Is it any surprise that facade of 65 Grant Street is spewing bricks down onto the sidewalk? Once again, we are not only seeing another building owner getting away with bringing a neighborhood down (see recent Chippewa post), we’re also seeing reckless abandon when it comes to keeping innocent bystanders safe from falling debris.
Now we’ve been talking about the deplorable state of this building for years, and there are plenty of developers and legit property owners who would love to invest in a building of this historic nature. But instead, Buffalo somehow lets certain property owners such as this slide, bringing neighborhoods crumbling down along with them.
Is this how we pay the rest of the business owners on the street who are investing into properties? Same with Chippewa – talk to any of the business owners on that street and they will tell you the exact building that is causing all of the problems. There might be different problems on different streets, but they all end up causing serious repercussions for years and years. Whether it’s boarded up storefronts, broken windows, addicts for tenants, falling bricks, loitering… these types of buildings present real problems to neighborhoods that are on the rebound.
Take a look at the severity of this instance and tell me that this could not have been prevented with a responsible property owner at the helm. In this case, whatever minimal work was being conducted on the Acme-esque storefronts (to save face, make a quick buck or appease the City) is too little too late. I wonder if the camera in the front of the building caught all of the action?