Buffalo Rising Online

Oct 22nd 2007, 9:54am By Elena Cala Buscarino

Marilyn Rodgers was awarded a Certificate of Excellence recently by the Community Action Organization (CAO) of Erie County for her work with the West Village Renaissance Group. This is the second year in a row Rodgers has won this award for the neighborhood group she founded.

Rodgers, who eschews the label activist, remembers the unpleasant set of events that led up to her birth as a community advocate. It was August 9, 2002, and Rodgers was enjoying a pleasant day with her neighbors on Johnson Park. There was a performance at the quaint New Phoenix Theater at the end curve of the park, and people were arriving for the show.

That's when the tenants of a nearby rooming house, sitting in lawn chairs, swilling beer and openly smoking joints, started heckling the theater patrons. About that time, one of the offenders rose, spraying insecticide and expletives and swinging a Samurai sword around in wide arcs. Rodgers decided things had gone too far and vowed to do something about it.

"It wasn't just that," Rodgers said. "It was the fact that little kids couldn't play in the park with Slick Rick out there, shooting up heroin between his toes." That's why, the very next time she saw him there she physically threw him out. Then she made an appointment to meet with her councilman, Brian Davis.

Rodgers brought along a bag full of drug paraphernalia she'd collected from the park: whippets (small canisters of nitrous oxide), needles, crack sacks, and pictures of the characters who'd left this trail of implements.

She brought a positive message too. Rodgers didn't want to put the councilman off with whining, so she brought a lovingly compiled history with her, that of the park and the residents in it. Having done her homework, she presented solutions to Davis, describing what could be done to make Johnson Park a jewel in the city's crown. “I had a plan,” she said, “and I came asking for guidance. The next summer, in 2003, we had Arts in the Park: A Non-Electronic Event for Kids and Their Parents." It was attended by 350 people, and marked a milestone in the revival of Johnson Park.

In October 2003, Buffalo Spree Magazine cited the West Village Historic District as one of Western New York's great neighborhoods. In May of 2004, the Johnson Park group won the Civic Empowerment Award.

In July 2004, Marilyn and the rest of the residents of Johnson Park were getting ready for the Garden Walk (GW), forming GW Boot Camp, which later became known laughingly as GW Hell. And then, shortly before Garden Walk, National Fuel discovered a gas leak in a nearby building that necessitated digging up a good portion of a resident’s lawn.

As Rodgers and another couple were trying to clean up the mess, a man came by with a lawnmower to cut the lawn at the rooming house. He was loud and shouting obscenities, and became abusive when Rodgers tried to quell his behavior. He punched Rodgers in the ear with such force that she still has a hard, raised lump there. Then he kicked her in the stomach and removed his belt, intending to whip her. As he began to swing the belt, the woman who had been working with Rodgers snagged it with her garden rake and yanked it away. That's when the man ran. In the aftermath, the landlord of the rooming house identified the assailant by name to Rodgers and the police as a man living in her building.

"A few weeks later, I saw a guy drinking in the park at eight in the morning. When I went over to him, I recognized him as the guy who'd attacked me. He took off, " Rodgers said. "The next week, a badly decomposed body was found in the rooming house. It was estimated that it had been there for eight weeks. His name was that of the man ID'd by the landlord [in the assault]." Rodgers explained that the government subsidies that allowed the man to stay there could still be collected as long as no one knew he was dead, so there was no rush for the landlord to report it.

That's when Rodgers began the campaign to get the rooming house into the hands of someone who was like-minded with the park's devoted residents. "We flyered, emailed, called in the Department of Inspections, took the rooming house to court, and finally persuaded the owner to sell.”

Now that Johnson Park is cleaned up, Rodgers, a grant writer, can turn her attentions to a restoration fund for the park. The West Village Renaissance Group (WVRG) hopes to build a meditation labyrinth, along with the reinstallation of a fountain surrounded by a conservatory in the park, to make the culture and history of the neighborhood a source of building pride in the younger people in the community. The conservatory they are planning will be a center for storytelling, a home for seedlings, and a healthful haven for residents. Rodgers, plagued by rapid onset rheumatoid arthritis, will benefit by being able to sit in the sun on winter days.

Rodgers hopes to involve Hutch Tech High School students by utilizing their solar and wind power knowledge, as well as having them design a rain cistern system to benefit the parks greenery. Aside from grants, Rodgers will try to procure funds through an individual gift, a capital campaign, and corporate endowments. She will also establish a trust for maintaining the structure for perpetuity, an endeavor that has her researching grants and consulting with developers and designers.

Grant writing is what Rodgers does best. Her health may require that she tele-commutes as a consultant, but her knowledge is a goldmine for those who choose to employ her. "I just finished a contract with one of my biggest clients, so I happen to have a spot available for work right now," Rodgers said. "I'm a great employee to have because I don't need an office, and I put my heart and soul in everything I do."

As for her non-commissioned community work, Rodgers says it's important for her to be productive and dedicated. "My connection to this area...the northwest corner of Virginia and Tupper...is spiritual. My mother was born there, first-generation from Palermo, and I'm hooked. My grandparents helped to develop this city."

So is she restricted to that area? "Look at the twin Liberties standing across from each other on top of the Liberty Bank building. Each one keeps watch on the other side of Main Street. However, they are as grounded together as the building is on Main," Rodgers said. "Those statues pull us together and connect our neighborhoods."