A few weeks ago I asked what you thought of the name and brand, or lack thereof, for our beloved North Buffalo neighborhood.

Nearly 200 votes were cast and the results are below.

Not surprisingly, “North Buffalo” was the leader at just under 50% of the votes followed by the common “Hertel” and then a scattering of other connotations. A couple interesting write-ins were “NoBu (or NoBo)”, “Northside” and “Hertel East”.

“The suburbs” – submitted by someone with an Elmwood Village superiority complex and residing less than three miles south of Hertel Avenue – was promptly removed from consideration.

In most polls I’d say 49% is a definitive answer. But it leaves me still thinking we have a problem. That’s one out of every two people calling our neighborhood something different. A lot of chatter around the poll seemed to show some consensus on needing something more specific, memorable, or unifying. To me, absent of that, it makes it tough to build any type of momentum.

Unfortunately this won’t be solved any time soon, but I thought it was fun to think about. Thank you to all of you for voting and joining in the conversation. Possibly those with the time, resources, reach and government connections needed to spearhead a city branding initiative (hint hint HNBBA) will read this and start giving it some thought. I know there are a lot of people that would welcome the opportunity to contribute and we’d all benefit from the outcome.

Until then, call 14216 what you want…just keep supporting it!