Frank and Teresa Bellissimo opened a bar on Main Street in Buffalo, New York in 1935. Because it was near the Buffalo River, they named it the Anchor Bar. Because it was just 5 blocks from War Memorial Stadium, then home of the 1964 season's eventual American Football League Champions, the Buffalo Bills, it became a hangout for Bills fans.
Legend has it that, on a Friday night, Dominic Bellissimo, son of the owners, came by with some friends, looking for a late-night snack. Teresa was there, preparing to make chicken stock with a bunch of wings. Improvising, she stuck them under the broiler (later, they switched to deep frying), sprinkled them with a hot sauce she concocted from a commercially available base (Frank's Hot Sauce), took some celery sticks off the antipasto dishes, put some blue cheese dressing (the house dressing) in a small bowl, and served them to the boys. They loved it, and the word of this new concoction spread.
Dom Bellissimo took over the bar after his parents died, and he tells a different story. In 1980, he was interviewed for The New Yorker by Calvin Trillin. It wasn't until 1966 that the Catholic Church allowed its members to eat meat on Fridays, since the Crucifixion happened on a Friday. On this Friday night, since people were buying a lot of drinks, he wanted to do something nice for them at midnight, when the mostly Catholic patrons would be able to eat meat again. It was still Teresa who came up with the idea, Dom said, but the friends in question weren't there.
There is a competing story that a black chef named John Young invented the wings at his restaurant, John Young's Wings and Things, on Buffalo's mostly-black East Side in 1960, 4 years before the Bellissimos. Due to racial tensions -- although not as publicized as those in Detroit and Newark, Buffalo did have a race riot in 1967 -- Young left the city in 1970. When he came back in 1980, the city had forgotten him and embraced the Bellissimo story.
In 1996, 2 years before his death, in an interview with The Buffalo News, he said, "I am the true inventor of the Buffalo chicken wing. It hurts me so bad that other people take the credit." There may have been a difference in the sauce, to the point where the Bellissimos' sauce is the one that everybody knows.
Of course, buffaloes don't have wings. Chickens have wings... but they don't have fingers. (This sounds like a George Carlin bit.) Nevertheless, "Buffalo wings" and "chicken fingers" have become standard pub grub in America. The wings have even inspired a restaurant chain, Buffalo Wild Wings, which is headquartered... not in Buffalo, but in Columbus, Ohio.
Frank Bellissimo lived until 1980, Teresa until 1985. Dom is still alive as of October 30, 2022. In 2004, I visited Buffalo, and had to stop by the Anchor Bar. I can't stand spicy food, so I didn't order the original Buffalo wings. But they make a fantastic Monte Cristo sandwich.
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October 30, 1964, as I said, was a Friday. Baseball season was over. There was 1 college football game played on that Friday. Oddly enough, it involved a Catholic school, the University of Detroit. But they lost to the University of Miami, 10-7 at the University of Detroit Stadium. The Detroit Titans went 3-7 that season, and then canceled the football program due to a lack of funding. The school, now known as the University of Detroit Mercy following a 1990 merger with the all-women's Mercy College, competes in NCAA Division I in other sports, but not in football.
There were no NHL games that night, but there were 3 in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 94-90 at the old Madison Square Garden.
* The Cincinnati Royals beat the St. Louis Hawks, 119-118 at the Cincinnati Gardens. Oscar Robertson scored 39 for the Royals, Bob Pettit 34 for the Hawks.
* And the Boston Celtics beat the Detroit Pistons, 106-90 at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit.
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