Earlier this morning I happened upon an Associated Press article mapping out a former steel town's recipe for rebirth. The small town is Vandergrift and the idea is to capitalize on two basic principles - embrace and repair the Olmsted fabric that has been forsaken while researching green technology in the process. They have a new mantra, which if you read between the lines might as well be, "Do or Die."

This is not an overnight revitalization per se, but by enlisting the help of University of Pittsburgh students to research ways of harnessing the rapidly flowing waters of their Kiski River you might say that the fight is on in a big way. They are looking into ways to reclaim lost parks and crumbling building stock. Even their JC Penney building (sounds like our AM&As) is in the process of being rehabbed in an environmentally friendly way. Activists fought to save their Casino Theater (sounds like Shea's, Allendale or even the Broadway Theatre), which has recently been restored. Why? Because like Buffalo there is a history that they don't want to forget. And there is a new generation of Vandergrifts (wherever they may be), who are paying attention (maybe for the first time) to what is going on back home. Plus, the young people who still live in Vandergrift are being given an opportunity to dig in and help. I bet some of those people already had one foot out the door but decided to take a chance when they heard that there was a real initiative afoot.

There's something about being able to help your hometown that is immeasurable. In Buffalo we are fortunate to attract urban activists from other cities too... people who are in search of a place where, like the early homesteaders, they can make a stake and raise a flag. These people are embraced by the community to such a degree that it doesn't take long for them to call Buffalo home. I get excited when I hear about the initiatives being plotted in places like Vandergrift. I look at their river initiatives and can point to similar efforts going on here in Buffalo (with out of state corporations rather than university). I hear about their plans to restore their parks and I can only hope that our own parks are allowed to continue on the right path without getting bogged down by politics. 

While driving around town with my mother-in-law on Wednesday we passed the AM&As building. She told me about the days when she would shop there - how vibrant it was. For me, I don't really remember those days. I just recall a big vacant building, so to see the windows being replaced is invigorating. To know that people will soon be living there is inspiring and gives me even more hope that the next renovation is close at hand. To see these developments in real time lends credence to people who for years have imagined Buffalo as it reinvents itself. Yeah, I like to hear the old stories of Buffalo in its heyday, but I'll never know what it was truly like. I will soon know what it's like to visit an loft at the AM&As building, just as Vandergrifters must be feeling about their own department store. To me that AM&S ticket is just another one to add to my collective memory of 'Buffalos' - the one that I have known and the one that I am getting to know.

Photo is from the linked University of Pittsburgh article with the following caption: "Past and present views of Vandergrift come together at a main thoroughfare, Grant Avenue. The vintage illustration is held by Shaun Yurcaba of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, which is working with Pitt and other partners in the renewal effort. (Tom Altany photo)