Buffalo Rising Online

These tours are bittersweet.

The downtown housing boom has occurred in the context of the city budgeting $14 million for demolitions this fiscal year alone, Part One of a 1000 demolitions-per-year decade-long plan.

Is there companion tour planned for existing city neighborhoods with once grand houses & ever growing vacancies?

The Census counted 22,854 Bflo housing vacancies in 2000. Just-released census estimates for 2000-2006 project a population loss of 5.7%, which projects to about 4000 additional vacancies. The actual numbers of housing vacancies is elusive, but if demolitions & newbuild housing cancel each other out, the city could now have in incredible 26,850 vacancies.

Obviously, building ever more housing in places folks never lived in Bflo's heyday relentlessly sucks more folks from existing neighborhoods. Most of the newbuild housing is heavily taxpayer-subsidized as the simultaneous taxpayer cost of demolitions is immense.

Are any of Bflo's many neighborhood housing agencies marketing neighborhood-based rehab projects to the visitors?

Dick Kern

http://www.buffoldhome.com/NeighborhoodTours07.html

Neighborhood Tours sponsored by the Buffalo Niagara Association of REALTORS ® Saturday, July 7th | 11:00-4:00 | Free Contact: Paul Burger

This year's Neighborhood Tours are expanded over last year's popular Downtown Housing Tour, where thousands of people toured 12 downtown lofts, apartments, and houses. Six of Buffalo's neighborhoods will be featured so attendees can learn all about them, from the best places to shop and eat, to history, architectural design and cultural attractions. The neighborhood tours will feature real estate both for rent or purchase with open houses and tours of units. Locations of the open houses will be announced during Buffalo Old Home Week.

Also available will be walking tours of each neighborhood. Further details on the walking tours will be announced as they become available.

The neighborhoods featured in this year's tour are:

Allentown/Kleinhans

Headquarters for Allentown/Kleinhans is Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, North Hall 220 North Street, Corner of Elmwood Ave Open houses in Allentown and Kleinhans are at 1:30 - 4:00 pm. Read more about Allentown

Take a walk down Allen Street from Main Street to Symphony Circle, or any of the side streets and you will see why this is a "neighborhood of ethnic and lifestyle diversity". At Symphony circle, you will find of Buffalo's many treasures, Kleinhan's Music Hall. Adjacent to Kleinhan's is Allentown, which is listed on the National Resister of Historic Places of the U.S. Department of Interior. This area is well known for its many art and antique galleries and restaurants, and is the center for the visual, performing, and culinary arts.

Elmwood

Headquarters for Elmwood is at the Farmers Market on Bidwell Pkwy and Elmwood Ave Open houses in Elmwood are at 1:00 - 3:30 pm. The core of the neighborhood is Elmwood Avenue from Forest Avenue south to North Street. This neighborhood includes a variety of cafes, restaurants, specialty shops, and galleries catering to neighborhood residents, students of near-by Buffalo State College, and visitors alike. The streets running off Elmwood Avenue are lined with classic examples of residential Victorian architecture for both single and multiple family houses. Mixed in with the many attractions are near-by escapes such as Hoyt Lake, Bidwell Park, and Forest Lawn Cemetery.

Hamlin Park

Headquarters for Hamlin Park is Em Tea Coffee Cup Cafe at 80 Oakgrove Ave Open houses in Hamlin Park are at 11:30 am - 2:00 pm. Read more about Hamlin Park

Bounded by Jefferson Avenue in the west, Main in the north, Humboldt Parkway in the east, and Ferry in the south, Hamlin Park is a beautiful neighborhood that shares its uniqueness with Canisius College. Its tree-line streets, lined with the a large number of architecturally interesting and significant homes helped this neighborhood to the recognition it so well deserves: the designation in 1999 of Hamlin Park as an "Historic District," the largest African-American community in the nation to be so cited.

Parkside

Headquarters for Parkside is at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepard at 96 Jewett Parkway. Open houses in Parkside are at 12:00-2:30pm. Parkside will offer 2 guided tours (11:30am and 1:30pm), meet at the headquarters at the Episcopal Church. Read more about Parkside

This neighborhood centers on Jewett Avenue from Parkside to Main Street. Frederick Law Olmsted planned Parkside as a residential neighborhood in 1883. Parkside offers architectural treasures such as the Darwin D. Martin House designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The neighborhood's beautiful houses and its proximity to Delaware Park and the Buffalo Zoo only add to the desirability of this wonderful neighborhood.

University Heights

The headquarters for University Heights is at Allen Hall on the University at Buffalo South Campus on Main Street. Open houses in University Heights are at 12:30 - 3:00 pm. University Heights is offering guided tours at 12:30pm and 2:30pm. Meet at Allen Hall on the UB South Campus.

University Heights centers on Main Street from Niagara Falls Blvd. South to LaSalle Avenue. This area boasts the unique marriage of the University at Buffalo South Campus, a lively commercial district running along Main Street, residential and recreational areas. The housing stock in University Heights consists of a diverse range of types. Two-story, single-family houses are scattered throughout, particularly in the area bounded by Main Street, Kenmore Avenue and Englewood Avenue.

Kern- Pick your fight- a few hundred units downtown, or 1000's of units in Wheatfield, Lancaster and Clarence???

exactly, the development of green fields does more to hurt the city and county than downtown housing. In fact bringing people into downtown where they can walk to more places, commute less, spend money in the city does MUCH more economically, socially and environmentally than having them instead move to the exurbs.

Kern- If I have 250,000 dollars to spend on a hosue, I'd rather get a new build loft/condo, than a $20,000 home with 200,000 worth of repairs in a neighborhood that is being slowly abandoned

it's not a question of "why build more houses when we have all these vacancies", because that assumes that one house is as good as another, which is obviously far from the truth. Your argument also assumes that if these new condos/lofts weren't being built that people would be moving somewhere in buffalo at all.

Asking individuals to give up on what they want (new build lofts/condos downtown), for the benefit of the city as a whole, or a few neighborhoods, is the antithesis of capitalism. What's good for the individual IS good for the city.

guys all i can say to you is get on board with the framework for regional growth that the erie county legislator just adopted in april. Get your local municipalities to adopt it.

http://www.regionalframework.com/

Agreeing with MR.Kern (not "Kern", as some illiterate monkeys would call him) - While areas such as 14213 continue to RAPIDLY deteriorate (ie: less than 26% owner-occupied, and falling) , this talk of abandoned retail and warehouse space going "condo" is just pathetic. It's a matter of out-of-town cash vacuums grabbing what they can, while they can. Look to see Grant Street, Niagara Street, the West Side, Riverside, and every other non-Downtown bit of Buffalo continue into the sewer.

People are being held-up at gunpoint, stabbed, and robbed on Elmwood all the time - are you understanding that? This city has reached the bottom of the barrel, where the scum meet the decent every day. We need to deal with that. Making a new Whitey-Only ghetto out of Downtown (which is what these projects are all about) will not work for long; the desperate criminals WILL find you down there, whether or not all of your paying neighbors are "Yuppies".

Nice job to the organizers of this event - I've been on a downtown housing tour before with former Mayor Masiello and enjoyed it. Let's hope that some of these buildings convert to condos and offer some different housing ownership. Hamlin Park is a great neighborhood that should be checked out today.

Just as a sidenote - the Town of Amherst has lower crime statistics because they refuse to report any crimes. Just call Detective John Trabert at the Amherst Police Department and ask him about the complaint made at Haley Place Condo (Sheridan Drive and Mill Street) in February 2004.

Just as a sidenote - the Town of Amherst has lower crime statistics because they refuse to report any crimes.

Uhhhh, yeah right. Amherst must do an amazing job of keeping so many of their murders, stabbings, and shootings quiet compared to Buffalo if we're to believe they have a comparable amount out there.

IS Lofts were great, they even gave you free beer. I was amazed at the low price of the place at $650 for a one bedroom. You have to be income eligible and it was a 3 story walkup, but I liked it anyway. Ellicott Commons are big and thus pricier, but well done also.

I never stated that Amherst has a comparable amount of murders, stabbings and shootings to Buffalo, just that Amherst tries to keep the overall crime statistics low or nonexistent by not reporting some crimes.