Demolition and rebuilding blitz begins on East Side
Mayor says similar rehabilitation projects are planned in other sections of the city
With every sweep of her broom, it was obvious Annie Felton takes pride in her East Side street.
But as she tidied up outside the Woodlawn Avenue home where she has lived since 1981, Felton said it’s not always easy to keep a positive mind-set about a neighborhood she loves. Vacant structures have become the targets of vandals, thieves and other mischief-makers. One structure not far from her home has been empty for about two decades, she lamented.
So when Felton spotted a group of city officials at Woodlawn and Kehr Street on Tuesday, then learned they were there to announce a massive demolition and rebuilding blitz, she was pleased.
“They need to do something over here,” she said.
From outside her home, she could hear a bulldozer pulling apart a decaying structure on Kehr. When crews are finished, Mayor Byron W. Brown said an entire city block — eight dilapidated structures in all — will have been razed.
“That’s how extreme the problem is that we’ve inherited in the city,” said Brown.
When the demolitions are finished, work will begin on four “West Coast suburban-style” homes that are being built by the development arm of True Bethel Baptist Church. The project represents the type of coordinated development that is being linked to demolition blitzes in many other parts of the city, Brown said.
It was clear from the mayor’s opening remarks that he was using Tuesday’s event to defend Buffalo’s demolition program. A series of articles published in The Buffalo News this week documented widespread criticism of the city’s handling of vacant properties.
Flanked by officials from the True Community Development Corp., Brown rattled off projects that are under way or being planned on the West Side, near numerous public schools, and in neighborhoods that include Cold Spring and the Fruit Belt.
The mayor said the Woodlawn demolition is part of a much larger project for that neighborhood, which will include future demolitions and additional revitalization.
By next year at this time, land currently occupied by six dilapidated houses on Woodlawn and two structures on Kehr will have been replaced with four single-family homes. They will have abundant green space and many other suburban-style amenities, said the Rev. Darius Pridgen of True Bethel Baptist Church. Some of the houses will be subsidized. He said the existing structures had too much asbestos and lead paint to make them viable prospects for rehabilitation. So the entire block is being demolished.
Neighborhood residents said the demolitions and planned new housing are sorely needed in an area that has far too many vacant structures — buildings that breed crime and continued neighborhood decay.
One Woodlawn Avenue resident who has lived in the neighborhood for 37 years pointed to an unsightly vacant structure directly across from her home. The woman, who asked that her name not be used, pointed to a window where thieves recently broke in and raided the place of copper pipes.
“You’re afraid to go to sleep at night,” she said.
