Andrew Wozniak is a busy guy.

The Hilbert College freshman not only attends classes full time, but he also works part time at the KeyBank Center in Downtown Buffalo. Wozniak’s job is to work with the change over staff, converting the event center into the set up it needs for any given event.

Since most of the events happen during the day, the only time the change over staff can do their job is at night.

While some event set ups can be completed before midnight other larger events can take all night to complete, sometimes ending at 6 a.m. Working all night and having to get up for a 9:30 a.m. class seems like something no college student would want to do. But Wozniak loves his job, he said.

“It can be challenging at times,” Wozniak said. “I don’t work these overnights too often. But when I work three of them in a row over the weekend and then go back to a normal school schedule it does mess with my sleep a little. But it’s manageable once I give it a few days and a lot of coffee.”

Wozniak said his arrangement with his boss helps him to balance his work and school schedules.

“They are very accommodating,” Wozniak said. “Once we got into a pattern where they knew if it was a weekday I wouldn’t be there past midnight, they would schedule me from 4 p.m. to midnight instead of 10pm to 4am.”

Like anything else, working part-time while going to school also has some challenges.

“Yeah the negative side is that it causes a lot of stress,” Wozniak said. “I’m worrying about getting my homework done and studying for tests. I’m usually able to keep up with everything though so the goods do usually out-weigh the bad.”

Working any part-time job while going to school full time has its ups and downs. For Wozniak it’s no different, he said.

“Being a college student working part-time has perks,” Wozniak said. “You get spending money, you can pay your own car insurance, phone bill, pay for gas.”

Editor’s Note: This story was written as part of a breaking news exercise. No robbery took place at Hilbert College.

by Nick Pulinski, Leah Chlewicki, Grace Wenner

An armed robbery occurred at the Hilbert Campus cafeteria this afternoon. 

At approximately 1:30 pm a white male about 5’8” entered the dining hall wearing sunglasses and threatened a cashier with a supposed weapon. Vito Czyz, Director of Hilbert College Campus Safety, said the armed robber fled the area with approximately $250 in cash. 

“The suspect is not in custody, he is still at large,” Czyz said. “The Hamburg Police Department and the New York State Police are continuing to search.”  

A student in the cafeteria at the time was shaken up by the out of the ordinary activity at the small, liberal arts college.

“[He] said he had a gun or something, came up, asked for the money, threw it in a bag and just stormed out there, ran past everyone,” Ryan Zunner, a witness, said,  “It was a crazy scene.”

Czyz stated that Hamburg police were called to the scene and chased the suspect before losing him in a wooded area behind the school. He also added the campus was placed in a lockdown while police searched the location. 

“A Town of Hamburg Police Officer, who had happened to be nearby campus, pursued him and chased him through the woodline, which is adjacent to our practice fields,” Czyz said,  “[He] also fell and possibly broke his ankle in the woods and was taken to ACMC.”

Czyz asks the community to promote public safety by using established the police tip line when necessary; 1 (800) 723-3786.

By Peyton Leftwich

On any given day in Canalside you can see families bustling around enjoying the boardwalk, the naval park and more opportunities that weren’t even imaginable just 15 years ago.

Canalside is a constantly developing place that is increasingly popular. Starting in 2004, buildings began springing up on the once desolate downtown area. Presently, a mix of new attractions and outdoor green space has attracted locals and tourists alike to the waterfront area. City planners and developers are also working toward creating new living and retail space.

Julie Tahan, a mother who was visiting her hometown from Princeton New Jersey, said that she has seen steady improvement downtown on her yearly trips home.

“I think back then and everybody thought Buffalo was a joke and in some ways that the downtown was kind of dying,” said Tahan. “It was just deserted buildings, so this has been a really nice transition.”

Chris Hawley, a city employee with the planning department, said that the Canalside history has been instrumental in renewing the popularity of the downtown area. Among the accomplishments a revitalized waterfront brings, the city will be able to rebuild a once influential neighborhood in the heart of downtown.

“If that’s successful I think we’ll have a completely different relationship culturally and economically between the citizens of Buffalo and the waterfront,” said Hawley.

Mary Katherine, a mother and museum member, said that Canalside is the place that comes to mind when she has a free day to go somewhere and do something with her children. 

“I grew up in Buffalo and I would have never come down here before,” Katherine said. “They’ve done so much, even just going for a walk around the water, this museum, there’s restaurants and it’s pretty awesome.”

Jeannine Weber-Kahabka is the marketing and public relations director at the Explore and More children’s museum. She said the museum’s canal exhibit not only provides children with a new experience, but also with some history on Buffalo. She wanted to make the exhibit more interactive-based, so it isn’t just a museum, it teaches the children to appreciate where they live, and it provides them with insight on the history of Buffalo.

“When children are exposed to something that they haven’t considered before, you’re turning on a switch of interest and nobody can turn that switch off,” said Weber- Kahabka. “I want children to learn about themselves and figure out what’s interesting to them. If you don’t expose a child to the consideration of becoming a lab technician or to finding the cure to cancer, they may never consider to take that path.”

 There are so many things that make Buffalo itself and Canalside has added a great amount of community and significance back to a once bustling area of the Queen City.