Moments ago, I heard that Michael “Mike” Attardo had passed away. Mike was the owner of Get Dressed – a fine menswear shop on Elmwood Avenue. He was also the founder of Forever Elmwood (1994), which is now the Elmwood Village Association.
When Mike initially started the organization, I was a fledgling business owner on Elmwood, running a shop called Thunder Bay. I remember when I first opened the store, there was another organization operating called the Elmwood Businessmen’s Association. I attended one of their meetings, and quickly realized that nothing was ever going to get done to fix the street, because it was mostly a session to air grievances, with no solutions.
It wasn’t long after that “one and done” meeting that I heard about Mike’s plan to start Forever Elmwood. Along with Ward Pinkel from Urban Surf Shop, I strolled over to Get Dressed to talk to Mike. Previously, Ward and I had decided that come hell or high water, we were going to figure out grassroots ways to clean up the street, which was looking quite haggard. The unfortunate state of the street meant that the businesses were suffering. We figured that we could talk to Mike, to address some of our own concerns, along with some graspable and timely solutions.
Not only did Mike listen to us, he enthusiastically embraced our thoughts and ideas. That’s when we discovered that Get Dressed was an unofficial headquarters for the association, which would (soon) regularly meet at The Crane Library, just down the street.
Mike not only had an innate ability to grasp the fundamentals of urbanism, he also understood how to get things done. He had an incredible network of business owners and public officials, who would regularly stop in to talk to him about the street. For those who knew enough to sit down with Mike throughout the course of the week (leading up to a meeting), they were assured to have their voice heard, and potentially their thoughts and considerations addressed at the meeting.
Before each meeting, Mike would say, “We have one hour and a lot to talk about. Questions and concerns will be addressed after the meeting, but we’re following a strict agenda, so hold off on your questions until after the meeting.”
After the hour-long meeting was over, Mike would say, ” Sorry, we’re out of time, we have to go!” With that, he would exit the meeting, leaving the attendees to discuss the issues among themselves. It was a brilliant tactic.
These were great meetings because they were quick, concise, and a plan was laid out about how to tackle the problems that were bringing down the street. And things got done! Mike understood what it would take to make real, sweeping changes. And he had plenty of people behind him, who could sense his passion and grasp his understanding of “how a street should operate.” He knew that it had to be clean, first and foremost. He fought for the street to be paved, and for the curbs and sidewalks to be fixed. He wanted Elmwood Avenue to be beautiful. That beauty, he understood, would draw more businesses, and shoppers. His goal was to create a commercial district that would be clean and safe, to attract people from all over the region, who had given up on shopping in the city. The plan worked.
“My relationship with Mike started in 1993 when he welcomed me and my (then) business (Caffé Aroma) to the street,” said Dave Cosentino, owner of Trattoria Aroma on Bryant. “His mantra? I’ll never forget. ‘A good business starts at the curb.’‘ He would say that all the time. You gotta keep the street clean… he was passionate about it like nobody else. To memorialize Mike’s legacy, we should all take some extra time cleaning up our neighborhoods on a consistent basis, starting today!”
“I was Mike’s tenant from 1993 until 1997,” said Michael E. Bogucki. “I would get to my 3rd floor apt at 576 Elmwood by going in the side entrance in the alley, and up the stairs to the 3rd. There was a door at the 1st floor landing that opened into Mike’s shop. As he and I got to know each other after I moved in, he would call out to me, ‘Mike, come in here, I want to run something by you.’ Inevitably, he would complain about the state of the street, mourn the loss of the way that Elmwood used to be in the ‘70s, etc. Eventually, I said to him one day after one of his rants ‘Mike, you know, if you took 10% of the time you spent complaining and reallocated that towards getting something done out there, perhaps you’d feel better?’ Sometime thereafter, he, Dennis Greco, and Joe Jacobi had Forever Elmwood up and running. And the sidewalk sweeping, pulling-of-weeds out of tree boxes, and parking meter painting began. Then the bigger projects ensued. And we won the All America City competition!”
“When I first met Mike I saw a guy weeding the corner of Elmwood and Lafayette,” said former Forever Elmwood president, Michael Ferdman. “It was a Sunday morning and I had started a run. When I returned 45 minutes later he was still there, still weeding. So I asked him what he was doing and he explained that if Buffalonians want a great Elmwood we can’t rely on government to do it for us. We have to step up and make it great. What an incredible lesson – I’ll never forget it.”
Thanks to Michael’s longtime devotion to Elmwood Avenue, the face of Buffalo was forever changed. He taught people how to care for a street. He showed them how to network. He would never take ‘no’ for an answer. If he believed in something, he fought for it. And he fought for us. To me, Mike was a teacher, who helped to show me the ropes, as guidelines for other community endeavors that I would ultimately embark upon. Not only did he/we bring Elmwood back, the bar was set for other commercial districts to follow.
Mind you, this was long before social media – this was at a point when you would have to take the time to meet up in a room – Get Dressed or The Crane Library – or walk the street with brothers in arms, to solve the problems of the world, which, back then, were all on Elmwood. Elmwood Avenue was our world. We knew that if we could fix one special street, we would be on our way to helping to create a better Buffalo, which is what we have today.
Thank you Mike, for Forever Elmwood.