Chippewa Cleans Up: Porn no More

Now if only they could get the actual prostitutes away from there... I was hit up by one just a couple weeks ago in broad daylight outside the Crocodile.

that is very good news indeed, that was a pimple on the strip.

I remember a customer coming into where I worked on Chippewa asking "Hey, where can I get a hooker around here? I haven't been to Buffalo in 17 years.. and this used to be the place to find em!" That was when I first found out about Chippewa's history. hah!

Eh, never seemed a bother to me on Chippewa. Was just another business on the strip.

Actually wouldn't this be the perfect place for it? I'd rather see them in an entertainment district then anywhere else.

technology or the internet caught up to them. the blockbusters of the world will be next. can download nearly anything you want these days or pay per view right on your television.

for some reason it never bothered me that this place was there....i'd rather see the actual street and sidewalks cleaned up, swept!!!

maybe the 'porn' store will be replaced with a 'pawn' store...
the fact that 'kinky' material is near 'Kinko's' is ironic...

A small business with no major street presence -- how is this a blight on the Chippewa scene? I don't know -- Yonge Street in TO is pretty happening, and it's positively littered with such shops. I'd be surprised to see significant linkage between the former store and any crime on Chippewa, as opposed to fairly regular connections between the Chip club scene and any number of crimes from shootings to rapes to petty larcenies.

Proclaiming joy at the death of a storefront seems against the spirit of Buffalo Rising, no?

Is a porn store really all that much worse than the hundreds of Drunkie McDrunks that swarm Chippewa every weekend?

Have mixed feelings about the porn shops. I always thought of them as harmless and none of my business but now I am not so sure. There is a store on Niagara between Forest and Amherst and it has brought prostitution to the area, a problem we never had here in Black Rock. I see them almost every morning on the way to work and they use our quiet side streets for their business. Actually saw a girl and her client right from my kitchen window on a bright sunny afternoon, kids playing in the street while she took care of business. I yelled out the window and the "john" took off in a panic.(He was driving a late model Lexus, not likely he was from around here)
Also late at night the parking lot is packed with SUVs and cars that don't belong to neighborhood residents. These guys are not just there to rent movies or buy magazines. Rarely seen any local boys coming out of the store, usually middle class business types probably hiding from their wives.
Not saying these stores are evil, or all the clients are bad, just that they do bring some negatives to the host community.

Don't worry there's a new bar on Chippewa opening called "4 play" (in the old Big Shots space I believe) and judging by the shotty sign and terrible purple paint it's going to draw the shadiest folks to Chippewa yet. Just wait and see.

right, the porn store was totally ruining that shiny reputation of overindulging in coke and booze. Good thing there's no more confusion of what chippewa is for, now.

The only thing about the old Chippewa Street that I miss are the buildings that were torn down. I seem to remember a building painted yellow and it had a turret on the corner of Allen and Franklin...

There are one or two or three buildings that I can think of that had an enormous amount of character and architectural details that are not with us anymore and I cannot help but think how much better the Chippewa District would be if those buildings were still with us...brought up to the current condition of the current buildings.

As far as the prostitutes and the sex...sorry...maybe its my religion or something else but I cannot help but look at them as I do the homeless and the street urchins ... there is a sadness...that these are someones sons and daughters...how could people have brought life into this world and let them fall so far.

It was Fishermans Wharf queencity, and it stood where Soho is now, and what a fine piece of architecture Soho is.

Not so sure this is "good news." Isn't diversity a good thing? I agree, you can be on the most vibrant street in any major city and see a porn store a block away from a children's store. I'd rather see a porn store than a vacant storefront. Maybe if the city spent some money cleaning the street up we'd see something other than another bar open.

I never bought the argument that the activities promulgated by the XXX vendors and the related sex trade were 'victimless' crimes. They're a nuisance and a threat to public health and safety and victimize those least able to fend and provide for themselves. A societal failure creating a social wasteland.

I've done some volunteer work with people caught up in this morass and the outcomes are not sexy, glamorous or appealing in the least way.

Sounds puritanical, doesn't it? Tolerance does have its limits unless you're a champion of Larry Flynt.

Back in the late 50's/early 60's, that area of Riverside around the intersections of Vulcan/Skillen north to Kenmore Ave. used to be undeveloped parcels of land where we neighborhood kids would hang out. Lots of cars came and went on those side streets all summer long. They always got my curiosity up.

One afternoon, there was what appeared to ba an abandoned car on one of the side streets just begging for an inestigation. I coaxed a buddy into going exploring. After all, the windows were down and it hadn't moved in hours. We didn't find any active human engagement in progress, but there was a slew of explicit Polaroids on the front seat.

My suspicions of unusual behavior confirmed, I paid the traffic in this area no further attention.

Nothing new under the sun.