fixBuffalo

6/16/2007

Smart City

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Smart City is a weekly, hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life, the people, places, ideas and trends shaping cities. Host Carol Coletta talks with national and international public policy experts, elected officials, economists, business leaders, artists, developers, planners and others for a penetrating discussion of urban issues.

This weekend...

A new study from Americans for the Arts claims that each year in America the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $166 billion in economic activity. Our guests this week are leading efforts to make sure their cities get a big piece of that action.

We'll talk to Vincent Kitch about Austin's strategies to promote film and music, Ginger White about Denver's programs to support art and space for artists, and Jair Lynch in Washington about his attempts to develop artist housing. Plus, we'll find out how arts organizations are finding new audiences from Surale Phillips.

Vincent Kitch is Cultural Arts Program Manager for the City of Austin. Ginger White is Senior Economic Development Specialist for the City of Denver's Office of Cultural Affairs. Jair Lynch heads Jair Lynch Companies, a development firm in Washington, D.C. And Surale Phillips is President of Decision Support Partners in Bozeman, Montana

Listen to host Carol Colletta - list of additional stations/times - 7pm Sunday on WNED - 970 in Buffalo, NY. Past Shows are archived and the newsletter is published regularly.

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Artspace • BAVPA • Tour d'Neglect - 2007 • Woodlawn Row Houses • faq • my flickr
the creativity exchange • CEOs for Cities

93 Riley - Almost Gone

One of the houses that I've identified for urban homesteading was visited by the red mark of death this week.

93 Riley is a short two block walk from Main Street and within the Artspace Impact area. Despite some minor roof problems and front porch issue, 93 appears to be excellent shape, structurally.

The paper work on the door and the red ribbon - protecting the public from the asbestos hazard will certainly push the demolition of this house to the mid 20K range. Just like this one - 125 Woodlawn - that came down for 23K a few months ago.

Again, seems like this demolition money would go along way towards helping someone out with renovations.

Strange, no? The Jimmy Griffin sign is still here 14 years after he left office. Any more of these still around?

6/14/2007

Tour d' Neglect - this Sunday...

The first stage of this summer's Tour d' Neglect starts Sunday June 17th!

We'll be leaving the Sonic Café in the 1200 block of Main Street - across from Artspace - at Noon, this Sunday. Really amazing things to see along the way. We'll be crossing this on the way back and slowly winding our way through the Fruit Belt, up Ellicott and back to the Sonic Café.

Please make sure your bicylce is in good working condition. You'll need plenty of water, a helmet and make sure to bring a few munchies. Route is about 8 miles. Plan on 3 hours...

Shuffling away from Buffalo!

Buried next to the obituary page in today's Buffalo News - Report Deplores Population Drain.

A state government association released a report on New York’s demographic trends Wednesday in an effort to raise the level of urgency about the population losses suffered throughout the state.
The policy brief issued by the New York State Association of Counties, an association of the state’s 62 counties, is an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau estimates released earlier this year. The numbers are sobering.
The Empire State saw its population grow just 1.7 percent since the start of the decade, compared with the national rate of 6.4 percent.
Twenty-nine of the state’s 62 counties lost population since 2000 — 28 of them from upstate. And no other county in the state lost more people during that period than Erie County — a loss of 28,875, or an average loss of 4,800 people a year. Read the rest...

Here's the link to the full report (.pdf). The Population Shuffle.

Wonder if anyone in the Erie County Comptrollers office has already contacted the Dr. Warren Brown at Cornell University. From the above study on page 11.

If you believe that your population estimates are inaccurate, you should contact New York's population estimates liasison:

Dr. Warren Brown
Program on Applied Demographics
Cornell University
607-255-8399
Wab4@cornell.edu

Do the math! 4800 people/year leaving Erie County. That's about 100/week, 13/day. If you're in the market UHaul is up today.

Remember this post? - Ouch! or, Our Inconvenient Truth. There's always Charlotte, oh well...

6/10/2007

Red Mark of Death...

I've described the "hollowing-out" of the City's East side in various ways and have documented parts of the near East side photographically. MJ's recent aerial shot clearly shows the density difference between both sides of Main Street.

click image to enlarge

On Saturday I noticed that three more houses on my block - Woodlawn, between Michigan and Masten Avenues - were visted by the red mark of death this past week. When these come down, ten houses will remain on the block. Five are occupied.

According to this photograph - Offermann Stadium, c. 1956 - there used to be 25 houses on my block. Some of these were 4 unit houses! Three of the remaining occupied houses are two family dwellings. Today not a single double is occupied as in upstairs and downstairs by two sets of tenants. In all cases only one of the units is occupied.

When I moved here there were 18 houses and that was 11 years ago. In a few weeks there will be 10 houses on the block...directly across the street from the newly renovated Performing Arts HS.

So it goes...

Promises, Promises...

I spent a few moments walking around Transfiguration Church Sunday afternoon. As you can see by the following photos, there has been no progress made in the last three days since Bill Trezevant promised to take immediate steps to better secure the building and protect pedestrians from the falling slate.

Here's a roof view from the back of the church.

View along Mills Street and the non-existent perimeter fencing that was promised.

And two additional views. The front door is still wide open and rear basement window is not secure.

Empty promises, I know...

6/09/2007

Transfiguration - Death Watch!

In case you missed the Buffalo News this week...

The owners of Transfiguration Church, a vacant and deteriorating East Side landmark, are under pressure from city officials to better secure the sprawling property.

The Eastern European Gothic- style church at Sycamore and Mills streets, which opened in 1896, is one of only four remaining in Buffalo built before 1900. It was abandoned 14 years ago by the Catholic Diocese and purchased in 1994 for $7,000 by Paul Francis Associates, a nonprofit organization operated by Buffalo attorney William Trezevant and his mother, Paula Nowak...read the rest...

Transfiguration Church - Interior

Here's the flickr slide show: Inside Transfiguration.

The Transfiguration Church, three miles from Elmwood, was first written for Housing Court on March 13, 1997. In the last 8 years Transfiguration has journeyed through Housing Court 61 times and the file, case #869/97 has seen four seperate Housing Court judges. Judge Broderick passed the file to Judge Devlin who tossed it to Common Council President David Franczyk's brother and finally Judge Fiorella issued a warrant for Pauline Nowak [no relation to Judge Nowak] on September 25, 2002. She's an officer of Paul Francis Associates, Inc., the party that bought the crumbling church from Bishop Mansell in October, 1995.

Here's that post from December 2005 - Sign of Things to Come - contains pertinent background information regarding the Dept. of Inspections attempts to nab the perp. You won't want to miss this lovely e-mail exchange between said local attorney, William Trezevant and moi.

I've sat down with Bill Trezevant twice in the past few weeks. On both occasions the conversation was tense. Bill seems to be subscribing to the falacious notion that hope is still a plan. Perhaps he's just looking for the easy way out and would rather see the City demolish the church and have Paul Francis Associates Inc. billed for the major six figure demolition expense. Presumably the corporation will go belly-up and Bill Trezevant and his mother Pauline Nowak - there's still an active Housing Court warrant for her arrest - will most probably skate.

Bill has systematically stonewalled and steadfastly refuses to answer questions regarding the church, his plans and possible scenerios that could save some of the art and architectural detail that remains here, in his care. He plays the victim card and at one point while sitting down with a Preservation Board member and myself Bill refused to take responsibility for properly securing the structure. He claimed it was a matter for the corporation to consider.

Also heard from a reliable source that Bill Trezevant's mother walked into Housing Court recently and walked out again, despite the active warrant for her arrest.

Suggestions?

Headed over to Sycamore and Mills, just East of Fillmore to see if he's done anything to secure the church structure since the Buffalo News article appeared more than 48 hours ago.

BAVPA Reconstruction - Week 49

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June 9, 2007 - Day 353

Last Night at CEPA was able to see renderings of all the new schools. Will be posting about that shortly. Meanwhile here's the weekly fixBuffalo roof shot of the progress at Performing Arts. Noticed that some of the landscaping is being roughed in this week.

A few conversations with Paul McDonnell - the Board of Education's architect for this project - revealed that additional funding is being sought for the tennis courts. These were originally part of the project and were ruled out recently as cost over-runs on the hvac system were higher than expected.

See BAVPA Reconstruction Archive for additional details and updates.

Woodlawn Row Houses - June 2007

The latest pic...

Here's the archive - Woodlawn Row Houses - to see one of Buffalo's best examples of 'demolition by neglect' of a local-landmark. After 3 years of calling this to the City's attention, the place is still wide open. Suggestions? Let me know.

6/08/2007

Smart City...

Religion has become a sort of battleground in America for some of the nation's most divisive issues. Buzz Thomas is attempting to cool the heat and shed light on what keeps us at odds in his new book from St. Martin's Press, Ten Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can't Because He Needs His Job). As head of the Niswonger Foundation, Buzz is also deeply involved in turning around schools in some of Tennessee's rural and most poverty stricken counties.

We will also talk about reconnecting Massachusetts' gateway cities with Brookings policy director Mark Muro and MASS, Inc. president John Schneider. Prior to joining Brookings, Mark was a senior policy analyst at the Morrison Institute for Public Policy at Arizona State University, staff writer for Boston Globe, and editorial writer for the Arizona Daily Star. Before joining MASS Inc. John directed a regional planning and economic development partnership in the state's high tech corridor which facilitated public-private collaborations on sustainable development issues.

Listen to host Carol Colletta - list of additional stations/times - 7pm Sunday on WNED - 970 in Buffalo, NY. Past Shows are archived and the newsletter is published regularly.

6/03/2007

Flaming Fire...

While exploring a few industrial sites in the Ferry/Utica and Grider area of the City, noticed this store front church.

Still interested in the work of Camilo José Vergara (1944 - ) and recently wrote about some of my observations of City views that are inspired by his work back in April - St. Anne's & Vergarra - where I compare old, established religous structures and some newer commercial ones.

Tale of Two Cities - Part VII

Frequent fixBuffalo readers may remember a series I started two years ago. Tale of Two Cities (Part VI, with links to previous parts) - documents the developments of two properties. One property - 198 Glenwood Avenue is on the City's near East side and 60 Brantford is just off Elmwood in the most prosperous part of the City. Both properties had devestating fires. 198 Glenwood burned five years ago. 60 Brantford burned on Friday May 13th, two years ago.

click image to enlarge

The property on the left is still wide open and remains a burned out shell. It's owned by the City. 60 Brantford, on the right was promptly attended to by Councilman Joe Golembek - I followed this property through Housing Court and watched first hand how Joe advocated for his district - and demolished after the new owner Paul Johnson bought it. Same successful condo complex where Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller now lives.

Meanwhile just a block away from this City owned house at 198 Glenwood, Performing Arts HS is scheduled to open in September.

Lawn Job?

I've been reporting on Rev. Stenhouse's colossal lack of stewardship regarding a string of properties around the new permanent home of Performing Arts HS. He's Executive Director of Bethel Community Development - owner of said houses - and is the pastor of Bethel AME Church pictured on the right in the photo below. I've called the series - Boarding Control - as Rev. Stenhouse is also the Secretary/Treasurer of Buffalo's Fiscal Stability Authority. Most people from Buffalo call this the Control Board.

I've been Rev. Stenhouse's lawn-boy for the past two years for this patch of the urban prarie that Bethel CDC owns. Have given up, yet just this past week a neighbor called me and told that City crews were out mowing the praire grass that was over 18" high.

Wonder if Rev. Stenhouse has the same arrangement with City crews for his own residence at 174 Jewett Parkway, just down the street from the Darwin Martin House. And yes, the houses along Michigan Avenue were still wide open this afternoon.

No active Inspection Department files for Rev. Stenhouse. Ever wonder why?

6/02/2007

Queen City Farm - film...

Here's the short film from John Paget about Queen City Farm featuring Aaron Bartley, Sheila Bass, Diane Picard, Samina Raja, Erin Sharkey, Tim Tielman, Cynthia Van Ness and more.

6/01/2007

Smart City...this weekend...

What makes cities successful? It's a question we ask every week here on Smart City. And this week we have two authorities from the University of Chicago to address that topic - one with a very local view and the other with a global outlook.

Sean Safford has studied the decline of Rust Belt cities and found that particular kinds of social networks were key to a city's ability to renew.Saskia Sassen has studied global cities and concluded that corporate headquarters are less important to a city than are globe-trotting consultants.

Listen to host Carol Colletta - list of additional stations/times - 7pm Sunday on WNED - 970 in Buffalo, NY. Past Shows are archived and the newsletter is published regularly.