Buffalo Rising Online

Mar 21st 2006, 4:48am By West Coast Perspective

Community-based organizations and neighborhood groups who have taken responsibility and initiative to try to revitalize their area are making Buffalo a better place. People who want to make a neighborhood work, sense that they must look first to themselves and their neighbors- not to City Hall- to solve community problems. Buffalo has many grassroots organizations working hard to revitalize our city at the neighborhood level.

Kleinhans Community Association (KCA) is a block club and advocacy group which promotes beautification, crime reduction, gardening, and historic preservation activities within the neighborhood immediately surrounding Kleinhans Music Hall on the West Side. One of the Association's projects this Spring is to install Victorian street signs at the corner of Pennsylvania Street and Plymouth Avenue as part of a larger beautification project at the intersection.

It takes many partners to revitalize a neighborhood. The street signs were conceived by neighborhood resident Ann Angelo and the design was fleshed out by South Buffalois Colgate Industries that will be producing them. Recycled materials from the City's Public Works Department will be utilized as well. Funding is in place including a City of Buffalo Livable Communities Grant, matching donations from the KCA in sweat equity and cash, and donations of labor and materials from Bob Moffitt at Colgate Industries. There has also been a significant financial donation towards the signs by Christopher Clapp, a Toronto resident who absolutely fell in love with the neighborhood during a recent GardenWalk and wanted to contribute to its beautification. The signs will be installed by mid-May.

Alone, this initiative may seem insignificant when compared to the cityis vast needs. But the individual projects are starting to form a pattern for change, and with it, a profound rethinking of the future of Buffalo. The character of a neighborhood, including its streetscape, is often the difference that makes a place special. The signs will strengthen the community's identity and be a symbol of the transformation that is already taking place in the Kleinhans neighborhood.

Get Connected: Chris Brown, KCA President, 884-1914.