 1980s by Robert Wilmers, the late M&T Bank chairman.
• The power elites organize publicly through the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, the region’s leading business advocacy organization, which annually publishes a legislative agenda that favors subsidies and tax abatements for private corporations, while discouraging spending on social safety net programs and combatting government regulation.
• The powerful underwrite the campaigns of elected officials. Carl Paladino’s Ellicott Development over the past decade gave nearly $1 million to local and state candidates. The law firm Phillips Lytle gave more than $900,000; the law firm Barclay Damon, more than $800,000; and M&T Bank, nearly $500,000.
• The leading beneficiaries of that largesse since 2015 were Gov. Kathy Hochul (more than $1 million in campaign contribution) and Brown, the former Buffalo mayor (close to $700,000).

The report contains few surprises for those who follow regional business and politics. Nonetheless, it provides a useful analysis of how the power players connect through interlocking boards of directors, memberships to private clubs, and shared financial interests. It names names and provides illuminating statistics in a digestible study.

“People have an intuitive sense that this kind of power structure exists. It just doesn’t often get mapped in detail,” Kevin Connor, the report’s author, told Investigative Post.

“I think it’s important to elevate these kinds of things in the public discourse, otherwise we have no hope of shifting things. And the power structure would rather we treat it as a fact of life, nothing to see here,” he said.

Connor is former executive director of the Buffalo-based Public Accountability Initiative, which studies and reports how corporate power bleeds into government circles and influences public policy decisions. He’s been an observer of Western New York’s elites and their influence since co-founding PAI in 2008.

Our City Action Buffalo, founded in 2017, describes itself as “a grassroots, member-driven” advocacy group that seeks “a more equitable and racially just Buffalo.”

The organization supported India Walton’s campaign for mayor in 2021. The following year it unsuccessfully challenged the Common Council’s redistricting maps, which the group described as an “incumbent protection plan.” Its leadership earlier this year derided the Brown administration for expanding the size and cost of the mayor’s office “while basic public health concerns like lead abatement and fluoride in water are ignored, and snow removal is abysmal compared to our first-ring suburban neighbors.”

Connor, commissioned by Our City Action to produce the report, was taken aback by some of his findings, despite his familiarity with the subject.

“For instance, the fact that the Buffalo Club voted 403 to 71 against admitting women in the late 1980s,” he said. “That feels pretty recent for that level of opposition.”

Connor was also surprised by the growth in the number of locals reporting annual income in excess of $1 million. In just one year, between 2020 and 2021, Erie County’s million-dollar club jumped by 40 percent to 1,353 people, according to tax records.

“Growth in that bracket outpaced many other parts of New York State,” Connor said. “Rich people here are doing well for themselves.”

The region’s billionaires have done well, too.

The net worths of Jeremy Jacobs, chairman of the Delaware North companies, and Terry Pegula, owner of the Bills and Sabres, has more than doubled since 2010. Robert Rich Jr.’s net worth more than tripled during that time.

Connor also confirmed through tax documents what he’d been told anecdotally: Buffalo’s richest residents are not very charitable compared to their peers elsewhere.

A 2019 study that analyzed philanthropic giving by high-income taxpayers ranked Erie County ranked 166th out of 200 U.S. counties. Among the 13 New York State counties on that list, Erie County ranked 12th, behind Monroe and Onondaga counties. Only the wealthy in Richmond County, home to Staten Island, were stingier.

Buffalo’s ruling class is not all impactful, Connor said. He found that, despite their outsized influence on elected officials like Brown, “the local elite appears marked by high levels of dysfunction, absenteeism, and lack of leadership and vision — perhaps one reason it has failed to achieve gains on par with the renaissance it professes.”

“Who Rules Buffalo?” is accompanied by a supplemental report called “A Field Guide for Organizers,” intended to help non-elites make their voices heard in politics and public policy debates. The timing of the report — in the runup to next year’s mayoral election — is not coincidental.

“People have enormous power when they come together in solidarity and struggle, and that’s something these power players really fear, in part because they know their agenda is so unpopular,” Connor said.

“What politician runs on a platform of keeping wages low, handing out money to developers, and so on? They might have that agenda, but it is buried beneath a lot of other stuff, because it would never get them the votes.”

How is the job market there?

How is the Blind Community out there?

Any recommended places to stay? (Extended stay Hotels)

Thank You in advance(:

There's one pecking away outside our apartment and he's waking up the whole neighborhood. DM me if you need details. 😂

does anyone recognize this artwork?

i was helping my dad demo a house out in cheektowaga about 10 years ago and this was a door to an attic crawlspace.

i’ve kept it because i like the artwork, but never knew the artist. despite googling “jer art buffalo” / “jer art cheektowaga”, etc.

I’ve wanted to start a legit clothing brand (not just someone who heat presses graphics on tees and hoodies) for some time now. I want produce some denim jeans and I’m specific on the fabrics I want to use. My question: is there a local manufacturer or somewhat local wholesaler I can get the product to start my brand with?

Hi guys I'm currently doing my pre reqs and I'm interested in being a CNA is there any programs in Buffalo that I don't know of that I can get into to be a CNA?

So I’ll be going to this comedy club for the first time but I can’t find anything on their website about parking. Can any one tell me what the parking situation is like? Is it on street in front of the business? And I saw that there’s a two drink minimum and I saw that it’s standard practice but I was also wondering how much the drinks usually go for so I know how much to bring with me.

Thanks in advance

Girlfriend and I just moved to the area from the Syracuse area and want to spend a weekend around New Years somewhere romantic to celebrate. I was curious if anyone had any recommendations in the surrounding area or in Canada that is drivable.

(If you have any nice dining recommendations for the area I would appreciate them as well)

Someone stole a 6’ inflatable snowman and a 3’ white inflatable dog off my front lawn with a 6 way timer outlet stake in Riverside. Whoever did it; I hope they needed it more than me. Merry Christmas, Scumbag.

What’s the going tip rate for local artists? Like a percentage of the price or just drop them $50. It’s been close to 20 years since I had my last one and I have no recollection of what I gave them last time.

He’s anybody gotten dental implants in buffalo? One of my front teeth is temporary and i’m looking to get a permanent implant and also some orthodontic work (invisalign probably). It’s really important to me that the tooth looks natural and blends in with the rest of my smile. I’m willing to spend the money but want to make sure i’m getting quality work done. I’d love to hear anyone’s experience or recommendations ☺️

I know the Buffalo News is printed in Cleveland and then shipped back here. Thursday was a holiday, so no paper. And then the snow. My neighbor has had no paper since Wednesday. I don’t get the News, but I do get USA Today. A friend gets the New York Times. So, here is the question…where are these papers printed? Cleveland as well? They are all delivered by the same people.

Ingram Micro announces over 800 layoffs

Ingram Micro, a technology company, announced on Monday the company plans to lay off nearly 850 employees by the end of the first quarter of 2025 as part of a 'restructuring initiative.' 

The release reads in part:

"These changes aim to enhance organizational efficiency and strengthen customer service capabilities to better position the company for long-term, sustainable growth. Consistent with the company’s standard practices, Ingram Micro is committed to providing support to all associates impacted by these actions."

2 On Your Side asked an Ingram Micro spokesperson about the impact the layoffs could have at the Williamsville location. The spokesperson said they are not providing location-specific details at this time. 

As of 5pm Dec. 2, no WARN notice had been posted on the New York State Department of Labor's site. 

Hey all. My car battery died to the point where it can't even be jumped. I can get a free replacement and install at Walmart, 3.5 miles from me but uh... obviously my car won't start. I'm out of work and have $200 for the rest of the month. I can't be spending it on this issue or I'll have nothing for food, laundry, prescriptions, etc. Any idea on how to go about getting it replaced? My insurance policy doesn't cover towing, nor does my AAA. I feel like an idiot for not figuring out how to get my vehicle there. Any ideas on free solutions? Thanks

Ask me any question about tops.

Join the best buffalo meetup group for happy hour this Friday!

https://www.meetup.com/20s-And-30s-Going-Out-Buffalo/

Hello! Considering a move there from Hawaii in a couple of years (looking at several different places). Before this, we are from the Bay Area, CA and most recently lived in Oakland. What we loved about Oakland was the urban-ness of it and most of all, the diversity. We actually prefer to live in majority nonwhite areas. I am sad to see about the history and present segregation in Buffalo, but also feels like desegregation is something to be a part of. Curious to know more from people who live or have lived on the east side, or other neighborhoods that are majority nonwhite. Seems like not much walkability in the East? How about any schools you love? Specific areas to keep an eye on? Seems like most of the available housing currently is in the north? Any insight greatly appreciated 🙏🏼🙏🏼