East Side Redevelopment Group?

Buffalo needs an economy first.

Unless jobs - and lots of them - keep the younger population here in WNY, any pipe-dream to re-gentrify the East side (great photo, btw) will not happen anytime soon.

The knife and gun club is in full bloom and spreading. We are witnessing decades of free gov't programs, an atrophied private sector, and a culture where the only profitable business model is based upon the sale of illegal drugs (not counting the barber shop district that our elected officials mistake for industry). That is an awful high hill to climb.

Buffalo's housing stock on the East side is a disaster as cited in recent BRO articles...and with almost half the population of what we had 50 years ago, there are much better parts of the city to re-gentrify. I just don't see where the numbers (of people, jobs, demand) will come from.

If a few blocks could be analyzed as being salvageable and then the surrounding area leveled to eradicate blight, spawn urban farming cooperatives, reduce city costs for fire and police protection, you'd have a better chance to return Buffalo to what it was when the city was smaller, before the post WWII boom. That would be cool...a city within a city model...

But it starts with an economy.

With respect to Buffalo as a whole, the East side has still not hit bottom. UB, for example, has gone backwards with respect to the University Heights neighborhood...lots of talk, but no commitment and look at the mess we deal with there...it is the uptown for the East side and failing rapidly.

It's going to take a lot to convince those who live elsewhere to invest anything in the East Side given its current condition. I, and those who work with me, struggle DAILY with the blight, distress, and discouragement of trying to rehabilitate the West Side, which is in significantly better shape than the East Side.

Nobody is going to feel safe walking through that area until homes are occupied. The homes won't be occupied until the culture of violence and freeloading are broken. The culture of violence and freeloading won't be broken until opportunities exist that are more attractive. These opportunities won't exist without significant financial investment resulting in the employment of the residents. This investment will not be offered in a city with declining population and little economic growth.

I see this every day, and I try to make a difference. But we have to be realistic concerning blanket rehabilitation of an area that is almost beyond repair. If you think the East Side has not hit bottom, then you don't work or live anywhere near it.

I think for starters we should stop talking about the East Side like it is one giant neighborhood that is all in the same condition and with the same problems. It is made of many different neighborhoods in different states and trends. Several are areas of Detroit-like urban prairie, others are solid if a bit ragged, and a few are actually rather boring working- to middle-class.

There is a world of difference between Hamlin Park and Genesee/Moselle and talking about them as if they were the same place just discourages anyone from living and investing there.

I totally agree with JSmith above. The east side is far from homogeneous blight. When the east side is lumped together it perpetuates the negative feelings and prevents potential investors.

http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/08/the-east-side-you-dont-see-on-the-news-dewey-avenue.html

http://archives.buffalorising.com/story/stockbridge_avenue

It does'nt take a genius to figure out this area needs JOBS (HIGH PAYING one's) and LOTS of them to bring more investment and PEOPLE back to this area as a whole. You can have all the gun buy back's, hire more police, keep building community centers till every block has one and we will still have the same issues we have right now. It's a known fact, the areas with money and jobs have less crime and less blight. Maby if our so called leaders were'nt so hard on Large Retail Chains and instead focused on CORPORATE businesses (Fortune 500) we might have a better chance of survival here.

I have always believed that the East Side designation too vast. I prefer other more specific geographical descriptions. I also thought it odd that the First Ward which is a bit to the south to be included in the ES.

Apparently there is no plan. I would also add that there is no will to make one. Will could also be called money as it is often the manifestation thereof. Who has $$$$?

I have to say that I find one of the most depressing elements of the East Side to be the new, subsidized and over priced suburban homes springing it. It smacks of corruption (ie Reverend developers tied in to City Hall), it is not urban development, and it is as the expense of quality housing stock there.

I have never understood why there is no strategy to start with demolition on the outer periphery, and work our way in back the the core. Meaning create density, provide services to those people and grow from there. The vast nature of the East Side, coupled with the lack of strategy and jobs, is what continues to kill the East Side. It would be great to see a PUSH East over there.

I appreciate the post about this.

@ Travelrr PUSH East would do only so much. I agree with most of the goals of PUSH Buffalo, but we don't need any more affordable housing in the East Side. We need more neighborhoods with households of different economic backgrounds. The East Side is missing people with money. That was the benefit of Humboldt Parkway. The higher property values meant higher wealth. The East Side is missing more places like that.

And I totally agree that labeling it a generalizing term of "East Side" is a bad thing. But, if you look at the unimproved properties map, I guess I would include almost all of the East Side neighborhoods. Hamlin Park seems most successful, but it has its problems too. And Hamlin Park is part of the economic diversity people need there. It needs to be a part of a grand scheme of things of revitalization.

And as to the comments thus far, I'm guessing there is no non-profit group like the one I described existing? I know of the East Side Redevelopment Task Force, but I think their borders are too small (http://eastsideredevelopment.org/index.html).

The sponsor for the least side redevelopment should be Komatsu.

Saving the blacks from themselves is not the new white man's burden. We dump too much money on them and have nothing to show for it. Let's put them all to work cleaning up the east side for the welfare checks and then we wont have to deal with the filth.

Nothing like an East Side themed post to get the WBEN crowd out.

It's almost as if BR is fanning the flames for hitcounts. Oh, Sh&*. I wasn't suppose to say that, they would never do something as pitiful as that.

The fact that seems to be missing here is that a majority of the people on the East Side, black or white, are decent citizens trying to do the best they can. They also happen to be the poorest in WNY and among the poorest in our nation.

To just throw them all in with the thugs and losers is not only dishonest but simplistic and reveals arrogance as well as ignorance.

http://broadwayfillmorealive.org/2.0/2010/09/join-team-alive/

All I have to says is join Team Alive...it is a new initiative by BFA to form a new working group of people designed to address some of what is outline here on Buffalo Rising.

Thanks for posting a link to such an interesting site.

I'd encourage the people making broad, negative generalizations about this part of town to follow that link. There is more to this city than the image talk radio and the 6 o'clock news perpetuate.

I use to work at my uncles pizza place in 1986 at Genesee and Moselle area you could actually walk the street in the daytime. I use to work after school and walk down genesee st. But at night I use to get picked up by car. My uncle only employed black pizza delivery drivers. I remember at the time too there were alot more police presence and police walking up and down Genesee East side. Seeing the police presence made me feel alot safer. I did see them busting people from the burbs buying drugs nickel bags playing craps etc.. Most of his business was on the days people got their welfare checks. They use to call it mothers day cause the mothers got paid. I grew up on Lasalle off bailey in the 70's but moved by 81.I guess you call it white flight. By 1986 that area had changed lots of the familys moved out and those places were being rented to UB students. I had a GF that lived on Lasalle in 86 when i graduated high school and noticed the change. Now a 15 year old girl gets killed and last year a UB student from the Bronx got killed. Its really a shame!

Darwinian survival meets Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Beautification and vanity must take a back seat. Hustle the Government Hustle the addict. Survive. These houses are not homes. They are shelter from the sh!t storm we create in pop culture.
Save the neighborhoods beautify the homes is not a priority when you struggle to eat. So keep your mouth shut. Stand on your pulpit and preach change. Change is a word not a plan of action. These problems have deep roots. The question itself is a foolish and naive one.
Are there redevelopment groups? Why not create one?
I have a question. Do you know what you are up against? Think lil wayne being the idol of teens in lower and middle class america. Think kids on bikes with guns who will only warn you once that this street is for business only. Think drug addicted parents, battered women, no chance or choice of employment. Then you can ask asinine questions and make statements like why not create a magical organization that changes all this.
POP KILLS

I really appreciate sho'nuff's comments here.

I'll wade into the politically incorrect waters on race here, as I'm prone to occasionally do. I'll recommend the same book I always recommend: Black Liberals and White Rednecks, by Thomas Sowell (african american right wing professor).

Sowell's take: most African Americans hail from the American south (20th century saw massive migration north) and they simply adopted their slavemasters' culture, warts and all. The American south's white population was populated primarily by rednecks from the region between Wales and England. It was kind of a backwards no mans land where neither Wales nor England had much control. (Some words common in African American language, such as 'aks', for 'ask', 'doh' for 'door' and others were documented centuries ago in that region, too). It (this area that was neither Wales nor England) was a culture noted by contemporaries for its bombastic, militaristic, anti-authority, backwards bent (a century after everybody else stopped throwing chamber pot contents into the street, these people still did, for example). The enslaved blacks under the rule of the redneck whites who haled from there simply adopted the redneck white culture of the antibellum south.

This culture is in stark contrast to other enslaved African populations, including the Carribean. In the 1930s, for example, in New York City racial statistics were meticulously kept. African Americans were seven times more likely than the general population to be arrested. No big surprise (presumably racist police force, etc.). But: big surprise: African Americans of Caribbean descent in NYC were LESS likely than the general population to be arrested (despite the presumed prejudice of the police force which couldn't distinguish lineage by sight). As late as the 1970s, every major black leader in NYC came from Caribbean descent, not southern American descent. Even today, Barack Obama's lineage does not come from the south, nor does Byron Brown's.

Long argument short: African American culture, including thug culture, is a remnant not of poverty nor of Africa, but an adopted culture of the redneck white slave owners who were lazy, beligerent, anti-education blow hards. It's a compelling read. The author is a right wing nut economically, but a fascinating read, very well documented, culturally.

Late to this comment stream - sorry.

The building pictured at the top of this post is 1325 Michigan Avenue. It's been in terrible shape for years, the first and second floors have collapsed into the basement. Currently there are three pending housing court cases against the owner, an East Side resident. The next hearing on this property is this Thursday at 2pm in Judge Nowak's chambers.

1325 Michigan is also listed on the City's in-rem list this year.

If anyone is serious about becoming the owner of the last remaining brick mixed-use building on Michigan Avenue - I'd be happy to share some interior pics. Great live/work space for the right person.