Buffalo Rising Online

Excellent. Nice addittion to the recently renovated Hutch Tech.

Simcoe, why do you persist on raining on people's parades? The park is not in Allentown, it is in the West Village south of Allentown where the community there has worked very hard with police and the city to clean up the area. If you want to do something in Allentown, or if you want to report something, call the police station on Main and Tupper and ask to meet with the chief there. She's good to work with and can help on Allen.

Now for the congratulations to a hard working all volunteer group who seems to get things done that most nonprofits with full time staffing can't. This is a great effort and I'm pulling and praying for that grant for you guys.

Like I said before, sounds like a good story OUTSIDE of this one. These people have done a good job and deserve some handclaps here. To volunteer to mkae education opps for kids and make the space better is amazing. Don't go off the thread, write about it and I'm sure BR will put it on the sight. Let's be courteous to the efforts made on this project. Just a suggestion.

Sorry Simcoe, tears are good for the soul, tho. As far as the West Village, it was there before Allentown and was named before Allentown. Just some info for ya.

What about bringing the 'Fountain' back to this park (right where that huge rock is now. I've seen an old post card showing one that would be very nice to have again.

mmjazz - To answer your questions, if any police dept truly wants to make detailed street-by-street info public as you're saying the Buffalo PD does, they could easily regularly publish it online. The BPD doesn't.

I have talked to the police dept before and they are very willing to provide crime information street by street. Do most people believe that the crime information that comes out is accurate? Is there an effort to keep some of it from the public?

Google 'chicago crime' and you'll see in the top result one good example of what a growing number of cities are doing do to publicly release up-to-date geographically detailed info. I tried incluing that web site address here, but maybe that's why my comment wouldn't post.

There's good examples for others cities too. The BPD wouldn't need a fancy web site for that - just ongoing web-based release of crime report data in some format that others could then display or tabulate.

simcoe - I share your lack of trust, but there'd be a way to do it pretty much on the level. There's no doubt inside the BPD, they have all crime reports and all arrest computerized in this day and age. Probably they've had that for many decades now. If a summary of each crime report inluding day, time, location, type of crime, whtehr or not there was an arrest, etc. - was automatically (without anybody deciding yes/no per report) added to a database accessible from the web - then there could always be a little mischief once in a while, but it should be pretty accurate. For sure it'd be much more informative and objective than the 4 or 5 short reports for the whole city that the Buffalo News decides to make room for every day.

The last paragraph of the article especially caught my eye - it's very savvy to use the upcoming national preservation conference as a goal/deadline. Best regards and wishes to all.

Ra-cha-cha, good point, and the one above it that says -also working to establish an endowment to assure upkeep of the restored park. Any unspent funds from individual gifts and corporate donations will be placed in a Johnson Park Endowment administered by the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo.- That can really make or break a project since many wonder what will happen a few years down the line. Will the park really be kept up? The endowment will make that a surety. I also see from their website about the restoration fund that the fund itself is administered by the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo. That's working smart. It leaves the job to those that have the background and experience. This is a totally credible and sustainable project. I wish them the best for the funding. Amazing what a strong volunteer force can do.

Ra-cha-cha, good point, and the one above it that says -also working to establish an endowment to assure upkeep of the restored park. Any unspent funds from individual gifts and corporate donations will be placed in a Johnson Park Endowment administered by the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo.- That can really make or break a project since many wonder what will happen a few years down the line. Will the park really be kept up? The endowment will make that a surety. I also see from their website about the restoration fund that the fund itself is administered by the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo. That's working smart. It leaves the job to those that have the background and experience. This is a totally credible and sustainable project. I wish them the best for the funding. Amazing what a strong volunteer force can do.

Ya know, if you want to talk about Allentown, write an article for this sight. This is an article about my neighborhood and the badgering about Allen Street has nothing to do with it. Go ahead, Mariner and Simcoe, use your writing skills and get your point across in a focused article about Allentown.

The above-mentioned rock I truly like. Hope it can stay. Every park should have wonderful rocks: they're wonderful old citizens, older than the trees, the houses, the human nearby dwellers and any park visitors. In fact, I wish the park could have many more... Today driving through the park saw someone working and planting in the circle garden. Gorgeous.