JACK DRISCOL

Boss of a Buffalo grain scooping gang, railroad man and elevator worker

"The scoopers were at the whim of everybody."

A railroad man at age 17 who would soon become the “boss” of a grain scooping “gang” in 1962, Jack Driscol toiled on Buffalo’s waterfront his whole working life. Jack shared memories of scooping grain deep down in the hold of a ship, of working with equipment that stayed the same since his dad's time as a scooper, and about what being the boss of a scooping gang was really like.

STEVE BACZKOWSKI

Musician, music curator at Buffalo’s contemporary arts center Hallwalls and Buffalo grain elevator sound enthusiast

“Banging, creaking, popping, sliding, scraping: every sound you could imagine. Sometimes it sounded like a person screaming, the way the wind moved through there.”

As a kid, Steve Baczkowski sneaked into Buffalo’s abandoned grain elevators to hear what his sax might sound like bouncing around their concrete canyons. So, when the longtime music curator at Buffalo’s contemporary arts center Hallwalls got a chance to keep watch over a robotic electronic sound installation inside a grain elevator, his sound nerd alarm bells rang. Steve camped out inside Silo City’s Marine A elevator for the month of September 19, playing his sax and didgeridoo, hearing ghostly sounds, diverting rain, and even witnessing a Buffalo Bills fan's life-affirming experience through art.

BERT HYDE

First Ward historian and lifelong Resident, curator and co-founder of The Waterfront Memories and More Museum, daughter and sister of Buffalo grain workers

“Girls didn't go by the waterfront.”

Most women and girls who lived in Buffalo's First Ward -- the waterfront community at the heart of Buffalo's once-pulsating grain industry -- never went close to the waterfront or worked among the grain elevators. But the industry was ever-present in their lives, from the grain that their husbands, fathers and brothers blew off their clothes when they came home for lunch, to the grain they sneaked from railcars, to the flour bags that mothers sewed into girls' dresses.

PAT NEEDHAM

Buffalo grain scooper and grain ship engineer from Alabama Street

“When we were kids we’d go to Concrete Central – just fields over there, old railroad tracks. And we'd hang out."

Some of Buffalo’s grain elevators had already shuttered by the time Pat Needham was a kid, but he worked hauling and scooping grain for decades in Buffalo and around the Great Lakes. A tragic accident down in the hold of a grain ship put an end to his working life. Pat didn’t have to tell us what it was like getting pulled out from a ship hold without being able to feel his legs. But he did. Note: This story involves graphic injury descriptions.

Ever walk across a river frozen thick to get to a whiskey-soaked work lunch? Stood atop grain piled so high it was like trudging in deep snow? Ever spend a month camped inside a leaky grain elevator — or fought to keep one from being demolished?

The people featured in Spilling Grain have. They’ve worked in and around Buffalo’s magnificent grain elevators -- hauling grain in railcars, shoveling it deep down in the holds of enormous grain ships, milling it into flour, or puffing it into breakfast cereal. Some studied and evangelized their architectural magnitude, or even made music inside them.

These are the people you'll hear in the Spilling Grain stories. Spilling Grain was created and produced by Kate Kaye, a longtime journalist who was born and raised in Buffalo.

Spilling Grain features first-person stories from Steve Bazkowski, Bruce Carter, Joel Carter, Don Dodd, Jack Driscol, Bert Hyde, Pat Needham, and Lynda Schneekloth. Special thanks to Tim Bohen, Fred Brill, Mark Goldman, Sam Kolodziej, Bob Roberts, and Gene Witkowski for helping inform this work. And thanks to D. Rives Curtright for providing his original music for the Spilling Grain audio stories, and to the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library for preserving the Spilling Grain stories and photos in its Digital Collection.