I hadn’t driven down Schmarbeck or Rommel Avenues in a few months and decided to do just that on Saturday morning after a Dozynki planning meeting.

I am absolutely floored by the extent of loss on the streets of B-F…it doesn’t matter how many times I walk or drive around and see this…it is equal parts sad and surreal…you can’t help but get the feeling of hopelessness…it is like a bad movie that just keeps getting worse…I wonder if people even care anymore or if most have grown to accept this as the sad reality of what has become and is still to come for a very large part of the city.

The video above are all the vacant and abandoned homes on Schmarbeck and Rommel…the video doesn’t even include all the houses that have already been torn down.

These are just two streets in the neighborhood.


Related Posts

9 thoughts on “Video/Slideshow: Vacant

  1. Yes I do agree that it is a shame how the Broadway Fillmore neighborhood looks. I lived on Sweet Avenue for 30 years and my parents and grandparents and great grandparents lived there. My great grandparents built our old house when they came to America in the early 1900’s. Now the house looks like a train hit it. The people who live there do not take pride in it at all. My father used to fix up the house all the time. He even was picked by the late Mayor Griffins office that dealt with upkeeping your homes, and my father was given a certificate personally from the Mayor and had his picture taken with him. He took pride in our home, not like people now. We moved 14 years ago because my mother got mugged. Our neighbors played loud music and threw garbage and food on our property and we were good neighbors. I still say that David Franczyk does not care about the neighborhood as he should. He only cares about being president of the common council. He has been the council member for far to long and look around, the neighborhood is the worse looking area of the city. Areas of the district and mainly the district looks like a garbage dump with boarded up houses or burnt down houses and empty lots and garbage laying around. Back in the 70’s and 80’s the neighborhood looked good and clean. Same on the people who do not care about the arera or the leaders of the area for not doing enough. Broadway Fillmore could look like Elmwood or Hertel Avenue or other good parts of the city with better leadership. Yes, I did move out but I still worship weekly at St. Stanislaus Church and am still very active there. Thank God for Father Ted who after 2 and a half months is trying hard to keep the church going after being assigned to 3 churches. I still shop and eat weekly at the Broadway Market. My father goes to the Burger King on Broadway every day for coffee and just to talk with people who he considers his friends from the neighborhood. We may live in Cheektowaga like many former Broadway Fillmore rsidents, but we are still doing our part to keep the area alive. God Blesss your Broadway Fillmore Alive website. Keep us the good work. God Bless the leader of the Broadway Market who is trying to bring it back alive. God bless those individuals who are trying to bring pride back to the area. Broadway Fillmore area will never be what it was but it could be much better than what it is now. And all the people who read this website and only visit the Broadway Market once a year at Easter, come back moreoften. The food is great all year round. When the market closes you will be the first ones to cry, but what did you do to keep the market open and alive. The same with the churches. If you want to see the churches remain open, come and worship at them and support them or they will close like so many did or still could. Get off your butts and just do not speak up, but rather do something, even weekly visits to the market or a church can help.

  2. There is no plan to do anythng. That is worst part of watching the neighborhood slip away and its housing stock disappear.

  3. All of the Polish cottages in the video have a lot character. There is not an answer and most of the homes are beyond saving.

  4. I live right there amongst those houses. In the 90’s during the initial crack epidemic this probably was a truly dangerous place to live. We lost a lot of really good neighbors for a lot of really good reasons. But I don’t think the neighborhood is as dangerous (now) as people tend to believe. Undoubtedly, many are engaged in the underground drug economy (for reasons I wont get into here). Without a doubt some drug addicts (depending on the type of addiction) will victimize others given the chance. I wont deny that this place at times can be psychologically trying but at the core it’s the hostile environment… not the people.

    Loud music is covered under the noise ordinance. But laws and codes are only affective if the police are not overburdened and understaffed in order that they may be sympathetic to lifestyle crimes. People want to control the behavior of others. The garbage on the lawn is an example of a power play that can be humiliating and will escalate into a bigger problem (which the instigator is probably hoping for) if it is dealt with from an angry stance rather than a quietly humble one. It is hard to turn the other check when you know someone is purposely messing with you. That is why it is best (and safest) to not react at all… pretend like you didn’t notice, and then wait for a more opportune time to develop positive ground (no pun intended) with your neighbor. If you continue to quietly pick up your lawn the culprit will probably increase his garbage throwing habits for a while but then he’ll eventually get bored or more likely will start to feel bad. These people have consciences and just like everyone they want to believe they are good people (and most of the time they are). The reasons why people act the way they do are varied and complex so we can’t be quick to judge. I’m sure the little match girl was a bad neighbor too… no parents watching her, dirty, peeping into windows. Of course her pain was endured with a subdued innocence. In real life pain manifests destructive behaviors especially if you don’t have the proper role models. I would love to see a renaissance of the East side with people streaming back home… hammers in hand. I’ll be here waiting and being a good neighbor… care to join me?

  5. Chris, I know how you feel, it’s like a bad movie. You feel so helpless and hopeless! And the problems with the closing churches made it all worse. … About the comments up above, it’s too bad the city can’t do more about the noise and the garbage. These little things, that’s how a neighborhood slides.

  6. As a local and involved landlord in the B-F area, it is very disheartening to see the blight and destruction. The city would do well to not let out of town owners purchase residental property. They don’t want to put money into their property for maintenance, so they suck all the money they can out of it from tenants and then when the health dept. shuts it down, the owner lets the city take it. Many of the houses in the video are structurally sound. If you are fortunate enough to be able to do all your own work, you can get a destroyed property up and running for about 5-7K and a lot of sweat equity. If the city would deed these houses for $1.00 to owners who have proved themselves to be renovating property AND maintaining their city properties, I would gladly take several. The hoops one has to jump through and all the red tape to purchase a city property for “fair market value” is a joke! The majority of homes in the area are rentals. Absentee, uncaring landlords are a major problem. Many tenants today do not take pride in the place they call home. Trash all over the place, loud music, breaking things; many haven’t had to work for what they have; social services picks up their tab for just about everything so they are ignorant to the fact of how hard one has to work in life to have things. I don’t put up with any antics; all the homeowners have my card and I tell them to call me if something is going on and they do and I rectify it immediately.
    I don’t think the neighborhood is as bad as people still think it is. It’s so desolate now; I’d be more concerned up by Central Park or the certain streets of the University District. However, we don’t leave our tools overnight in a vacant house we are renovating.
    I agree Franczyk and the Mayor doesn’t really care about the neighborhood. How many letters can we write?
    I also shop and dine at Perison’s at the Broadway Market often and will stop at the family owned taverns in the area.
    I am only one person, but I hope what good I do will be worth it in the long run. The area has hit rock bottom, it can only go up from here.

Leave a Reply to Rachel Glurich Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.