fixBuffalo

10/18/2006

An Example on Timon Street

I know...some people are still not plugged in. And many people are still with out essential utilities and don't know what to expect when they return to their homes, days after "Arbor-geddon" here in Buffalo, NY. Yet, despite the pressing and overwhelming obstacles, looking forward is what we do...

I had the unique opportunity last Friday afternoon to tour the City with fixBuffalo reader and urbanist, Chris Hawley. Numerous conversations with other readers and people, just like our selves, capable of influencing and shaping City policy. Common denominator is - long term. Unlike housing related issues and the madness surrounding vinyl victorians - sad subject of additional posting - every person that I talk to intuitively knows and understands that the City's tree and forestry program must, really must, be directed towards the future, long term.

For example in a recent short post - Timon's Trees - I featured this pic looking north on Timon Street from Dodge. Friday afternoon Chris and I observed just a few branches down along Timon, nothing big...the street was completly passable in the car. Footballs and snowballs were happening here. Which leads me to the reason for this post.

Someone, don't know who - would like to, had the foresight to plant the right trees along Timon Street a few generations ago. These Sycamore rows should serve as an example of successful city tree planting. Yes, something to follow. Short term and politically expedient solutions should be avoided. What we are looking at is rebuilding in such a manner that our children's grandchildren will step back and say, "wow...look at those Sycamore trees," as we do today on Timon Street.

For additional examples of long term and ancestral thinking, check out The Long Now Foundation. The sort of thinking we need - today, now - is perhaps best embodied in this story...

Well there’s one very famous example, it’s an English example, there’s a college in Oxford called New College, which was built about five hundred years ago. The college is a big high building and it has very thick oak beams to support the ceiling. About twenty years ago those beams started to appear to be in such bad condition that it was necessary to replace them, so the dean of the college said to the head gardener - because Oxford has a lot of lands and forests, actually all over England – “We need a lot of oaks - what shall we do?” And the gardener said when they built that college they planted a grove of oaks, to replace those beams, and so they had been planted five hundred years in advance of their need – so that’s a kind of long term thinking.

I don’t know that anybody is doing that kind of thing now. We should.

update 10/19/06...1pm...fixbBuffalo reader just sent in this pic, Timon Street - Saturday the 14th...makes the point about planting the right trees.

__________________________________________________________________________
Artspace Archive • Annals of Neglect • BAVPA • Where is Perrysburg? • Broken Promises...
Writing the City • Woodlawn Row Houses • Tour dé Neglect - 2006 • faq • my flickr
buffalo olmsted parks conservancy

10/16/2006

Back on Wednesday

Blog free Tuesday continues...

Look for a major policy paper from National Vacant Properties Campaign and LISC on issues impacting our neighborhoods - vacancy and abandonment - out first part of next week.

update 10/18/06...just heard from LISC, report at printers will be released mid November.

Sources tell me of a major shake-up in City Hall's Preservation Board, too. Details to follow. Might be covered by Buffalo News on Tuesday. Something about authorizing a major $1m demolition of this City owned spot on Niagara Street with out Preservation Board approval. Byron's pissed. I gather he first read about it in the Buffalo News last week - right here.

Sort of off topic for my East side blog, yet has anyone heard something concrete about Basher Issa's pending announcement about a new 40 story luxury high-rise at South Elmwood and Mohawk? Taller than HSBC by 2 floors. Understand he's retained big firm on Grand Island for design and is in Buffalo frequently. Check out Bashar Issa's site - BSC Group. Great link to high places in Buffalo - skyline details.

Back Sliding in Housing Court....

New changes in on-line access to Buffalo Housing Court records. No more direct linking allowed to specific cases.

For example in a recent post about 1572 Jefferson, a gorgeous and neglected spot over near Harwood Place - post - I'd linked directly to the Housing Court case Index# 1925/2005. Doesn't work any more. Likewise the case again Preservation Coalition Board member Scot Fisher and his wife, Executive Director of Forever Elmwood for their failed stewardship of 85 and 91 Genesee Street - background. Now you have to enter the specifc index number and year and agree not to do all sorts of things. Not good.

Just when it was getting good. Door closed. So much for accountability and transparency.

update 10/18/06...hear from various legal folks that ditto my critique...they used to bookmark cases and e-mail clients with updates. Now, they can't...

10/15/2006

BAVPA Reconstruction - End Week 15

The image “http://static.flickr.com/69/181241745_f4849c6f55.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

October 15, 2006 - Day 112

Sorry, no construction pix this week. I usually take those on Friday or Saturday. Was supposed to do some interior shots on Friday. Regular stuff in Buffalo ground to a halt as a result of the recent mid October snow storm. No one was around the site Friday.

I did have an opportunity to talk with a Buffalo Bisons representative last nite at a storm party. Idea is to coordinate the installation of a brass marker - indicating where 'home plate' used to be back in the days of Offerman Stadium. FixBuffalo readers know that this icon of Buffalo's sports history used to occupy the site where Performing Arts High School will be located.

I've written about that here - with links to baseball on the City's West side - and here with an aerial pic of Offerman Stadium c. 1956.

See BAVPA Reconstruction Archive for additional details and updates.

Orphaned in Toronto...

The latest from DK PhotoGroup out of Toronto - Orphaned opens this Thursday at Hang Man Gallery. The show is gathering some awesome buzz north of the border.

Upcoming.org • Club Zone • Popular photography • toronto.com

The image “http://static.flickr.com/84/247056354_8af7ba2478_m.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

http://static.flickr.com/118/268227172_395b534389_m.jpg

Click to enlarge - here for left and here for right.

Met up with DK and friends a few weeks ago here in Buffalo - right here. Working to bring the exhibit to Buffalo at some point in the near future. If you're interested in one of Buffalo's hidden and most neglected spots, consider tagging along. I'm taking people to the German Roman Catholic Orphan Home on a regular basis. Cool place down at 564 Dodge Street [google map]. Here's a recent group photo from a tour in September. The genius of our City and how the German Roman Catholic Orphan Home was so firmly integrated into the fabric of our community is seen here, in this 1915 map of Buffalo.

Make sure to check out some of thier other Buffalo based work - Sattler Theatre on Broadway.

Just Before and Shortly After...

Good source of what's been happening here in Buffalo, NY in the past few days can be seen in the Buffalo Flickr Pool. Great shots and awesome people out and about documenting various aspects of Friday the 13th in Buffalo, NY - Columbus Day Massacre - [still looking for the right coinage]. Erin has a great set and so does David Coffee, right here.

Took this shot - from one of my favorite vantage points - on Thurday afternoon, before things turned bad. The bottom shot Saturday afternoon. A few hours ago - early Sunday evening - this "widow maker" was still hanging.

Back to regular posting schedule very soon.

10/14/2006

Problems in Vinyl Land...

Lovely piece in the morning's Buffalo News about construction problems associated with some of the East Side's newest "vinyl victorians."

One house has a cracked garage floor. Another around the corner has its second set of concrete porch stairs. The first set crumbled.
A third has an uneven ceiling and a gaping hole where water - and critters - can enter the garage. These aren't grand old homes showing their age. They are brand new houses built to help revitalize Buffalo and its Cold Spring neighborhood. They were built by a local contractor for an East Side church's development corporation - with millions in public money and city oversight to make sure the taxpayer dollars were well spent.

Instead, homeowners say, it has been a nightmare. read the rest

This residential development project is headed up by Rev. Richard Stenhouse and Bethel CDC. I first mentioned Bethel's work - Getting it Done in Masten - and here as they plan to build a series of Row Houses here in Cold Springs on Michigan Avenue. Rev. Stenhouse and Bethel CDC also own this totally messed up spot at 38 Ada Place and four totally derelict houses on Michigan and Woodlawn Avenue. Remember, Rev. Stenhouse is also the secretary and tresurer of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority - Buffalo's Control Board.

I plan to talk with the homeowner mentioned in the Buffalo News article and have pictures soon.

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. Mcguire: Plastics.

See My Vinyl Collection for additional inspiration.

10/13/2006

Friday October 13th - Buffalo, NY

Played lumberjack this afternoon, checking in with friends all over the City and their trees. Same tomorrow. I apologize, the bicycle tour that I had set up for tomorrow morning - right here - is cancelled.

Checked in on some of my favorite trees. The Sycamore trees lining Timon Street are in very good shape, a few limbs, nothing major. Probably one of the best trees for urban settings. Only had to cut up one small Sycamore limb today, the rest mostly Maple.

Look for some posts in the next few days comparing how our City is cleaned-up East v. West side. There is no longer a they who is going to show up and restore stuff. They left a while ago. It's only us. So, by all means help one another. Very interesting times and things going on. Big test for Brown Administration. Look for spike in birth rate towards July. '07!

Awesome pix in the Buffalo flickr pool of damage the City sustained in the last 24 hours. Spoke with Sam Hoyt this afternoon at SpOT downtown about various existing efforts to re-plant Buffalo. Consider donating to the Olmsted Parks Conservancy. A small donation today will go along way, tomorrow.

Posting will be sporadic for the next few days.

10/12/2006

Lessons learned? I think not...

In the morning's Buffalo News...

Ever since my childhood days, the Wollenberg Grain and Seed Elevator, affectionately called the mill, existed at the foot of Koons Avenue. As a young child, I witnessed the deteriorating condition of the mill, but as an adult, I soon realized the importance of this structure and championed with many to preserve its integrity. Effort was expended by the city, and successfully, the structure was placed on the National and State Register of Historic Places. It is with heavy heart that all this initial effort and subsequent lack of city responsibility on a city-owned historic structure - the third-oldest wooden crib bin grain elevator in the Northeast - went up in flames on Oct. 1.
As I painfully watched the structure being demolished, all my hopes envisioned for this area quickly vanished. The century-old hemlock will never be replaced, no one will ever know the engineering and industrial relevance of this mill, and my ride down Koons will no longer be greeted by its silhouette.
The fact is that Buffalo used federal demolition funds of $68,000 to demolish this site. There is an old saying: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." The disease of the East Side is demolition by neglect.
Sophie Baj

Yesterday in Don Esmonde's Buffalo News column - Rich Tobe, who is at the helm of the City's stewardship of these places admitted...

Last week, the wooden Wollenberg Grain Elevator, a national register landmark on the East Side, was torched in an arson fire. Activists say they months ago asked the city to seal it from vandals. It didn't happen. "I concede the point," said Tobe, "that the city didn't do a good job with this." read the rest

The only other City owned "historic" property on the East Side - a designated "local landmark" by the City's Preservation Board - the Woodlawn Row Houses. Still wide open, despite my best efforts to keep them secure. Unlike the Wollenberg, the Woodlawn Row Houses are directly - 75 feet - across the street from the renovation of Performing Arts High School, a few blocks from Artspace and the new Merrieweather Library - 50 million of public investment - and not a penny to properly secure this heritage site. It's why I started blogging.

I'm no longer pissed off. That was easy. More like zen...and struggling to accept and fully understand why that what is said is not as important as what gets done, or doesn't.

10/11/2006

The Forgotten...Buffalo and Toronto

First visited Beth Jacob Cemetery years ago. Wrote about it here, May 2005 and did a few follow-ups last summer after sitting down and speaking with officials from the Jewish Federation. Last July I actually counted the grave stones, 276 and found that only 74 had not been vandalized. NOthing has changed. Beth Jacob Cemetery is located at the end of Lansdale Place - right here.

click image to enlarge

In a recent conversation with Sean from the DK PhotoGroup in Toronto, we were thinking about heritage related issues and things that are valued, important things you know that reflect who we are in a world that's increasingly homogenized and antiseptic.

Sean sent me a link to a cemetery in Toronto, here in the strangest of places. Still nicely kept despite the rush and traffic.

Here some additional pics of the Richview Memorial Cemetery in Toronto.

This from an August 2006 post in a Toronto blog could apply to Beth Jacob Cemetery, too...

Presumably the inhabitants do not mind. And yet, the ensnarement of this particular plot of land is the result of a chain of decisions which imply certain things about our societal priorities and beg questions of our cultural motives.

Google Addiction...

Been loving google a long time - gmail • blogger • picasa • googlemaps • googlevideo - turns out that google purchased by favorite web 2.0 application awhile back, Writely. Yesterday everything came together and Writely is functionally integrated into the google pantheon. It's an on-line word processor, fully functional and integrated for project collaboration. It's now called google doc s...only if you have a google account. Spreadsheets, too.

For the on-line cartographer in you Google Maps Mania is still the best blog. Found Quikmaps there the day it arrived on the scene.

Was reminded the other day about google maps in Europe, love this! This is totally safe for work, too - Google Sightseeing. While my now 8 year old pentium III is way too slow for Google Earth, I did manage to learn something new about Buffalo's East Side last week, remember small world park using google maps.

And you'd be happy to know the Larry and Serge are in the midst of preserving the garage and hot tub where google was born. Check it out.

Get a google account. Digital life will be easier. Less stress. Really.

goog

Ps...almost forgot. Never a day without Google Scholar and knowing what's going on in blogistan...easy google blog search.

Tale of Two Cities...Follow-up

The small apartment building at 60 Brantford burned on Friday May 13, 2005 in Buffalo's Elmwood Village. All sorts of flames, a spectacular and devastating fire. Three years earlier there was a similar fire at 198 Glenwood Avenue. Both corner properties and close to schools. I wanted a first hand account of how fires and demolitions are handled in more affluent areas and here over in my neighborhood, one of Buffalo's poorest. I began writing - June 4, 2005 • July 27, 2005 • February 2, 2006 • February 13, 2006 - and attended a few Housing Court sessions where Council Member Joe Golombek was also present and following the case, personally. He wanted action, fast. He got it.

click to enlarge

Last week I noticed that Paul Johnson's crews were installing radiant heated sidewalks around 60 Brantford. A few days later, while on my way to the Merriweather to hear the Power Failure book talk, I took a closer look at the condition of the sidewalks around the corner at 198 Glenwood. Remember, the City of Buffalo took possession of this property a year ago, three years after the fire. Now, rather than pursue the owner in Housing Court, tax payers will fund the bill for the estimated 10-15K demolition. No rush, some day.

Same City and very different rules. Just over a mile away [google map].

10/10/2006

Hamlin Park Coffee Shop

I had an appointment today scheduled at EM Tea Coffee Cup Cafe over near Canisus at 80 Oakgrove [google map]. First time.

Wilbur and Kathleen Tyler, owners of the coffee shop, won a Preservation Award from Mayor Masiello and the Preservation Board in 2004.

Recognized for achieving a high level of design through retention of original elements in the conversion of the early 20th century building located at 83 Oakgrove Street in the Hamlin Park Historic District

The spot is a real gem. Great food. Only coffee shop in Buffalo that serves jerked chicken! On Tuesday nights they have a long standing poetry program. This is definately a new meet-up spot for moi. Wireless, too.

click image to enlarge

Make sure to check out the photography next door in the poetry room. Here you'll find scenes of the neighborhood prior to the 33 cutting the City in half. These pics depict various years along Humboldt Parkway. The display moves chronologically beginning with the dirt covered horse trails in the 1880's and ends with tree cutting and highway construction. Our server lived in the neighborhood for 45 years and knows all about it including fascinating stories of almost forgotten places on Jefferson, between Northland and Harwood Place.

The proximity of the 33, 100 feet away, as you leave the shop is staggering. The Kensington remains a testament to good intentions, gone wrong.

__________________________________________________________________________

Artspace Archive • Annals of Neglect • BAVPA • Where is Perrysburg? • Broken Promises...
Writing the City • Woodlawn Row Houses • Tour dé Neglect - 2006 • faq • my flickr

New Blog Alert - PresCo...

The Preservation Coalition of Erie County now has a blog - right here. Check it out for updates on the betrayal going on over at the Richardson Complex and this cool post about what was going on at the Darwin Martin House last week, from the perspective of a local craftsman.

This morning we installed the art glass in the doors. It took my breath away! The colors in the glass, the shimmer and changing reflections as the light moves across or the door swings in the light are gorgeous.

My heart was in my throat, not just because of the high price tag per panel of glass. It is really the most beautiful thing I have ever handled in my work.

Sort of off topic for me, yet if anyone has pictures of these doors, send 'em in. Link to the PresCo Blog and learn more about the amazing architectural heritage and our unique urban environment.

The Preservation Coalition was the initial sponsor of my Tour dé Neglect which will be modified next summer on account of the loss of the Wollenberg Grain Elevator. Mike Miller from the Central Terminal expressed an interest in re-routing the tour through Genesee near High Street and along parts of Broadway Avenue. PresCo is supporting a new tour that I'm planning with another docent - "Water and Grain" or "Brews and Pews" - which will happen down in the Old First Ward, next summer. Folks at Riverkeepers have expressed an interest in collaborating on that one.

__________________________________________________________________________

Artspace Archive • Annals of Neglect • BAVPA • Where is Perrysburg? • Broken Promises...
Writing the City • Woodlawn Row Houses • Tour dé Neglect - 2006 • faq • my flickr

Around Artspace - City's Plan

The image “http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y192/fixbuffalo/snip2.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Last week Allita Steward passed along the Artspace area planning document that her office recently developed. She's a Community Planner in the Office of Strategic Planning in City Hall. I've broken the document into various parts [.pdf files] for manageability. I've stored it here - Artspace - over on e-snips for easy retrieval. Here the first three parts [.pdf files].

introduction • planning objectives • demographics

The last part includes a block by block analysis of the various streets in what is quickly becoming Artspace's Backyard. Click on - Artspace - and see the block and street analysis organized by street name.

Make sure to check out the Artspace Construction Archive for recent pics.