Austin Bradt City on the Edge Respose 10/22/2011 Sharon Maredia City on the Edge is a good title for

this reading as Buffalo is, indeed, a city so close to falling over on itself and collapsing. Only the efforts of the people of Buffalo keep the city on its feet. The reading discusses Allentown, a neighborhood in Buffalo, and I have some personal experience in that neighborhood. My friend Peter lives in a loft in Allentown and the neighborhood is just as vibrant as the reading suggests. Around the corner from their apartment is a Jims Steakhouse, and inside is a full wall mural. Outside, on the second floor of a building across the street, there is the Bubble Man; all he does is blow bubbles out over the intersection. He does this so much that it doesnt even surprise the residents who live nearby. Some things in the reading that really surprised me where things that the author said about Buffalonians and the city. The first thing was when he was describing South buffalo he wrote, . . . the neighborhood church is no longer used to store weapons for and invasion of Canada. . . Where we, the people of Buffalo, really planning to invade Canada? That part of Buffalos history just struck me as strange. Later in the reading, when the author is describe th e October storm, he refers to Buffalo as the city of no illusions. Buffalo is in a place where hard weather hits all the time: winters are cold and summers are hot is the way Buffalonians think of weather and they just deal with what comes. They hold no illusions that things should be different, they chose to live here and they accept that it will be hard (in regards to the weather).