Since moving to Buffalo three years ago, I’ve watched with great interest the astonishing development of the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus. I’ve watched the stunning Gates Vascular Institute rise from an empty lot to rival the new federal courthouse as the most talked about pieces of modern architecture in Buffalo. I’ve toured the iconic Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute with Dr. Duax and the amazingly talented high school research interns he oversees, and attended amazing community events there. During my recent AmeriCorps service year, I worked (in part) on Green Infrastructure plans for Buffalo, and frequently checked in on the medical campus’…
Author: RaChaCha
You live in Buffalo. So it’s almost a given that you live in a neighborhood that was built almost entirely before the Great Depression. The age of your home may be in three digits. It may even include beautiful, intricately carved woodwork — both inside and out.These are the charms of living in an older city. But they also put us Buffalonians at “ground zero” for a largely invisible problem that all of us would do well to have a better understanding of — especially those of us with children in and around the house: lead poisoning.As I’ve quoted lead-poisoning-activist…
As predicted, the annual YMCA Turkey Trot reached its limit of 13,200 participants earlier this week and organizers have halted registrations. The Turkey Trot had gotten so popular (and congested) that last year race organizers decided to limit participation to 12,500 registrants. However, that number was increased this year to 13,200 when race officials announced that the Family- Friendly Post Race area would be moved from the Buffalo Convention Center to the adjacent Statler City. However, even with the expanded capacity the race reached that limit well before Thanksgiving. The finish line and postrace party and awards ceremony will remain at the…
I began drafting this article just two doors down from Main Street Studios — set to open this week — while watching live video of TEDxBuffalo at the Main Washington Exchange. In the presence of creative people, creative ideas, in what is poised to become one of Buffalo’s most creative blocks, in the middle of one of the most creative and vibrant months in Our Fair City’s recent memory. And, just a few blocks from Occupy Buffalo, where others are calling for a new day, on a smaller, more human scale. Right here, right now, Buffalo’s future seems full of…
You’ve probably seen some variation of the “How to Build Community” poster (see below). I first saw one displayed in Allentown, where someone had posted it on the Allentown Association community display board at Elmwood and North. Although I still lived in Rochester at the time, Doug Levy of the Allentown Association was kind enough to photocopy the poster and mail it to me (at the time I didn’t know it could be purchased — I thought that someone in the neighborhood had created it). I was so impressed that I put it on my wall where I could see…
“Buddy, can you spare a quarter?” “Hey, you got fifty cents?” How many times have you heard that while out and about in Buffalo, or perhaps waiting at a transit stop? Well, now the party asking the question isn’t the person short of change or down and out. Instead — and just a year after rolling out fancy trolley buses to operate primarily on Elmwood Avenue — it’s the relatively well-heeled board and executives of the NFTA who are rattling a tin cup in front of those in the community least able to pay.Last week in front of NFTA headquarters…
This year the Don’t Bypass Buffalo Coalition has been reminding Verizon Communications that it’s not just suburban customers who want to add fiber to their connectivity diet. Verizon has deployed its FiOS phone, internet, and television services throughout many of Buffalo’s adjacent suburbs, but has made the decision to exclude the city of Buffalo, reflecting a separate and unequal divide between city and suburban residents.Recently, while at the Village Beer Merchant on Elmwood with the Buffalo Cash Mob, someone who knows whereof he speaks pointed across the street at the Verizon building on Elmwood Avenue and told me that Verizon’s…
A Delaware Avenue redevelopment project is opening with units on two of its residential floors nearly pre-leased. The former Lutheran Nursing Home at 1040 Delaware Avenue is being converted to residential and commercial use by Greenleaf & Company and Paul Kolkmeyer. Along with a new use, the formerly non-descript building is getting a charming new brick façade. David Wylier and Associates is architect. The building, which was vacant for ten years, now contains 49 rental units is planned along with 2,000 sq.ft. of ground floor office space. There has been substantial interest in the commercial space from prospective tenants in…
If Harold Camping is right, this will be my last submission to Buffalo Rising.Now, I have no problem with going on record in saying ahead of time that Camping is not only wrong in his date (I know–risky, right?) but in his whole understanding of eschatology (the study of “Last Things”).That, however, is not my primary concern. What’s interesting to me is that rarely is there such a clear test of whether people believe what they say they believe. At least a few people are taking him seriously, selling all of their possessions, budgeting so that at 6pm on Saturday,…
Because I have the pleasure of leaving for work early on Sunday morning, I just might be the participant out for “Buffalo Bike to Work Week,” next week. For me, Bike to Work Week begins when Lafayette Church celebrates “Bike to Church Sunday,” and hosts the “Blessing of the Bikes.”Is there a theological foundation for my choice to bike more and drive less?Of course!Bikes build community. And Community is important to people of faith, who are called to practice love of not only God, but also neighbor.I put my kids on the school bus each school day, and hardly interact…