About 400 of the city’s unionized workers marched in circles on Irving Place in Allentown on Tuesday evening, briefly blocking Allen Street traffic, to protest the freeze on wage increases for city workers that has been in place for 28 months. The picketers gathered in front of the house of Dorothy Johnson, executive director of the city’s control board, which has said that the wage freeze will only be lifted if unions agree to concessions that save the city more money than the pay raises will cost.

“In 1908, Buffalo’s brewers alone made so much beer that if Niagara Falls flowed with beer instead of water, it would take over one minute and 18 seconds to flow over. In that same year Buffalonians drank almost all of the 31 million gallons of beer produced here. What that boils down to is 22 gallons of beer for every man, woman and child in the area. All this beer came out of 25 local breweries scattered across the city.”