On Wednesday, September 13, you are invited to attend a Community Walk & Talk with Better Block. The community engagement event is designed to demonstrate what it takes to create great neighborhoods that are walkable, safe, and family oriented. Residents, Fruit Belt leaders, artists, planners, clergy, teachers, students, and businesses are welcome to participate in the Walk & Talk, set to take place at the Moot Center, 292 High Street.
This community event entails everything that we have been talking about on BRO for years. It will highlight the common sensical side of urban living. It’s about connecting people, by bringing communities back together.
Better Block is teaming up with the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency (BURA), to demonstrate to people that there are better ways to build communities. BURA Special Projects Manager, Brenda Durfee says, “The project’s key benefit is to inspire a collective reimagining and reinvention of a public space to assist in enhancing a livable community and maximizing shared value. This initiative will facilitate a creative use and support its ongoing evolution. It will produce quantifiable benefits for residents and assist with the goal of creating a heightened quality of life for aging in place by enhancing the environmental, physical and social aspects of the Fruit Belt. Age separation divides a society. This initiative will encourage intergenerational interactions to everyone’s benefit.”
The exercise is part of AARP’s national Community Challenge. Buffalo is one of three cities to benefit from this grant. AARP staff and volunteers will be dedicating their time and energy to helping to create a better Buffalo by building Better Blocks. Starting with the Fruit Belt and rippling outwards, here we have a free opportunity to truly learn what it takes to become a great city, by taking the time to build a better community through a series of “quick actions”.
Buffalo’s project will focus on one block in the Fruit Belt neighborhood. The Fruit Belt is largely residential, and is clearly defined by its borders: to the west is the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus; to the south the Kensington Expressway; to the east is Jefferson Avenue, the main commercial corridor for Buffalo’s African American community; and to the north are City Honors High School and the Masten Avenue Armory. The project site is centrally located within the neighborhood, at the intersection of Carlton and Lemon streets.
Fruit Belt Better Block
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Moot Center, 292 High Street, Buffalo NY 14204
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Light food from local chefs and beverages will be provided