Extreme Makeover Park Dedication

Thought I'd share this photoset in light of tonight's Buffalo-based Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Congrats to our neighbor Delores Powell, our fave organization PUSH Buffalo, and the rest of the crew that made it happen.

Y'all rock.

Lunch time rant: Erie County Holding Center

Bad news just keeps rolling in for the folks who run the Erie County Holding Center. Check out this article from the Buffalo News today:

Linda Arthur moves slowly on arthritic knees. She's 60 years old, 5 feet 5 inches tall, and a breast-cancer survivor who reaches for her medicine at noon
each day.

And she's dangerous.

Or at least she was treated as a danger to society for a weekend in December when jailed in the Erie County Holding Center. She was denied her medicine and other basics of civilized life: toilet paper, a toothbrush, soap, water, a blanket, a bed.

It all stemmed from a neglected parking ticket.

The sad thing is that this kind of treatment is a regular occurrence at the Holding Center. Just read the 14-page Justice Department report on the Center's deplorable conditions. My lawyer friends, a few of them acting as public defenders or assigned counsel, frequently share horror stories that match the report's findings: clients beaten in elevators, denied essential medication, and otherwise treated like garbage.

I know that there exists the sentiment that people in the Holding Center are criminals, deserving of whatever ill comes their way when behind bars, and I think it's crap. As the News' story demonstrates so well, people in the Holding Center aren't always mass murderers and child rapists. They are your neighbor, your kid who did something stupid, a family member who didn't pay her parking ticket. Hell, they are your favorite hockey player.

They deserve due process and they deserve humane conditions while being held.

I took a minute to write this while scarfing my lunch down because I wanted to get the word out about a related event happening tonight and every Wednesday in the near future*. If you can, please come out to demand some change and if you can't, at least drive by and give the crowd a good honk:

PRISONERS ARE PEOPLE TOO rally outside EC Holding Center

Every Wednesday during rush hour traffic - 5:00-6:00PM

Outside the Erie County Holding Center (Delaware & Church)

*I know, two posts from me in less than 24 hours? Is it still the same Whitney?

Slideshow! PUSH Houses on the West Side...

I swear that an update is coming soon but for now I wanted to share some photos I took on Monday. They're part of a project I'm doing with PUSH Buffalo.



These homes are all on the West Side: Chenango, Massachusetts, W. Utica, 19th.

Alternative reads from your lazy hostess

Since I'm certainly not giving you enough to read this summer, try the following links for some Buffalo and housing-related reads:

• Where the Urban Dream Life is Going Cheap: What could make someone want to leave New York and move to Buffalo? You'll recognize some familiar faces in this New York magazine article, most notably our friend Aaron.
• Should you become a Co-ho? A Time piece on the growing trend of buying a house with a friend. We know a thing or two about that.

You may be from the West Side if...

I found this jewel, "You may be from the West Side of Buffalo if..." while looking for something online at work. It appears to have been written when the West Side was more of an Italian neighborhood than Hispanic, as it is now. Maybe ten years ago?

Anyway, enjoy.

Studio city

Buffalo was recently named the #1 Arts Destination for Mid-Sized cities by American Style magazine. It shares the honor with big-size New York and small-size Santa Fe. I think, for the people who live here, this is a welcome but unsurprising recognition.

In their write-up (graciously passed along by my friend Melissa!), they mention Buffalo's efforts to attract and retain working artists with the subsidized Artspace Lofts housing project. While Artspace seems great--after all, I've got a soft spot for intentional communities--I'd like to see more attention placed on the easy opportunities for inexpensive work/live spaces in the City. Artists desiring studio and living space--hell, living quarters!--would likely find Buffalo's housing market a treasure trove.

Using our house and situation as an example, here's what's to offer:

• Two homes (both doubles) with a combined 4,000 square feet (roughly 2,000 ft. each
• Rental income on the front home
• Two apartments in the back house with 2-3 bedrooms in each plus a full attic
• A mortgage payment a little over $500 a month
• Less than a mile or two from the Elmwood Village and downtown Buffalo, both of which host art galleries, theaters, shops, and other points of interest
• Walkable distance to Grant Street with its family-owned Italian market, butchers, pharmacy, community center, and more

Before Steve and Sara moved to the downstairs apartment, Steve's music studio sprawled throughout the living room. We had an enormous home "theater" in one of the extra bedrooms and a "dead daughter room," which was for all intents and purposes a guest room. The kitchen was unused. In short, we had plenty of room. Even now, there's a lot of room down there and Steve has a small, magenta-painted music studio in one of the bedrooms. I still have, as I always have since we moved in, an office in which I write and store massive amounts of junk.

So, artists, come to our city and turn a vacant house problem into progress.

Updates, all shapes and sizes

1) Two more regular characters have been added to the homestead scene, namely Sean and Sara. They both came off adventures of their own--Sara in the political world of Iowa, Sean on the coast of Kenya.

Over the past few weeks, Sara and Steve moved to our downstairs apartment and painted it fun colors, in the tradition of our fun house:

2) I started work at City Hall, heading up a Councilmember's office. I am learning more about the Inspections department and housing court than I ever imagined possible. Good stuff.

3) Been cold and snowy around these parts lately, producing crisp views like this one:

4) Mortgage company is still a jerkfest.

5) Our next door neighbors moved out (sadness) but our tenants have a new baby (happiness).

Monster Snow Storm

I've been reading the Weather Channel's front-page narrative, titled "Monster Snow Storm" and it's kind of poetic:

Heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain have raced across the Midwest into the Northeast as yet another powerful early season December winter storm roars along headed to the Atlantic coast to redevelop and fire a ferocious storm into the Maritimes...

...After a quick burst of sleet and freezing rain mainly from the Mason-Dixon Line northward this early morning, rain will rapidly push northward from Virginia, through eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to New York City as temperatures rise with a mild but strong wind off the Atlantic. The I-95 Corridor from New York City to Washington should just be wet through Sunday evening.

I can't find a permalink so chances are by the time you click there it will be gone or modified, but it looks like this narrative feature is a regular thing on Weather.com. I will be checking it more often.

Instead of blogging this summer...

I worked 50-70 hours a week helping to elect these wonderful people to office:



My lovely friend, boss, and 6th District County Legislator Maria! She came in with 65% of the vote.



Mike LoCurto, Delaware District Council member, and film buff extraordinnaere.



And the real big winner, David Rivera for Niagara District Common Council!

Read about our races here and here. We worked our asses off and I'm so ready for some quiet time. And blogging!

Boarded up

This is the house next door to us. Earlier in the summer, the back window was removed and left wide open. We were nervous about it, especially walking back there at night, so Steve boarded it up himself.

Instead of blogging, I've been...

...attending campaign meetings 3-5 nights per week.


...forgetting to water my houseplants.


...going to Saturday morning Buffalo ReUse board meetings.


...enjoying open bars, maybe a little too much.


...working with folks to keep this kind of stuff to a minimum.

Tune in

One of the great things about my job is that I get to meet people who are doing important work in the City of Buffalo and help hatch plans as to how we can collaborate. Case in point: we met yesterday with Mark Fuller from the Stop the Violence Coalition.

If you live in Buffalo, you've probably heard about this organization. In short, they have about 15 balls in the air, including responding to homicides, working with families of victims, putting themselves in the middle of urban war zones to create and keep truces, looking for missing persons, running a GED program, and launching economic literacy programs. Plus more.

I was and am beyond inspired by their work. Therefore, I'm making a plug:

Radio-thon today to benefit the Stop the Violence Coalition
WUFO 1080 AM - "Pledge for Peace" all day long

Scenes from an urban farm

When we first bought the house, both of my parents commented on the backyard of the house behind us. I specifically remember my dad saying something to the effect of, "I know where you can get a lot of shit." My mom consistently grimaced.

You see, two rottweilers live back there and from what we could tell back in February, they were free to fill up the yard with poop. No one picked it up and as the snow melted and the rain came pouring down in the spring, the backyard was one giant puddle of shitty mud. Here's a shot from a snowy April day:



We had suspicions though, due to the set up, that our neighbors were actually great. We suspected they were gardeners, of the put-everyone-to-shame category. Later in the month, after that last snowfall, they started to work the ground. Not only did they turn over the soil in their own yards, but they did the same in the two yards to the right as well:



Throughout the rest of Spring and now into Summer, we've been watching their bounty take over. It's really not fair at this point to say that they are gardeners--how trite! how self-indulgent!--because in all actuality, they are farmers:



Look at those rows! This is the third or fourth different vegetable they've harvested from the middle lot.



On the fence they're growing squash and that tree in the left corner is full of ripe pears. Show offs!



So you're probably wondering, who are these neighbors? We are too. We know they're old and we think they're Polish. We know they water their masterpiece every day and get lots of deliveries. We know they walk very slowly. We've never exchanged words.

Stay tuned though, dear readers, for I'm hatching a plan to become best friends!

Some not-so-good news

Last weekend delivered two murders in our immediate neighborhood as well as other violent incidents. The Buffalo News reported on it earlier this week. At 7 p.m. last night, there was a Stop the Violence rally/vigil around the corner and the News reported on it too. Here's our neighbor, Lona, speaking about the neighborhood:

Credit to Buffalo News

I don't know much else to say right now but to emphasize what a lot of my friends, co-workers, and allies have been saying: we can't stop violence unless we organize against poverty. Period. Own the word, use it.

Boundless energy

I told everyone about my first new friend in Buffalo, Michael Gainer, a little while back. Well, now you can see how everything has come full circle: he's on the cover of this week's Artvoice!

This lengthy profile is an adequate portrayal of Michael's boundless energy, his sincerity, and his vision. I'm so proud of him and of Buffalo ReUse--we've come a long way, baby!

Picking the Buffalo ReUse logo at a Board Meeting

Quick story about Michael: when the toilet overflowed last Friday and poured down through our tenant's kitchen, I panicked because Steve was at work and I didn't really know what to do. The first person I called was Michael.

"Where are you?" he asked. I told him I was at work, about to hop on my bike and ride home. "I'll meet you there in a minute."

Sure enough, when I pulled up, he was already there talking to the family, making jokes, and assessing damage. He mopped up the water in the bathroom upstairs, showed the kids how to turn off the water should the toilet overflow again, and helped me haul out the water-logged ceiling tiles. He did all of this while smiling.

You go, my friend!

Shameless plug of friend

My friend Mic has just begun an 8-month job aboard a Carnival cruise line ship. He is blogging about the experience over at The Salty Tales of Seabag Manbag. Go read!

So long, farewell

I raise a toast to my own vacation.

I leave tomorrow for one-week, stimulus-free vacation in the Canadian wilderness. Unless Steve suddenly remembers we have a blog for which he is a "co-author," you won't see any posts up here until I return.

In the meantime, check out these great things going on in and around our neighborhood:

Urban Roots. Cooperative garden center near our house. We bought potting soil and a rake here and they are by far the best potting soil and rake I've ever worked with.

Buffalo ReUse. Yours truly is on the board of this fine organization--it was the first project I worked on upon moving back to Buffalo. Check out our salvaged materials inventory and the pictures of the most recent deconstructions.

Black Rock Advocate. Newly discovered blog about the neighborhood to our north.

Across the street from us

Click the photo to see abandoned houses in their larger, more detailed glory:

Also, ignore the bad job I did melding these photos together. You can tell I messed around with their tints as the house in the middle doesn't match itself anymore!

Anyway, the brown house on the left is abandoned and that roof is seriously scary. The middle house is maybe empty and the white house on the left with the door wide open is definitely vacant. The white house way on the right is the start of a block of 4-5 houses belonging to Burmese refugees. Their kids sell lemonade.

Here Comes the Neighborhood

I moved back to Buffalo in March 2006 after a year of living on a farm and travelling all over the damn planet. At this point I knew Steve and I were going to actually make good on our "house idea" and so I did what any rational person would do: I tried like hell to make friends.
One day at the coffee shop, I picked up a copy of Artvoice, Buffalo's free weekly, and on the cover was a group of men and the headline, "Here Comes the Neighborhood." I quickly understood that it was about housing in the city--something I knew I should learn about because hey, I was looking to buy a house in the city--and began reading the cover story. The project sounded interesting and necessary, the issue riled me up, and after reading that PUSH Buffalo needed volunteers to help clean out its first cooperative house, I dialed their number.

Aaron picked up that day and gave me the run down on volunteering. I showed up, got really dirty while tearing out some old flooring, and met my dear friend Michael Gainer for the first time. Michael not only told me about this thing called deconstruction and this organization he hoped to start--tentatively called Buffalo ReUse--but he also told me about NACA. I went home that day and called Steve.

The rest is history.

I have a point though in retelling this history: I owe PUSH Buffalo my every happiness! Steve and I quickly identified PUSH and its members, organizers, and supporters as the community of which we wanted to be a part. Through volunteering five or six Saturday mornings at the PUSH house--Steve would drive an hour and a half just to paint some walls--we then found other communities, other friends, other paths. I'm sure we would've eventually found our ways to where we're respectively at today but the process probably would've been longer and less fun.

Hell, I met my boss at a PUSH barbecue!

With all this mind, I implore anyone in the New York City area to come on out to the PUSH fundraiser party in Manhattan on June 9th:



I will be there, working off my debt this amazing organization. If you're interested in hopping a bus from Buffalo to Manhattan for the party, give me a shout: whitneyarlene@gmail.com.

Yay! Water in the basement! Yay!

So Buffalo was somehow miraculously saved from that bad Nor'easter that put New Jersey and West Virginia into states of emergency. We got a little bit of freezing rain, and lots of complaints from people who thought spring had sprung and packed away their winter clothes accordingly (this includes me).

Around 8:00 last night, I picked up a voicemail message from our tenant informing us that the basement in her house was flooded. Given that I was at a meeting, I let Steve handled the first shock of going over there and hurried home.

About two inches of water covered the basement floor, which wasn't so bad considering other times when apparently four feet of water was hanging out, sometimes with sewage (Oh seller's real estate agent, why did you not tell us?). When I got there, Steve was already at the store getting whatever we needed to fix the problem--he came back with a sump pump.

In a painless 10 minutes or less, the sump pump was set up and pumping and we were back home chugging wine* and eating two boxes of macaroni and cheese. And I did my taxes.

I think some part of the flood seemed novel, one of our first potential disasters. Like: Yay! Let's sump pump this mother! Yay, we did it! Yay! Wine!

Questions is though, when does the novelty wear off?

*"chugging" is the appropriate term