Great interview with Mark Stevens of the Wilson Street Urban Farm on WECK with Christina Abt and Tom Donahue.

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(By Christina Abt) Her name is Geraldine Wierzbicki-Roach.  She is a 70-year young, native Buffaloian of Polish descent.  As a child, Geraldine’s grandmother and aunt took her to the Broadway Market.  She recalls loving the sights and sounds of the east side shopping mecca.  However once married with a family of her own, Geraldine’s market days became part of her past.  It was only upon publishing her first book, a novel tied to her close relationship with her Polish grandfather, that Geraldine returned to the market.  Her purpose was to sell books during the prime Easter Season.  And while the local author accomplished her book selling goal, she also realized the true value of the Broadway Market—a realization she wrote about in this essay, where she describes her impressions of “a Buffalo heirloom.”

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(Christina Abt/Am-Pol Eagle) Buffalo Common Council President David Franczyk has worked as a government leader for over 24 years. Yet in reviewing his lifelong profession, it’s clear this politico holds a special passion for the Broadway Market and its neighborhood where he lives and serves.

“A Franczyk has served the Fillmore District since the 1940s, when my father was elected to the city council,” Franczyk said. “I still remember going to the market with my father and all the vendors and crowds of shoppers. That’s why throughout my political career, I have supported it. I want it to be great and beautiful again. When it comes to the Broadway Market, that’s all I care about.”

While Franczyk’s support of the market is founded on personal experience, he has expanded his market expertise by traveling to public markets throughout the United States. He particularly notes the Detroit and Cleveland public markets, set in locales and facing challenges similar to the Queen City. In discussing the public market business model, this city leader reflects on sustainability.

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By Christina Abt

This is the eleventh in a series of articles about the Broadway Market. This week we take a road trip southwest to our sister city on the Great Lakes, Cleveland. It’s a trip back in time and forward to the future, complete with a public market blueprint for success.

If you were to line up Buffalo’s Broadway Market alongside Cleveland’s West Side Market, at first glance they would seem remarkably similar. Historically, both were founded in the mid to late 1800’s, serving as ethnic marketplaces for the thousands of European immigrants settling around the Great Lakes. Both were relocated to bigger and better venues in the early 20th century. Both struggled through significant challenges in the 1970’s and 80’s and received millions of dollars of needed infusions.

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Previous parts of the series…

• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part X
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part IX
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VIII
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VII
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VI
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part V
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part IV
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part III
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part II
• Part I: Kerr calls for reason at the Broadway Market

(By Christina M. Abt) This is the tenth in a series of articles about the Broadway Market. This week, a man whose family has enjoyed a long running relationship with the market, opening a stand there in 1947, becoming directly involved in reviving the market in the late 1960s, growing to be the 2nd highest-grossing vendor during the 1990s and closing their stand in 2002, some 55 years after they began.

At the age of 12 Mark Redlinski began working at his family’s meat market, assuming the all- important job of picking up rubber bands from the floor. At that time Redlinski’s Meats was located at the back of the Broadway Market, where it spread across stalls 38, 39 and 40. Mark’s grandfather, Paul, started the family market stand in 1947 as a means of stabilizing the family’s business. Little could he imagine that at the turn of the century, his grandson would be closing the Redlinski’s market stand as a means of again stabilizing the family’s business.

Read full story at AM-POL Eagle—>

Read rest of the series:

• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part IX
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VIII
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VII
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VI
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part V
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part IV
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part III
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part II
• Part I: Kerr calls for reason at the Broadway Market

(By Christina Abt – WNYmedia.net/AM-POL Eagle)

This is the ninth in a series of articles about the Broadway Market. This week’s interview features Melanie I. Krygier-LaMastra –a savvy businesswoman with a long vendor history at the market.   And while this lady is “sweet” in every sense of the word, she possesses a clear vision of the market, past, present and future and is happy to express her opinons about all of it.

She multi-tasks around her bakery counter with ease, skills developed through decades of experience.  She possesses a natural gift for treating customers like family.  And although she is a decade beyond retirement age, Melanie Krygier LaMastra is youthfully enthusiastic about running her thriving Broadway Market business.

“I love the market and I love my customers,” LaMastra said.  “I used to work 80 hours a week, but I only work 40 now.  So to me, this is my retirement.  I have a lot of wonderful customers, I’m happy and I like it here.”

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Other parts of the series:

• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VIII
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VII
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VI
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part V
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part IV
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part III
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part II
• Part I: Kerr calls for reason at the Broadway Market

(By Christina Abt – WNYmedia.net and Am-Pol Eagle) This is the eighth in a series of Broadway Market at the Crossroads interviews. This week 2 women who stepped up and successfully expanded the market into a Christmas hot spot and actually took the market out to the WNY community—and why they’re not doing it anymore.

The Broadway Market exists within a tenuous alliance among the City of Buffalo, market vendors and shoppers. Yet there is a fourth partner related to the market’s survival which, although not always publicly acknowledged, has been equally important to its 122 year tradition— market volunteers.

Carol Bronnenkant and Sandy Starks are shining examples of Broadway Market volunteerism. The two initially met in 1998, when Carol was heading up the revitalization of Greycliff and Sandy was a guide of Elderhostel tours at the Frank Lloyd Wright lakefront manor. Over time, each moved on to independent community projects, but 8 years later, their volunteer souls reconnected at 999 Broadway.

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Other parts of the series:

• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VII
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VI
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part V
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part IV
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part III
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part II
• Part I: Kerr calls for reason at the Broadway Market

(By Christina Abt – WnyMedia.net, AM-POL Eagle)
This is the seventh in a series of Broadway Market at the Crossroads interviews.  This week a fresh new voice brings renewed optimism to the 123 year old market saga.

When Western New Yorkers discuss the Broadway Market, their patterned conversations focus on 3 chronic concerns: neighborhood revitalization, building renovation and the critical need to attract more shoppers. Yet as spring flowers determinedly push through winter’s lingering snows, there are those in this community engaged in a new Broadway Market conversation, using fresh dialogue and an unsullied perspective.

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Previous parts of the series…

• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part VI
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part V
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part IV
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part III
• The Broadway Market at a Crossroads Part II
• Part I: Kerr calls for reason at the Broadway Market

(By Christina Abt – WNYmedia.net/BuffaloStyle) Buffalo has been dubbed as one of the poorest cities in the nation, and the face of our poverty is seen everyday at St. Luke’s Mission.

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