04/07/09: Buffalo’s Concrete Roses: Vacant Lots Become Urban Green Spaces

Original YNN Buffalo Air Date: 04/07/09
“It was like a junkyard in here… people just took it and throw it out,” said Rosa Gibson. She runs the Community Action Information Center on Wholers Avenue. Gibson is also helping transform vacant lots around Wholers Ave. into community green spaces to spruce up the neighborhood. The community garden uses recycled tires and shoes for planters. Gibson says the garden grows a hedge of protection for a community riddled with gun violence.
“There’s too many kids in the area, there’s top many senior citizens in the area. They don’t have time to deal with somebody selling drugs,” said Gibson. “They don’t have time to dodge a bullet. A bullet doesn’t have any eyes and this is an area that has a lot of shooting.”
Rosa Gibson isn’t alone in her crusade to go green in an effort to clean up her community. Over in the Valley, the need for green space grew out of increasing crime springing-up behind the community center nearly 15 years ago.
“If buffalo police were looking for a stolen car they came behind the center to look it was all overgrown,” said Valley Community Center Association’s Patty Overdorf.
The VCC transformed several lots around South Park and Leddy Streets for the Valley Nature Park and Habitat Trail.
“We use it for the after school program and it’s become an outdoor living classroom we have a huge science component,” said Overdorf.
Several old Buffalo school portable units now make up the Valley Community Center’s educational wing stocked with refurbished computers. Outside there are also plans to redo the patio area.