Enough, Already! Just Re-Pave The Doggone Street!
By Betty Jean Grant
Betty Jean Grant
Enough, Already! Just Re-Pave The Doggone Street! The horrific, tragic 2022 massacre of ten of Buffalo’s most precious citizens at the Tops Supermarket on Jefferson Ave. brought the attention of the world to a section of the city that few, outside of the local residents, rarely see.
But, when a NYS, homegrown terrorist and racist young man travels hundreds of miles from his community to come to a community where he would find a high number of black customers shopping at the area’s only supermarket, it was no surprise that all the world’s international media outlets would find their way to the eastside of Buffalo where the victims were so viciously slaughtered (may they rest in peace).
This writer, along with many other residents expressed how embarrassed we were about how shabby and impoverished the neighborhoods around the store looked. Some of the media’s reporters even mentioned, on air, how bad the potholes and poorly paved streets and missing curbs looked, and they asked why so many streets around the store were in the same condition as Jefferson Ave? A few of the reporters surmised that racism might have been a cause for the neglect until they found out that Buffalo has had the same mayor, who just happens to be a black man, since 2005.
So, here we are, in 2025, the third year since the terrible tragedy. Even though Tops Supermarket has com missioned and erected a monument on its grounds to honor the fallen heroes, and a com munity love/dance fest called “Friday Night Live” energizes the crowd every week during the Summer months, absolutely nothing has been done to the street except the emergency filling in of a few pot holes here and there.
Sadly, the business owners on Jefferson Ave., along with many of their customers, failed to impress upon our now departed (resigned) mayor the fact that we deserve to walk on side walks that are safe and streets that are repaved in a timely manner.
The city of Buffalo is facing a huge deficit in the tens of millions of dol lars while Erie County ended the fiscal year with a $26 million dollar surplus. It would been nice if the two county legislators, whose districts are wholly within the city, had lobbied the legislature to allocate a few dollars to repave Jefferson Ave, from the millions they approved, to buy Erie County’s taxpayers a golf course and country club in Amherst, N.Y.
If Jefferson Ave. is not repaved between East Ferry Street and Best Street this year, there will be another event on the street, next year, in addition to the weekly Friday Night dance fest and the annual Tops Market’s Remembrance Ceremony. It will be Construction Boots On The Ground, Shovels In Our Hands’ weekly protest rally on the corner of East Utica & Jef ferson Ave. until the street is repaved. More than enough, already!