Two Sides of Main Street

fixBuffalo readers will remember MJ's amazing aerial photographs of Buffalo, NY that I've posted as Air Buffalo and Air Buffalo Part II. Just found this one...two very different sides of Main Street.

click to enlarge

In the foreground is the City's near east side. That's Artspace off to the left and St. Vincent's orphan home, in the center.

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Byron Responds

Finally got my hands on Byron Brown's response to Jake Halpern's recent Wall Street Journal article about development and economic issues here in Buffalo, NY. The following letter appeared in the Decemeber 11th issue of the Wall Street Journal.

click to enlarge

The full text of Jake's December 1st article is available here - Delivering Redemption.

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Bethel Update

Drove by Bethel Headstart's new building at the corner of Woodlawn and Jefferson yesterday morning and noticed the Savarino sign hanging on the fence.

Clicking into this Savarino link, noticed that Foit-Albert Associates are the architects, too. No renderings on either site.

If anyone knows more about this, let me know.

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Delivering Redemption

A few fixBuffalo readers passed along Jake Halpern's recent Wall Street Journal article about Byron and Buffalo, NY. If you haven't read Jake's take on Buffalo, you should.

I grew up in Buffalo, New York, which may best be known as a place that people like to leave. Indeed, since 1970, the city has lost almost forty percent of its population. In some parts of Buffalo, this never-ending exodus has created a landscape worthy of the great post-apocalyptic thrillers of our times – films like Escape from New York or 28 Days Later. As kids, my brother and I would explore these modern-day ruins, venturing into crumbling train terminals and abandoned factories where moss carpeted floors, rainwater gushed down empty hallways, and peeling wallpaper rustled in the wind like the frayed bark of birch trees. Of course, Buffalo has plenty of inhabited and very well-maintained neighborhoods. I have lived in a number of cities around the world and I’ve never seen a street more lovely than Delaware Avenue, in Buffalo, with its grand old mansions, stately carriage houses, and immaculate gardens.

No matter how one spins it, however, the fact remains that Buffalo is in trouble. Abandoned houses are such a problem...read the rest.

Very cool comment stream about Jake's article about Buffalo in a recent BuffaloRising post and don't forget to check out his take on various contemporary cultural issues from his site, Jake Halpern.

I noticed that our Mayor responded with a letter to the editor, last week. As soon as I can locate it on-line will make it available.

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New Bethel Building...Update

Checked out progress at Bethel's new building here at the corner of Jefferson and Woodlawn.

Place looked like this just a few weeks ago. Rev. Stenhouse is doing this project. Will continue to watch what's happening here.

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Vinyl Foreclosure Sale

A few more 'vinyl victorian' foreclousures crossed my desk this week. Went and took a look at two of them on Saturday afternoon.

The first one here at 404 Madison is just a block away from the new suburban dreamscape at Sycamore Village. Originally sold in 1994 for $86000. It's currently assesed by the City for 65K and today the asking price is $27,000. Expect it to finally sell in the mid to high teens.

This 'vinyl victorian' foreclosure is located at 757 Woodlawn Avenue. Place originally sold for $84,500 in 1998 and is currently assesed by the City for 54K and the asking price today is $45,000. Similar homes in this part of Buffalo have been re-selling in the low to mid-thirtes.

If you haven't visited Sycamore Village yet, here's the archive. I've been keeping track of a number of additional 'vinyl victorian' foreclosures in the same area - here and here. I mean why buy a brand new 'vinyl victorian' in Sycamore Village, when you can buy one for about 10% a block or two away?

Anyone see a pattern developing?

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Another Save!

I checked on the Lyth Cottage over on Harwood Place yesterday afternoon.

16 Harwood Place was recently sold to a local guy during the City's special September 22 auction. The sale price, $3800 - yes, thirtyeight hundred! Fortunately he's already taken some steps to seal the place for the winter.

The City previously owned it for the past 10 years. Here's some of the fascinating historical details and story of - 16 Harwood Place.

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Byron's Discount Card

Saw this on Jefferson Avenue today.

Called this afternoon to see what the program is about. Anyone know who's paying for the billboard? Has anyone spotted these signs in other places? Let me know.

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'Industry' for the Holidays!

Sean Galbraith, Toronto based photographer and urban planner, clued me into his first book, just in time for this holiday season. fixBuffalo readers may remember Sean's work over at the German Roman Catholic Orphan Home down on Dodge Street here in Buffalo - right here.

You can buy Sean's first book - Industry - and have it delivered by December's end.

Urban decay and demolition by neglect is present in all urban settings. All buildings have a story, a history, a life, and a death. Industrial factories rust. Office buildings slowly crumble. Residential buildings are reclaimed by the elements. It is a rarity that these building evolutions are witnessed by those outside their walls. Sean seeks to go where many have gone in the past, but few go today. To explore, embrace, and bring sight to these spaces and environments from which others avert their gaze.

To document that which once was kinetic, but now lies dormant and decaying; Even with man-made objects, death is a part of life and has its own beauty.

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Push this Plan...

Had the opportunity recently to invite, listen and record Aaron Bartley talk about what's (not) happening in Buffalo, NY. In this 45 minute presentation and q&a, recently held at the Landmark Society, Aaron discussed the amazing intersection of poverty and the built envrionment in Buffalo and presents PUSH Buffalo's 'Integrated Approach to Neighborhood Revitalization'.

Click and listen.

Have been a huge fan of PUSH Buffalo for the longest time. Same group that helped draw attention to the plight of Coe Place in November 2006, here. fixBuffalo readers may also remember that Aaron appeared in the Queen City Farm film, too.

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14 Years Later...

Read this past week in the Buffalo News that William Trezevant has completed nearly 75% of the work on the exterior of recently renamed Transfiguration Church. So went out yesterday to take a closer look at the new Sounds of Joy building.

Roofing and window repairs on the former Transfiguration Catholic Church are about 75 percent complete, and efforts are under way to obtain government funding for interior renovations, the principals of the effort said Wednesday.

Court proceedings involving the 19th century structure were delayed again Wednesday.

Paula Nowak, a retired special investigator for the federal Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C., and her son, Buffalo attorney William F. Trezevant, said the repair work is expected to be completed by the end of this month. read the rest...

I've archived various posts and information about this place - Transfiguration Archive - and will be keeping an even closer eye on the work and latest court date.

14 years is a long time...

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City's Newest Superfund Site

Last March I stumbled upon the burned out and rotted hulk of a two story warehouse building sitting near the railroad viaduct at 202 Walden Avenue [google map]. Wrote about it here - What if? - and followed up in May with - Wide Open...Why? Found the place to be secured today, more than a year after a devastating fire ripped through this place, the former home of Bandag Tire.

Couldn't help noticing the construction trailer and fencing oppostite the former Bandag site recently and quickly noticed the EPA Superfund signage, too.

Here's the facility detail report from the EPA site. Rather amazing as this place is located next to two city schools and has been 'wide open' for the better part of a year.

click image to enlarge

Will call on Monday to get the update, 'till then anyone know more about this? Any estimates on the cost of the building's demolition or who's going to pay? Let me know.

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40 Miles Away...still!

Remember Perrysburg?

Was tipped off to the following article that appeared in the Buffalo News last week by a new fixBuffalo reader.

Buffalo’s plan to sell property it owns in Perrysburg to a logging company has been voided by a state appellate court.

The 649-acre site, once home to Buffalo’s tuberculosis hospital, has been the focus of a three-year dispute. Preservationists have battled plans by Buffalo and the state to allow Trathen Land Co. to acquire the former J.N. Adam Developmental Center.

Trathen has promised to manage the woodlands “responsibly” through sustainable logging. read the rest...

And today I received the following letter from Peggy Watkins, Perrysburg resident:

The “friends of JN Adam” have claimed a court victory in stopping of the sale of the JN Adam property in Perrysburg. Who is this victory for? The residents of Perrysburg? The residents of the City of Buffalo? The taxpayers of the State of New York?

The on line petition of the “friends” has 113 valid signatures. 8 of these signatures are from residents of Perrysburg and the surrounding communities. Several are from out of state, most are from Buffalo or Depew or Amherst. read the rest...

I first visited Perrysburg in January 2005 and quickly became interested in various issues surrounding what I've previously described as municipal malfeasance. Bottom line still - we can't even take care of our own backyard, I mean since this debacle down in Perrysburg began, Buffalo got a Control Board and vast areas of the City's east side have continued to burn out of control. Why are we so arrogantly inserting ourselves in the life of a community 40 miles to the south? We can't get things right a mile from Elmwood...so why are we trying so hard down in Perrysburg, NY - 40 Miles away?

Road tripping soon, for updated pics. Meanwhile here's January 2005 flickr slide show.

And here's the Perrysburg Archive. This is not going away anytime soon...stay tuned.

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Smart City.

Completey forgot about this segment of Smart City Radio...

Smart City is a weekly, hour-long public radio talk show that takes an in-depth look at urban life, the people, places, Create Documentideas 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 Last weekend...listen here!

Even America's most depressed downtowns are showing vigorous signs of life. It's a surprising development no one predicted in the bleak years of the 1970's and 80's when many so-called experts dismissed the idea of downtown revitalization as wishful thinking in the age of surburbanization.

• Dave Feehan, who heads the International Downtown Association, is here to tell us how downtowns have defied predictions and come back strong. David has devoted more than 35 years to rebuilding and revitalizing cities, directing downtown programs in Des Moines, Detroit, and Kalamazoo, and neighborhood development programs in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis.

• Also with us is Dennis Maher, a sculptor working in Buffalo who brings new life to abandoned buildings by using the waste of other restoration projects. Dennis defines his work as "afterlives, the attempt to renew and to give another life to the wasted remains of a city." Dennis is an adjunct professor at the University at Buffalo.

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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Sycamore & Herman - One Last Time

I was recently introduced to Verlyn Klinkenborg's The Last Fine Time (1990). It's an amazing read if you're interested in post-war Buffalo social history and the decline of once thriving neighborhoods and cities. Klinkenborg focuses on the lives of the people who made 'George & Eddies' an everyday destination at 722 Sycamore Street, corner of Herman. Today the corner is vacant.

Seven twenty-two Sycamore Street looks like a patch where the very idea of property has been voided. Its vacancy is the sign of something larger than deeds. It resembles a Midwestern field where the stand of crops shows odd variations: the sign of a buried well or a bulldozed farmhouse or soil where there once grew a border of crabapple trees. This lot was Indian territory. It was part of the Great Northwest, a wheat growing region, the breadbasket of a very young nation. It was part of the rise of Buffalo. It was all the things it has been since those long ago days. Now 722 Sycamore Street lies fallow. - The Last Fine Time, p. 202

From a 1940 Sanborn Map of the neighborhood.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fixbuffalo/1799825517/


Here's the Amazon link - The Last Fine Time. Verlyn Klinkenborg is also a New York Times editorial board member. Here's some recent writing and bio.

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