LACKAWANNA - There was no shortage of Jimmy Griffin stories being shared among the throngs arriving Thursday for the funeral of Buffalo's longest-serving mayor.
The only mayor to have served four terms in Buffalo, he left a legacy tied as much to his everyman persona as the downtown baseball park, hotels and entertainment sites that went up on his watch.
Heading into Mass, former Erie County Executive Ed Rutkowski stopped to remember the time Griffin, after a 1985 blizzard, called him for some county plows to help dig out the city.
The two executives met at the highway garage and dispatched plow trucks normally used to clear big county highways. It didn't go well.
“In the city of Buffalo, the streets are narrower, the trucks were getting stuck, the manhole covers were getting ripped off,” Rutkowski said. Then came a dispatch from a driver who had plowed in a resident just after he'd gotten done shoveling his walk.
“He's attacking my cab with a snow shovel!” the driver radioed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Before I could say anything,” Rutkowski said, “Jimmy turned to me with this impish grin, and said, ‘Hey pal, maybe this wasn't such a hot idea.”'
Griffin, mayor from from 1978 to 1993, died Sunday, about a month shy of his 79th birthday. His family has not disclosed the cause of death.
“How many thousands and thousands of Griffin stories have been told” since then, Msgr. Robert Mack asked during the service.
Even the priest had one, recalling a time when Griffin was being questioned in court and the judge asked, “Didn't you have a beer with that person?”
“Jimmy replied, 'I don't know too many people in Buffalo that I didn't have a beer with,”' Mack said, drawing a laugh from the more than 1,000 people filling Our Lady of Victory Basilica.
While residents connected with his blue-collar roots, laid as a grain scooper unloading ships, other politicians and the press found themselves regularly scrapping with the feisty pol, who served on the city council and as a state senator before becoming mayor.
He famously quipped that his hometown paper, The Buffalo News, didn't celebrate Christmas “because there's not three wise men in the place.”
When 1,000 abortion protesters descended on Buffalo for a raucous two-week period in 1992, blocking clinics and doctors offices and resulting in hundreds of arrests, the ardently Catholic mayor embraced them.
“There are few politicians as brave as Jimmy Griffin,” said event organizer, the Rev. Rob Schenck, now president of the National Clergy Council. He flew in from Washington for Thursday's funeral. “It was a big surprise when the mayor came out and defended us. He did it unequivocally, unapologetically. I know that he paid for it politically.”
Many others remembered less public brushes, like the time he quietly paid around $7,000 in back taxes on an elderly widow's house so she would not lose it. Father Joseph Moreno was assistant pastor at St. Margaret's church at the time and had told his friend, the mayor, about his parishioner's plight.
“Within six or seven weeks it was taken care of. I found out later he'd paid it himself,” Moreno said.
Even after ending his unprecedented run in the mayor's office, Griffin remained in the public eye, if not public office. He ran a longshot campaign for president against Bill Clinton in New Hampshire's 1996 Democratic primary. The following year, he sought to regain the mayor's office and in 1998, he ran for the state Assembly.
Madonna Priore, who wore a Griffin for Mayor campaign button to the funeral, remembered being on a charter flight from Las Vegas in September 2003, with about 220 others. As her seatmate lamented his $15,000 gambling loss, she thought she'd lighten the mood by sharing the news that Griffin, who was attempting a political comeback, had won a primary race on his way to being re-elected to the city council.
“Jimmy Griffin won the primary!” the man stood up and shouted to fellow passengers.
“The plane was cheering. They were yelling `Jimmy's back!”' Priore said.
She recounted the scene in a note to Griffin, and got a call from him soon after.
“I told (wife) Margie the whole plane was cheering,” said the tickled former mayor, so accessible his home number was always listed in the Buffalo phone book.
Throughout his political life, Griffin prided himself on his independent streak. He was the first to win the mayor's office on the Conservative line alone.
“Jimmy was not one who was overcome by the love of power. It was the power of love,” Msgr. Mack said. “He enjoyed his public life because he was in a position to help other people.”
His term on the Common Council from 2003-2005 marked the end of his public service. He toyed with the idea of running for Erie County executive in 2007, but decided against it.
The Korean War veteran was buried with full military honors.
AP-ES-05-29-08 1705EDT
Heading into Mass, former Erie County Executive Ed Rutkowski stopped to remember the time Griffin, after a 1985 blizzard, called him for some county plows to help dig out the city.
The two executives met at the highway garage and dispatched plow trucks normally used to clear big county highways. It didn't go well.
“In the city of Buffalo, the streets are narrower, the trucks were getting stuck, the manhole covers were getting ripped off,” Rutkowski said. Then came a dispatch from a driver who had plowed in a resident just after he'd gotten done shoveling his walk.
“He's attacking my cab with a snow shovel!” the driver radioed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Before I could say anything,” Rutkowski said, “Jimmy turned to me with this impish grin, and said, ‘Hey pal, maybe this wasn't such a hot idea.”'
Griffin, mayor from from 1978 to 1993, died Sunday, about a month shy of his 79th birthday. His family has not disclosed the cause of death.
“How many thousands and thousands of Griffin stories have been told” since then, Msgr. Robert Mack asked during the service.
Even the priest had one, recalling a time when Griffin was being questioned in court and the judge asked, “Didn't you have a beer with that person?”
“Jimmy replied, 'I don't know too many people in Buffalo that I didn't have a beer with,”' Mack said, drawing a laugh from the more than 1,000 people filling Our Lady of Victory Basilica.
While residents connected with his blue-collar roots, laid as a grain scooper unloading ships, other politicians and the press found themselves regularly scrapping with the feisty pol, who served on the city council and as a state senator before becoming mayor.
He famously quipped that his hometown paper, The Buffalo News, didn't celebrate Christmas “because there's not three wise men in the place.”
When 1,000 abortion protesters descended on Buffalo for a raucous two-week period in 1992, blocking clinics and doctors offices and resulting in hundreds of arrests, the ardently Catholic mayor embraced them.
“There are few politicians as brave as Jimmy Griffin,” said event organizer, the Rev. Rob Schenck, now president of the National Clergy Council. He flew in from Washington for Thursday's funeral. “It was a big surprise when the mayor came out and defended us. He did it unequivocally, unapologetically. I know that he paid for it politically.”
Many others remembered less public brushes, like the time he quietly paid around $7,000 in back taxes on an elderly widow's house so she would not lose it. Father Joseph Moreno was assistant pastor at St. Margaret's church at the time and had told his friend, the mayor, about his parishioner's plight.
“Within six or seven weeks it was taken care of. I found out later he'd paid it himself,” Moreno said.
Even after ending his unprecedented run in the mayor's office, Griffin remained in the public eye, if not public office. He ran a longshot campaign for president against Bill Clinton in New Hampshire's 1996 Democratic primary. The following year, he sought to regain the mayor's office and in 1998, he ran for the state Assembly.
Madonna Priore, who wore a Griffin for Mayor campaign button to the funeral, remembered being on a charter flight from Las Vegas in September 2003, with about 220 others. As her seatmate lamented his $15,000 gambling loss, she thought she'd lighten the mood by sharing the news that Griffin, who was attempting a political comeback, had won a primary race on his way to being re-elected to the city council.
“Jimmy Griffin won the primary!” the man stood up and shouted to fellow passengers.
“The plane was cheering. They were yelling `Jimmy's back!”' Priore said.
She recounted the scene in a note to Griffin, and got a call from him soon after.
“I told (wife) Margie the whole plane was cheering,” said the tickled former mayor, so accessible his home number was always listed in the Buffalo phone book.
Throughout his political life, Griffin prided himself on his independent streak. He was the first to win the mayor's office on the Conservative line alone.
“Jimmy was not one who was overcome by the love of power. It was the power of love,” Msgr. Mack said. “He enjoyed his public life because he was in a position to help other people.”
His term on the Common Council from 2003-2005 marked the end of his public service. He toyed with the idea of running for Erie County executive in 2007, but decided against it.
The Korean War veteran was buried with full military honors.
AP-ES-05-29-08 1705EDT
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