A number of our Buffalo West Side neighbors are asking us to hear and know this:
The nearly-clearly imminent results of the Peace Bridge Group’s expansion decisions threaten the legacy of the best that Buffalo has always been, (and should preserve, and can be) : the essence of an historic neighborhood.
Consider residents Thomas and Kate Cody, who live off Porter on Columbus Park in the PBA-threatened heritage community. This frightened community wants to know if you know that it is about to be laceratingly taken away, and then graded into dirt and asphalt, to be a diesel riddled fuel parking lot far and away from its soul–
—all removed from existence by the PBA plaza project? Do we know that and do we care?
The Peace Bridge Group will eliminate–tear down (remove familes) from over 120 tax-base and user fee homes, and in result will nullify existence to a Buffalo’s community’s honorable heritage.
Thousands more West Siders are at stake under caution for their health and other issues cited in other of this series’ parts, but today’s Part 5 of our series focuses on a specific neighborhood.
Prime space—prime families—prime history—prime family health–and prime future are all under imminent attack—and removal by the PBA. “Please listen to us and please care about us,” is the clarion last minute cry hundreds of residents want you to hear right now, here.
Columbus Park has some of Buffalo’s oldest and lovely homes. Did you know that they comprise Buffalo’s ONLY historical true waterfront community of upscale period designed architectural residences.
This was the prime, historic Italian neighborhood that in its early days, the richest of Italian neighborhoods, built a grand community that today is thriving with self-respect. There are proud homeowners who seek to preserve that legacy. They are still Italians, but also Germans and Irish, Polish, and every nationality you can think of, that live there and thrive there now—all as an entrenched and enriched Buffalo community under threat..
It’s one of those marvelously saved heritage communities. Given countless years of community change and turmoil, it is a grand space of Buffalo that unveils beautiful homes that families set out upon a life from. We need to ask ourselves as Buffalonians if we care to protect their rights now?
Buffalo’s suffered decades (e.g. 1960’s) of neighborhoods that went into demise, crime, disrepair and then somehow miraculously recovered. This one did that miraculusly so. Now just to let it be destroyed? Can we do that Buffalo? Wow, that’s crazy, really– it’s just so gracious and beautiful a place of neighbors and family life at its best.
A great couple–Tom and Kate Cody– their beautiful turn of century house is a grand example. Senator Al Coppola (17 years a Buffalo Councilman) told me how he was friends with Jimmy Naples there as a kid—James Naples is now a prominent Buffalo attorney; but it was his father’s house—Buffalo’s well known Doctor Naples who back when built that beautiful home the Cody’s now own.
Visiting Tom and Kate Cody’s home you see the illustrations depicting the colossal and historic Armory across the parkway in its days of seeing trolleys crossing from historic Busti Avenue routes unto heralding Black Rock. Tom Cody’s family has a beautiful home dating a stay of 16 years, and with his wife Kate, and their kids, they now see their neighborhood about to fall into the wrong hands.
Today we hear from Tom Cody, who writes to all of us:
The Tale of Two Plazas
by Thomas Cody (West Side Resident)
”I recently attended presentations with alternative plans for building a new international bridge and plaza to accommodate increased truck traffic across the border.
The Public Bridge Authority presentation was uninspiring and predictable. The PBA claimed to have studied 59 options and concluded only one plan as viable which is the same flawed plan they have been promoting for the last 10 years.
A plan that crams cars and trucks together and funnels them into a space confined plaza in the middle of Buffalo’s Olmsted Parkway System, destroying an historic waterfront neighborhood and removing 130 homes and businesses from the city’s tax rolls.
The more sensible plan was presented by the Ambassador Bridge Group – build a separate bridge and plaza for trucks only near the International Railroad Bridge. The truck plaza would be approximately twice the size of the proposed PBA plaza, funded with private money and built on brown fields connected to rail yards on both sides of the border.
Their proposal does not require the destruction of homes, polluting of neighborhoods or destroying of parks, and as a private company, the Ambassador Group would pay taxes to our cash starved city.
The International Railroad Bridge was built in 1873 to serve the commercial transportation needs and growing commerce between Canada and the United States. The Peace Bridge was built in 1927 to accommodate automobiles and pedestrians and link two local communities. Our needs today are the same – the choice should be too!
From my standpoint, the most frustrating aspect of this process has been dealing with the arrogance of the PBA. Their most recent proposal is a slap in the face to the residents of this community that they claim they have been collaborating with. Rather than present a couple of options for consideration, they are trying to steamroll the same plan to expand in Front Park.
Rather than work with the community, they have chosen to be more aggressive in their taking of property – crossing Rhode Island Street, almost to Vermont and building a truck ramp into our neighborhood, further impacting our quality of life and health of our children.
What I think can get the interest of the suburbanites who want quick access to their beach house and golf course is the negative health impact from the idling diesel trucks that surround them.
The worst part about crossing the border is looking at and smelling the trucks – if they were moved to another site we wouldn’t have to contend with them, making for a more pleasant journey across the border. People should be greeted by a waterfront view, the Olmsted Parkway System, a resurrected Fort Porter and a visitor’s welcome center – not a truck plaza!
Lastly, in review of the PBA’s DEIS, I read the following: “Buffalo’s economic decline began in the 1950’s, when numerous large companies started leaving the area…. The installation of thruways, designed to revitalize the city, instead had a detrimental effect on various neighborhoods.
The Niagara Extension of the NYS Thruway (I-190) was particularly harmful to Blackcock and the West Side. The city sustained a loss of population that was, in part, exacerbated by the federal government’s post-war policy of using low interest, long term loans for the construction of new homes and businesses as opposed to those already established. Urban Renewal Projects were implemented in an attempt to stem the decline and exodus but were ultimately ineffective”.
————————————————————————————
Thanks Tom Cody…and good luck.
Support for Buffalo Rising comes from:
Support for Buffalo Rising comes from: