Doing America

Buffalo & Niagara Falls

By Bob Damron

-Buffalo and Niagara Falls are less than twenty miles apart... and are located in the northwest corner of the Empire State. Buffalo, with a dwindling population of approximately 400,000, is the second largest city in New York. • Niagara Falls will always be linked to honeymooners, while Buffalo will always be remembered as the city where President William McKinley was assassin-

ated.

While Buffalo is a major rail center and inland port... it is also noted for a good philharmonic orchestra, four colleges with a combined student body of 40,000, and the Buffalo Bills pro football team. You may want to visit the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Peace Bridge. Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural Historical Site, Prudential Building (one of America's pioneer skyscrapers) and the stately old mansions on Delaware Avenue, which reflect a happier and more prosperous age.

I prefer the conveniently located Holiday Inn Midtown.

For straight dining try Esmond's. Park Lane, Plaza Suite, Romanello's, Roseland, Salvatore's Italian Gardens and The Cloister... built on the site of Mark Twain's 1870 home. The Towne Restaurant at Allen and Elmwood is the busiest late night gay restaurant, while the Allen, Cole's and Rosy's are more mixed.

Like N.Y.C., Buffalo bars are

Tourists obviously 'must' see the world famous falls... which are spectacular! To really experience them, get up close and gaze over the brink, take the tower elevator to the foot of the falls and go boating on the 'Maid of the Mist'. Other attractions in "Rainbow County" include the Aquarium, Winter Garden, Old, Fort Erie, Beaver Island State

Park, Skylon (a view-restaurant on the Canadian side) and the' Erie Canal locks at Lockport..

forget the gay bars here! The For all practical purposes, bar at 1149 Michigan. The other Itsy-Bitsy, is a small mens' cruise place is a total disaster! Not only is it unfriendly to strangers, but is probably the sleaziest bar in America. For straight dining try the Clarkson House, Speakeasy. or John's Flaming Hearth ... where, reportably, Nikita Khruschev was "beguiled by the ornate setting". So much for the ex-soviet premier's taste, but the food isn't bad. Stay at the Holiday Inn... or there is a tiny gay guest house. The Way Shewer at 4465 Simcoe, across the border in Niagara Falls, Canada. Also, by the time this article appears, the Twilight Villa Social Club at 204 Dunkirk, should have opened. Call Gay Unity Niagara, listed in the new '81 Address Book for more info on Ontario.

"Shuffle off to Buffalo" is a popular old refrain ... but if you do..: you may find that some of Buffalo's best (including my exlover Jerry) have already .shuffled off to someplace else.

open until 4:00 a.m.... but on the SEE AMERICA FIND A FRIEND.

plus side drinks only cost about half as much. Consistently best is the Villa Capri at 926 Main, which has disco dancing, but also attracts any levi and leather guys -around. Mean Alice's at 729 Main is still the 'hottest' disco for young jocks, especially weekends, while gay women prefer Betty's nearby on Pearl Street. Dominique's at 20 Allen is still a .popular cruise bar with older men... in spite of a straight owner who couldn't care less about gays. The C.B.C.'s popular Club Buffalo is located at 44 Almeda in Amherst. All of Allentown is very cruisy.

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JULY 1980 HIGH GEAR PAGE 17

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Unholy writing

continued from page 7 sexuality. Her gay characters always seem to have bleached, hair and rotting teeth. (She really ought to read something written since The Picture of Dorian, Gray.) For all her vaunted imagination, Miss Oates really does have a circumscribed range. Everything is assumed to have value in relation to a heterosexual, married world. Nobody mat⚫ters outside that world.

And yet, curiously, the author . isn't downright vicious to her character. Her attack is more subtle--a pitying condescension. Alexis is a failed musician who has an affair with a woman and tries to get the woman back at the end of the book, but of course he can't, the poor thing. How delicious for the editor to Yablabé these imaginary episodes. After 'all, they're so much more satisfy-

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ing than the real unes of life. If an old maid had written this book, one might forgive its oldfashioned attitudes, but supposedly Miss Oates is one of our leading authors. What must the general public think of homosexuality if Oates is so far astray? Unfortunately, what I see at work in Unholy Loves is an old Oates trick I know from first hand-denigrating portraits of people she doesn't like or barely understands, sly put-downs that might be mistaken for sympathy.

One example: You can practically hear the author gloating when she reveals that the famous poet in the novel is discovered to have written some poems to a 12year-old boy named Marco. Miss Oates can't conceive of such a thing as being honest or sincere, Alwar gett is rudish snigger. Pity. (No, actually, it's more than a pity.)

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