Sometimes the only way to combat blight in a neighborhood is to roll up you sleeve and get your hands dirty. That’s what business owners, block club leaders, residents, and students are doing this weekend on Bailey Avenue – Saturday, October, 4, 2014. The cleanup effort is being called “Bailey Fights Blight” and is intended to tackle a series of issues ranging from vacant storefronts to abandoned buildings. Every neighborhood has its fair share of problems, and Bailey is no different. The street has got great bones and could be a major destination if this effort was to steamroll.
“Bailey Avenue has all the makings of a vibrant, walkable commercial district, and we, as a community, are working together to realize that vision,” said Ibrahim Cissé, President of the Bailey Avenue Business Association.
At this point there are already over 65 volunteers ready to get to work on the street. The group is meeting at the Uptown Theater at 10am, and cleaning, pruning, boarding up and painting until 1pm. As we have seen in other neighborhoods, once the windows and doors are boarded, they will be painted to look like attractive vignettes (resembling window scenes, flower boxes, awnings, etc). The lesson will hopefully show the street’s potential as they see the colorful painted additions dotting the street. In order to add to the impact, an artist has been assigned to paint a mural on the side of 3162 Bailey Avenue.
Bailey Fights Blight is an exercise in neighborhood team building, as well as crime prevention, and pride building.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for residents and community partner stakeholders to be engaged in positively altering the landscape of the neighborhood. This is just the beginning of our collective investment in enhancing the built environment to serve as the backdrop for all the great initiatives underway in the Buffalo Promise Neighborhood and the University District,” said Tanya Staples, Director of Community Affairs for Buffalo Promise Neighborhood.
Major partners of the project include the Bailey Avenue Business Association, Junior League of Buffalo, University at Buffalo Honors College, University District Block Club Coalition, University Heights Collaborative, and the University Heights Tool Library. The project has been made possible thanks to the generosity of sponsors including Buffalo Auto Group, Buffalo Promise Neighborhood, Imperial Food Market, Junior League of Buffalo, Lowe’s Home Improvement, University at Buffalo Office of Community Relations, University District Community Development Association, University, Masten, and Lovejoy District Councilmembers, and the University Heights Collaborative,
If all goes well, the effort will continue in the spring of 2015.
A rain date of October 18th has been scheduled.