Jimmy Griffin — feisty, independent and at times irascible — finally succumbed in a fight he could not win.
The former mayor, who fought his way through the Korean War, some nasty city politics and perhaps a couple of street brawls, died Sunday at Father Baker Manor in Orchard Park, about a month shy of his 79th birthday.
The 56th and longest-serving Buffalo mayor, James D. Griffin was as familiar a figure as the city has ever known.
“You don’t have to be a genius to be a mayor — or anything else,” he once said, describing himself as “honest and down-to-earth.”
“I like to think I have a sense of humor — and common sense.”
Griffin was elected to four terms as mayor and was given credit for a resurgence in downtown Buffalo and its waterfront, especially in the early years of his administration.
Buffalo’s Griffin era began Jan. 1, 1978.
“The city was $19 million in debt; the waterfront a wilderness; downtown deserted; neighborhoods were deteriorating and residents were leaving; and business and industry had no confidence in our city,” Griffin later recalled.
For 16 years, love him or not, Griffin gave all his efforts to Buffalo — eradicating the debt and seeing the Buffalo Hilton (now the Adam’s Mark), townhouses and office buildings, including a new headquarters for Western New York Public Broadcasting, spring up by the waterfront.
Downtown and the Theater District got the Hyatt Regency, an eight-screen General Cinema in the Market Arcade, TGIFriday’s and a Rotary Ice Rink — not to mention three bank office buildings at Fountain Plaza.
Shea’s Buffalo was restored. Hoyt Lake in Delaware Park was cleaned up. New parking ramps and walkways were built, as were the HSBC Bank Atrium, City Center and the Elm-Oak high-tech corridor. A new City Mission and Cornerstone Manor were built.
But the crowning glory was undoubtedly Pilot Field, now Dunn Tire Park.
Griffin not only rallied community leaders to bring professional baseball back to Buffalo in 1979, but he spearheaded construction of downtown’s baseball stadium, one of the finest in the nation.
At the Bisons’ season finale in 1993, the baseball club and its owners, the Rich family, presented Griffin a crystal buffalo in appreciation for his continuing support.
“This job is a great job,” Griffin said earlier that year — when he decided not to seek a fifth term after polls reported he would lose badly.
“We are able to help people. We help build homes, create jobs in the private sector, fill jobs, both permanent and seasonal, in city government, and also provide summer work for thousands of kids so they can earn money for school and clothes and have a few bucks for some fun times.”
A record in dispute
Griffin also took risks. He went after federal and state funding with a vengeance. He fought for Buffalo at every turn. But some critics say his mayoralty produced more failures than accomplishments.
Crime went up. The city’s population continued to decline. Several downtown department stores closed their doors.
Many accused Griffin of under-funding the city’s public schools — while the mayor’s own children attended Catholic schools. The Police Department was politicized, promotions often depending on whether the individuals were Griffin supporters.
Two thousand homes were built and many neighborhood business districts revitalized, but the East Side neighborhoods, with notable exceptions, were largely neglected. There were few minority employees in key city positions.
Taxes were raised an average of only 3.6 percent a year, and the city’s work force was slashed by more than 1,000 employees — leaving, many felt, too few workers to get the job done right.
And the Griffin administration was not without scandal.
Griffin’s parks commissioner, Robert Delano, was jailed after an FBI investigation of the Parks Department brought five convictions. The mayor’s brother Thomas was convicted of tax fraud and jailed in Florida.
David May was an assistant city registrar during the Griffin administration when as much as $746,000 in public funds disappeared.
Three years after Griffin left office, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development asked the city to return a $400,000 block grant made, despite significant irregularities in processing, during the Griffin era to a developer for a project that was never completed.
“Griffin’s record is like a long shadow,” News columnist and former political reporter George Borrelli wrote in 1997. “Try as he may, he just can’t run away from it.”
Longtime Griffin supporter and close friend Ronald J. Anthony begged to differ:
“Mayor Griffin always ran on his record, and he won on his record. Victories in 1977, 1981, 1985 and 1989 proved that those who count the most, the voters, liked that record,” Anthony said. “In my eyes, and in the eyes of countless Western New Yorkers, there will always be only one mayor — Jim Griffin.”
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