SPUNKY

I am a lifelong city of buffalo resident. When i was a child, i had alot of friends from tree lined moselle street. it was a mostly black area which was big on family, big families, big houses.

through urban blight, landlords who were unwise in their choice of tenants, bad luck and just plain old housing stock the street has fallen on very hard times. drugs, abandoned buildings, crime and sadness permeate this once lovely area.

the good news is that our city has the cheapest housing stock in america (truly, look us up!) and little by little people are making inroads and fixing up these once proud streets.

i am sure every street has a soul and has memories and moselle street has alot of memories of proud families who worked hard to make their dreams come true. then they moved away. little by little people are coming back - the land is there for new build houses, some of the houses are there in need of rehab and you can't beat the friendliness of our citizens or our housing prices.

I believe we will see how moselle can come back, along with a bunch of our other inner city streets. we have all the ingredients, now we have to make the banquet!

The part of grant street is in the middle of the street, between lafayette and west ferry.

No doubt, as is the case with alot of city neighborhood, this street needs alot of work. However, it is home to a great deal of immigrants, people who have lived here a long time and people just passing through.

This part of Grant street is near many of our cities outreach centers for refugees. They come from all parts of the orient, the middle east and africa. We have hispanic (which can be cuban, puerto rican and mexican), there are of course, white, black, native americans and some i probably haven't thought of.

All of these people have special needs for food, housing and general services. They tailor this little part of their world to their needs and the resulting clamor and offerings are varied and superlative.

Guercios is a market specializing in all sorts of ethnic food. They are family run and used to cater to the italian clientle who still frequent the market - but they have changed with the times and would be happy to advise you regarding how to cook a certain strange looking vegetable or use a certain fine smelling spice. By the way, the exotic smells here remind me of markets all over the world. If you stop and listen, you can find at least five or more different languages being spoken at one time as well as five or more styles ethnic dress. They have the most beautiful fruits and vegetables outside in the summer - the colors are beautiful!

The Meating Place (get it?) is a meat store which prides itself on providing the best meat (some ethnic and some like good old hamburger) in the city. Their meat is very fresh and the owners take pride in providing for the ethnic needs as well as the common ones.

This part of grant street makes me love my dear city and come back time and again for good food and ideas for new treats!

when i was a young kid, this area was just delapitated buildings and brownfields.

finally an huge insurance company moved down there by the water and set up shop. everyone thought they were crazy, but when we visited and saw their views of downtown, lake erie and the niagara river, everyone stopped laughing.

next came the condos, expensive and mid priced. they were built in all different styles and were pleasing to the eye.

it got to the point where waterfront village could be seen as part of the downtown buffalo view if you looked at it from a certain angle. it is also close to the theater, downtown offices and our beloved water.

we have a navel park, an old canal town that is built in minimalist fashion, shows where the first settlers in buffalo along the canal lived and worked - this is a wonderful place to sit and relax or just stroll along.

there are many projects underway for this beautiful area. we are on the water and anything that is there is only enhanced by it - in any season.

When i was a little girl, my cousin lived on chippewa street. It was an inner city street where you put your throw away people. It was mostly businesses of the seamy kind.

I remember a chinese laundry that was in the back of a building. I was terrified of these hard working people with their strange long braids.

They had bars called the silver dollar, radices and fishermans warf. There were all types of society in these places and you had to be careful all of the time. Usually no unescorted lady went to these places. Radices was a strip joint of the lowest order. If you were at the end of your "career" this is where you came to get some of the appreciation you craved - except the appreciation was coming from the drunks that lined the bar.

Further down toward our main street where chippewa began was a small earring store. When i say small, i mean you could fit the owner, and 2 people max in this place. Of course, you were joined by hundreds upon hundreds of earrings, floor to ceiling at ridiculous prices. I got alot of my "mod" earrings there.

A few years ago, a man name mark goldman came to the street, opened a ritzy bar and nightclub - the rest is history but it was by far not as easy as it seems by my writing. the man had balls and a dream and he changed that street around. Soon bars and condos lined the street. it is not the "in place" to go on a friday or holiday night. If you have bucks, you might want to have an apartment near there.

This is why i am so hopeful for my beloved city. I have been around long enough to see that these streets, once so rundown, rose up in the most awesome way. If someone would have told me when i was a kid that this would be chippew street's fate, i would have thought that you had been drinking at the silver dollar or fishermans warf (long gone). amazing!

I am a proud lifelong resident of the city of buffalo.

East delavan avenue is the home to our old sears store, the store i went to for school supplies before they had the big box stores. We used to walk to sears from where we lived on the west side and it was an area of homes with big families. The neighborhood was not as scary and in need of rehab as it is now.

East delavan is also the home of Seneca vocational high school that was attended by both my husband and his father (they are the only father/son team to graduate from seneca!). They taught the gentlemen (no females here until court order before they finally closed down) vocations - mechanics, electronics and all manner of "guy stuff" that would and still does serve them well in their older years. They shut old Seneca down but there is now talk of reopening it because there is still such a need for this sort of learning.

East delavan avenue needs much, as all inner city streets does, but i have hope that as time comes and goes that it will be the proud street that it once was and the people who still reside there won't be thought of as frightening.

Delaware Avenue runs from downtown buffalo out to the suburbs of buffalo new york. This is a most excellent street, with gimungous old style mansions, chic shops, small updated offices and a bustle that is around night and day.

This is a wonderful street to talk a walk on because you can see the mansion up close and just imagine the old style people with long dresses, top coats, bowlers, canes and of course, carriages!

This used to be and in some instances still is home of the richest section in buffalo. The lawns and houses are kept up in pristine condition and i believe they still have bus tours of the area.

Delaware avenue passes our great forest lawn cemetery that has a great number of local and national notables interred there. As a matter of fact, you can take a tour during certain hours and volunteers recreate the people who are interred there - they tell you facts and stories. After you have been entertained and enlightened, you can spend some time feeding the beautiful birds that gather here.

Delaware avenue is a street that harkens back to the "old days" but has managed to keep an up to date vibe which makes it beautiful to visit any time of year.

Jefferson avenue runs from downtown buffalo on out to the suburbs.

I am a middle aged woman and i remember when jefferson avenue was the "inner city" (a place that marvin gaye named his "inner city blues" song about) a place where "coloreds" lived. I didn't realize then that "coloreds" had homes, families and lives just like we did.

Like any inner city street in any mid sized city in the united states, jefferson avenue saw a downturn in the 60's and 70's. Then came grass roots organization of people (sometimes lots, sometimes just two or three) who worked harder than most people to bring back the Jefferson Avenue of their youth. There was alot of work to be done. They planted trees, renovated or had buildings torn down. In most instances they had to fight with City Hall every step of the way.

Jefferson Avenue still has it's problems as most inner city streets do, but it has a certain flavor now, a certain pride and more than a few flourishing stores and homes on and off of this proud street. Rock on!

Niagara Street brings a flood of memories.

It runs from downtown buffalo to niagara falls (called different names as you go along, but it is still niagara street). A few miles from downtown buffalo, niagara street passes by the peace bridge which is a beautiful bridge, one of the entryways to canada. This is where i grew up. We weren't rich and to this day, this part of niagara street is not a place for rich people. Even though we were not rich, we had a wonderful view of the niagara river, we could walk on the breakwall which runs parallel with niagara and we could watch the lights on the beautiful peace bridge at night.

Places come and go on niagara street, but the people are about the same. I still live in the area and rent out apartments there. You have to remember that this is an urban area and one has to be careful as in all cities, but the price of apartments is very low and you get a huge mix of multi-ethnic people who "rattle and hum" like no other place around. This is my place, i love it. I am not afraid because like any neighborhood you live in and come to love, you know who belongs and who doesn't. It is this way on my part of niagara street.

The economy may be poor, but for nothing, i can still look at the niagara river and the peace bridge from my window and take a walk on the breakwall on a hot summer day. Come visit!!