Vast neighborhoods on the City's East Side continue to disappear as residential structures are vacated, demolished and dumped in landfills. The commercial fabric along some of the City's great streets is carted away too. fixBuffalo readers may remember a series of posts involving a City owned building at 669 Genesee Street. The view from 669's roof has been this blog's banner photo from the beginning Another iconic commercial structure at 311 Genesee was demolished in August.
Walking and shooting Genesee Street over a period of time has revealed additional changes. This collection of mixed use buildings near the intersection of Leslie and May Streets has been home to various retail establishments over the years including a very cool bbq joint that was situated in the unique corner spot here at May and Genesee.
click image to enlarge - June 2009
The same perspective from Leslie Street a few months later reveals how quickly the mixed use fabric of residential and commercial buildings is disappearing.
While a google flyover of the City's East Side shows the ever increasingly larger urban prairie from the comfort of a laptop, walking the neighborhoods reveals the true level of the disaster City residents face on a daily basis. The hollowing out of neighborhoods and the disappearance of the City's commercial fabric is palpable. Structures that are here today are literally gone tomorrow. The pace of disappearance and the transformation of the City's streetscapes seems to be accelerating. Perhaps next year's new Census data will reveal the true nature of the changes. Economic development still seems lop sided and tilted towards non-strategic housing development and what keeps people in Buffalo and in their homes - job creation - is an after thought.
Additional pics are being collected on a regular basis in this Genesee Street flickr series.
__________________________________________________________________________Walking and shooting Genesee Street over a period of time has revealed additional changes. This collection of mixed use buildings near the intersection of Leslie and May Streets has been home to various retail establishments over the years including a very cool bbq joint that was situated in the unique corner spot here at May and Genesee.
click image to enlarge - June 2009
While a google flyover of the City's East Side shows the ever increasingly larger urban prairie from the comfort of a laptop, walking the neighborhoods reveals the true level of the disaster City residents face on a daily basis. The hollowing out of neighborhoods and the disappearance of the City's commercial fabric is palpable. Structures that are here today are literally gone tomorrow. The pace of disappearance and the transformation of the City's streetscapes seems to be accelerating. Perhaps next year's new Census data will reveal the true nature of the changes. Economic development still seems lop sided and tilted towards non-strategic housing development and what keeps people in Buffalo and in their homes - job creation - is an after thought.
Additional pics are being collected on a regular basis in this Genesee Street flickr series.
Artspace • BAVPA • Woodlawn Row Houses • fixBuffalo flickr
Creative Class • Shrinking Cities • Saturdays in the Neighborhood
2 comments:
very very sad
and the rationale behind all of this demolitions is......???
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