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Dear Steve Russel, Jersey Street Resident

From all of us who worked to “Save the Livery,” you are welcome.

Many people pay thousands of dollars and travel tens of thousands of miles to be similarly “awakened” to the simple pleasures of life that you yourself are just now discovering (“Save Me from the Livery,” Letters to AV, Artvoice v7n29). Enhancing and protecting the beauty, serenity, and quality of the few precious days we all share on earth was a primary motivation in this fight. As you will undoubtedly learn as you mature, most things worthwhile in life are earned at a personal expense. As you yourself admit, you are “young” and unfamiliar with our city—most especially, it seems, the war that has been fought for decades to protect the other “old” buildings of which you seem to think there is an over abundance in Buffalo. If you like what has survived, you would have loved what has been lost. Every loss of a building to another vacant lot is a rent in the fabric of our cities rich historic streetscapes. Every scofflaw who goes unprosecuted is a discouragement for others to follow the laws of our city, or to act as responsible neighbors.

This fight, however, was never about “preserving” an old building…or “activists” imposing their will on an unwitting community. Had you not contemptuously dismissed that “person with the clipboard” you might have learned the complexities of this issue. This fight was about your neighbors agreeing to holding a dangerous negligent property owner responsible for his actions, holding the city accountable for its dereliction, and protecting our community. Had you slowed your hectic daily pace a step or two before now, you would have recognized those annoying clipboard brandishing “activists” as your neighbors, like Doug, or Joe, who live directly across the street from you.

As for your inconvenience, no, “five or 10 minutes” does not seem like a significant amount of time for us to “push a tear out” for your pain and suffering—especially to the dozens of your neighbors who spent hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars, and the better part of a month fighting to protect our neighborhood (at the expense of our own life pursuits and leisure) so that self-concerned individuals like yourself could sit on your porch and enjoy our peaceful and strikingly beautiful neighborhood.

You are correct that the one neighbor who adamantly opposed our actions is not poor. You might, in fact be referring to an attorney for a powerful firm, that among other things, is said to litigate on behalf of corporations against communities and individuals. He too, had one, and only one concern—tear down the Livery, tear it down in haste, without thoughtful civic discussion, without a thought to the future consequences, and regardless of the danger, and cost to his neighbors, and our community.

It is interesting that you demand “your” street back, when few of your neighbors know who you are? Our community association meets regularly and all are welcome—especially those with diverse opinions of how to improve the strength and safety of our community. Speaking of which, this “activist” has to sign off shortly. The vacant lot on York Street that our association bought back from an out-of-state flipper, and that we now have to clean and maintain at our own expense (including expensive soil remediation), needs to be mowed and maintained. We do this so that your other neighbors have a neighborhood that they too can enjoy.

Was it ignorance, contempt, hubris, or simply your youth that led you to paint us wrongly as a group of alien “activists” that descended from a mysterious, far-off location?

Perhaps it is lamentable that you are forced to sacrifice “five or 10 minutes” of your precious day, walking in the beauty that is a Buffalo summer, on our tree-lined historic neighborhood streets—merely to save us all from another disgusting, dangerous vacant lot? Perhaps if you stopped frantically text messaging on your way to and from your car, you might get to meet and know your neighbors, many of whom are often out gardening or maintaining their homes, not watching Deal or No Deal (forgive me for following your lead and painting you as a shallow, one-dimensional stereotype). You obviously know nothing of your neighbors, and that is a matter of your own doing, and your own loss. My life has been immeasurably enriched by meeting and working with these many committed individuals on this project - fine men and woman I now can count not only as neighbors but as friends.

Those you refer to as annoying “activists” are all, in fact, your neighbors—most live within a two-block radius of you, and we had the support of 98 percent of the community we spoke with, and those who took the time to contact us. You are a newcomer, “young,” and without much knowledge of our city (by your own admission), who is impatient for immediate gratification, in spite of the long-term consequence to his own community.

Talk about “mosquito-in-ear type buzz”!

Paul Morgan
SavetheLivery.com

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