On January 9, a fierce windstorm sheared the roof from McBride’s, the venerable bar at 115 Chicago Street. The three-storey brick structure was opened to the rain and snow and remained that way until this Wednesday’s even wilder windstorm, which appeared to finish the job: The brick wall on the Chicago Street side caved inward that morning, and by Wednesday afternoon it did not seem possible that the structure could be salvaged.

According to a January 27 article published in the Buffalo News, Buffalo Public Schools Superintendent Dr. James Williams and McKinley High School Principal Crystal Barton have closed ranks around issues involving the dismissal of Michelle Stiles, a volunteer girls basketball coach. In the fallout from that questionable move, a high school senior and member of the basketball team named Jayvonna Kincannon was suspended after she dared to speak up for her dismissed coach. The controversy stems from the fallout of having witnessed James Daye, the boys basketball coach at McKinley, leaving the house where a female student at the school was staying.