fixBuffalo

11/12/2006

SkyscraperPage

Skyscraper City is another site full of development and urban issues that are organized geographically and international in scope. Excellent converstion and very good links and comments in a few of the Buffalo based threads here in the Northeast and Midatlantic portions of Skyscraper City. Cool threads about what's happening in other parts of the world, too - Dubai, Hong Kong and Shanghai. Wanna know how things are going in the UK over in Manchester? Check it out - Manchester Metro Area.

One of my favoite forums is devoted to city scapes, right here. About 200 different conversational threads happening. Poke around and explore. Skyscraper City has weekly photo contests, too.

First wrote about Skyscraper City back in August, 2005 - right here. Very cool pics of Buffalo. One from the Liberty Building that I've got to get to.

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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

11/10/2006

Coffee & Chocolate in Midtown...

Behind Literacy Volunteers is one of Buffalo's coolest collection of architectural treasure - St. Vincent's. Been writing about that and Cash Cunningham's pro-active stewardship recently - right here. Well next week we have an opportunity to support Literacy Volunteers and indulge into two of my favorites - coffee and chocolate, right here in rapidly emerging Midtown.

The auditorium behind the Squier Mansion is currently owned by Cash Cunningham and is available for rent. Tracy Diina has been raving about the space for a long time. It'll be my first time inside. Come on over, indulge and check things out. Supporting Literacy Volunteers is always a good thing. Tracy is one of the near East side's most indefatigable supporters...

Here's the link - St. Vincent's Female Orphan Asylum - from Chuch LaChiusa's Buffalo as an Architectural Museum.

Saturday's at 11...Begins This Saturday!

I'm switching up my Saturday morning routine. Bagels on Elmwood is swapped with coffee and bannana walnut muffins at the new Delta Sonic Café, across from Artspace. It's been a 15 year run on Saturdays on Elmwood near Auburn. It's time.

Backyard at Artspace
Tours in the Neighborhood
Saturdays at 11am

Regular 11am Saturday morning tour of the neighborhood - Backyard at Artspace - begins this Saturday November 11th. Meet-up in the café area and plan on walking down Coe Place, around Ellicott, Northampton and Holland Place and Dodge if we have time. Plenty to see and learn about in an hour.

While talking about various developments and issues here on the City's near East side, we'll be stopping along the way to take pictures of the amazing amounts of architechtural detail. I'm always seeing something new. Make sure the batteries are charged in your own digital camera, cup of coffee and we're off for an hour in what is soon to be Buffalo's coolest new neighborhood.

Saturday's at 11am...e-mail me or just show up. Here's the map!

Church with Vergara

Many of Vergara's churches exist where most people fear to tread. Spotted this one on Sycamore Street, just East of Sherman last weekend.

The building sits by itself, pretty much alone on the urban prairie. The only church I've ever photographed that doesn't have a single front window. I've photographed about 40 of these churches so far and this the Church of the Living God is the one that I find myself most attracted to. It's bleak. And I find myself rather curious to know who might be showing up for worship because. It seems so remote.

This church is just a block away from where a tragedy occurred earlier this year that I covered in - Buffalo's Death Row. Some readers have tried to convince me that abandoned, partially boarded, derelict and vacant houses pose about as much threat to public safety as parking lots do. Thinking is that people get killed in parking lots, so why should an abandoned house receive any special consideration. Really disagree.

I remember the people I met here and who lived in this neighborhood were really chatty and unusually friendly depite my appearance, atleast according to some that I look like 5-0. These folks kept wanting to explain how "they" should be doing this...and how "they" should be cleaning this up. Who knows. Maybe they'd given up. Don't know. Just tried to take it all in as I slipped down the alley to photograph the door that was still open. Couldn't look inside. It was still open last weekend four month's after Yvonne's death.

From a few blocks further East the ruins of the 100 year old Transfiguration Church cast a long shadow over this neighborhood, too. I'll be picking up on this theme where small and obviously struggling places - where the other half worships - exist along side larger and more prominent places we call Churches.

HUD's 203K - What do you know?

New fix reader left a comment this morning in the recent post about 1000 Demolitions from the other day. Wants to know about experience readers here may have had or are having with HUD's 203K Rehab Program.

The Section 203(k) program is the Department's primary program for the rehabilitation and repair of single family properties. As such, it is an important tool for community and neighborhood revitalization and for expanding homeownership opportunities.

Please share your experience or leave e-mail address in comments if you want to stay private. Bankers and mortgage people reading this, let me know if you participate. And contractors, too.

Any additional innovative re-hab financing programs available?

11/09/2006

Mapping Foreclosures

Just in from the Geography and Planning Deptartment at Buffalo State College is a very useful tool to help understand the shape of in-rem tax foreclosure proceedings in Buffalo, NY. This very unique mapping tool - running on GIS, similar to Erie County's - is a fantastic way of showing what's happening in our City.

Here's the direct link: City of Buffalo Property Auctions. The source data is available right now in a limited format. I'll migrate the data into a "social spreadsheet" later today so as to make it widely available. Follow this link, from the Geography and Planning Dept for a brief tutorial, if you are not familiar with the functionality of this sort of GIS mapping application.

update...Friday Morning...115am

I've migrated the data set - previously available only to subscribers of a public Yahoo group, Buffalo Issues Alert - to a "social spreadsheet" that is viewable and searchable. It looks and feels like a spread sheet, here the results: City of Buffalo - in rem 40.

The results are presented in three major groups - sold, adjourned and struck back to the City. Of the 1578 properties on the auction list - 621 have bids that were accepted, most probably here the deals will happen and title will transfer and an 394 properties were adjourned. The remaining 563 were taken by the City. I believe this is the largest property grab by the City in recent memory. Veteran observers, please chime in.

Three of the newly acquired City properties are on my block of Woodlawn Avenue and have been on my personal demolition list - for various reasons, including the fact that they present a public health hazard, are wide open and sit directly across the street from the 30 million dollar renovation at the future home of Performing Arts High School. Will be watching.

11/08/2006

Coe Place & Block Club Meeting...Today!

If you are interested in the latest happenings around Coe Place, Ellicott, Northampton and parts of Dodge Street by all means show up at Belmont Shelter Thursday, late afternoon...

Got this flyer in the mail...

In addition to Susan McCartney's remarks, I imagine folks from Belmont may be available to discuss their plans for the Ward House, at 19 Coe Place. The September Meeting was cancelled - right here. My first block club meeting on June 22, 2006 came just moments after the Preservation Board Meeting involving the Ward House. You may remember the application for demolition of the Ward House was tabled, in favor of a public meeting. Feeling the heat from "Friends of Coe Place" and most neighbors Belmont officials withdrew their application. A few days later, Belmont installed a flag pole and a flood light, that illuminates the Ward House at night.

At that time Artspace had just broken ground a few days before - here - and Performing Arts followed just a few days later - here. A fast moving four months over in Midtown on the City's near East side.

Meetings at Belmont are always very interesting.

Neighborhood Tour...

Meet-up today at 4pm at the Delta Sonic Café across from Artspace...a few people have expressed an interest in checking out some of the houses I've been writing about recently.

Interested? E-mail me or just show up...sorry for the late notice.

Memory and Masten Park

A few blocks away, down Masten Avenue, from my spot in Cold Springs is Masten Park [quikmap]. Visited recently and usually find that it's mostly way under used. Ultimate frisbee going on the other day. Classes from City Honors High School use the park, too.

that's St. Mary's on Genesee Street, on the right

The main entrance here is at the end of Eaton Street, just a block from Best. This stone wall - way cool here, too is what's left of the Buffalo's main source of water, the old Buffalo Resevoir that was situated here before Masten Park.

This video photo montage [via Youtube, what you do when you don't have a tv, like me] of the former nearby War Memorial Stadium, is especially haunting and a reminder of just how vibrant this neighborhood was, well...check out the aerial scenes at the 2 minute mark, wow. Excellent music selection accompanying this short from Chris Byrd at IndaBuff. Really nice Andres Segovia piece on Chris's blog, right here.

The earlier vibrancy of what this neighborhood was continues to motivate me. Imagine, as a child growing up here, having Offerman Stadium and War Memorial separated by a ten minute walk or a two minute bike ride. Nothing has shaken me and inspired me more to participate in this neighborhood's re-birth recently than the serendipity involved in finding a book at 204 High Street a few weeks ago. Here, showing a few photographs from that book, a few scenes from this very spot in Masten Park almost fifty years ago - Dalai me this.

blogging Artspace...

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Buffalo bloggers are slowly getting Artspace. All things Buffalo, just got a look around with his UB law and planning class. Check it out - A Sneak Peek at Artspace.

Sort of hidden and hard to find on-line, here's the Artspaceusa-Buffalo Artist Lofts website and sort of static, too in need some tweaking as a few commenters have mentioned, here. A little blog, with announcements and room for comments, rental information in .pdf format would be a very good thing along with news from other Artspace projects, cool...

More in Artspace Construction Updates...

SkyscraperPage

I've been a fan of SkyscraperPage since I started blogging, two years ago. The banter in the forum's section is ususally well informed and frequented by people on the street living close to the various projects discussed.

The forum over at SkyscraperPage called, Northeastern States has some great threads about Buffalo area development. This thread - Post your Ghetto Pictures - contains six long pages of pix spanning various North American and European cities. Pithy commentary and loads of cool links. Stuff you may not find anywhere else. Guess we don't have it so bad in Buffalo, by comparison. The Diagrams page is way cool, too.

First mentioned SkyscraperPage in August, 2005 - here.

11/07/2006

Back Wednesday...

Blog free Tuesday continues...

Other stuff around the house - fixing leaky mansard gutter, test drive and reading Vergara. Few hours devoted to finishing up over-due draft copy of rather unique homesteading project for the City's near East Side around the Artspace Backyard area...very soon.

If you still haven't switched to Firefox, why wait? You should. Another reason, new and enhanced version of FireFox 2 just appeared on the scene. Get it right here and switch today. Web works way better with it. Some of the new extensions and tools are really amazing. Give it a shot. Bottom line...more efficient desk top and workspace.

And if you ever thought about embedding (hot linking) links in a comment or wanted to play around with bold and italics in a comment stream over at BuffaloRising or any other blog - they work the same - here's an awesome cheat sheet covering some basic html, right here from Page Resource. This section is a 30 second guide to hot linking. Never done it before, easy! I challenge the person who left some comments in my last piece - About Blogging - to add the embedded links they referred to.

And it's election day. Anyone know Eliot Spitzer's plan for MBBA and the scheme that was cooked up here, in Buffalo involving 1500 houses? Let me know...

2 Girard - Last Time...

I started keeping track of 2 Girard Street [google map] in March, May, July and November 2005 and most recently this past February. I still find this house fascinating. The almost magical quality of the turret had to engage children for hours and days, along time ago when places like this were still valued. Sadly, Sunday afternoon was the first time I'd imagined a "vinyl victorian" here on this corner, Humboldt Parkway's first.

click image to enlarge

I've been to Housing Court a couple times. Owner in Atlanta never showed. And while talking with Judge Nowak last February about the plight of 2 Girard, I sensed his frustration as I showed him the pictures and pleaded for a stay. He denied it. The place is tenacious. I thought it was going down months ago. There was some interest last year, prior to the City taking possession. Solid roof and the place still sits very straight.

Maybe this place is fated. Imagine for a moment what Richmond Avenue would look like if a highway was photo-shopped into the middle. As long as it stands there's some hope. Any takers? Tours on request. Let me know. Like a few others over here, I'll help you build a case to rescue this from the City's hands.

Here's the listing on Craigslist - 2 Girard, Buffalo NY

11/06/2006

1000 More Demolitions

Seems like the bull-dozers, wreckers and demolition contractors are getting ready to tear down 1000 more houses here in Buffalo, NY. According to Monday's Buffalo News, the demolitions are getting green lighted and while deadlines were not mentioned, 8 million dollar NY State (grant - wow, like free money) is funding this bust on blight.

Buffalo is on track to tear down a record number of vacant eyesores, the city's economic development chief told an accountability panel Friday. Richard M. Tobe predicted that 1,000 decaying properties will be demolished by the end of the fiscal year in June. This figure would be three times higher than the average number of annual demolitions since 2002.Still, with an estimated 10,000 properties throughout the city that should be torn down, Tobe said Buffalo's demolition blitz will have to keep at its current pace for the next decade. read the rest

Sure wish I could peer into the all knowing Citi-Stat crystal ball and discern which places are getting wrecked. So much for transparency, I guess. Oh, almost forgot. Good thing we're using computers now to track this stuff. According to the article there are exactly approximately 10,000 structures ready for demolition in the City of Buffalo.

On a positive note, Rich Tobe did mention that discussions involving City workers doing the demolitions are being considered. Yet, I got lost in the logic of using City crews for special demolitions as somehow being more cost-effective than using City crews for regular demolitions. Then again, what do I know. I'm just a guy with a camera and a keyboard.

Maybe I should consider starting up a demolition company. Hmmmm...

More here - To Demo or Not to Demo - from February, 2006

Eyes Wide...Open

Since childhood, I've been fascinated with looking out windows - bedroom, car or school, didn't matter. Imagining the world beyond my immediate environment quickly became an important way to interpret and transform what's here and now, direcetly in front of me and often standing in the way. Elementary school and later still in high school, there were new challenges and I'd find myself looking out the window with what must have seemed like a vacant stare to my teachers, masking my boredom with increasing regularity during the school day. At times imagining myself seeing things beyond the available horizon yet somehow comforted knowing that what I was seeing was dynamic, vibrant and capable of keeping me sane. Long wind up, I know...

I returned to the recently remodeled East High School on Northampton Street Sunday afternoon. (See - School House Project, for additional background.) This is what I saw.

click image to enlarge

This is the corresponding view from the porch, next to the open window at 773 Northampton, looking across the street towards the recently remodeled East High School.

Imagine, just for a moment, looking out your classroom window and seeing this. The disappointment and diminishing set of expectations internalized by students here, must be - has to be - profound. A parallel somewhere between the lives we lead and the fragmented spaces we see is working and shaping our minds. The metaphor of the soul - in harmony and discord - with the city, developed by poets thousands of years ago must ring true still today as school children absorb the abandonment and vacancy they see through their windows developing and taking hold in their own lives.

Part of the reason why I started blogging was to actively participate in changing the way my neighborhood looks, the way it is. You know the drill, abandoned, boarded, derelict places...so not good for our physical and probably psychic health, too. That's why I'm working to document, show and change things over here in my little corner of Cold Springs in Masten. Which of course brings us to Tuesday's election.

Word is that Eliot Spitzer will probably be New York State's next governor elect sometime Tuesday evening. Met him a couple times over at Canisius College last year. Seems like a smart guy. Yet never had the opportunity to ask him about MBBA and his take on places like this - 773 Northampton (just learned that 813 Northampton, same block is held hostage by MBBA, too - it's boarded and secure) and the lives of students leaving Buffalo.

Anyone know what Eliot's plans to do with MBBA? I'm sure a few students at East High School, as they imagine thier own lives and think about staying or leaving Buffalo, are wondering - in their own way, too.

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All about MBBA - 1500 Buffalo, NY Properties held hostage by MBBA - Searchable Website.