Fighting Among Ourselves Will Not Empower Our Beloved Eastside Community
by Betty Jean Grant
Betty Jean Grant
Last week, this writer had the privilege of attending the Grand Opening of a new supermarket on the Eastside of Buffalo. I was invited to attend this event by members of the Bangladeshi community, many of whom I had met before I retired from the Erie County Legislature in 2017. The new supermarket, deemed the largest one on Buffalo’s Eastside, is in the Buffalo Trade Center, a huge, former warehouse building at 141 Walden Ave.
Some people have criticized me for attending the grand opening or for even shopping at that supermarket. Honestly, I cannot understand why anyone would have a problem with anyone who would take their money and invest it in a part of the city that has been neglected by the business, political and philanthropic communities of Buffalo. I am wondering how this writer’s appearance at the opening of a food store in an area that, for decades, has been designated as a food desert, can be seen as a negative action?
Up until a few years ago, Tops Supermarket on Jefferson Ave was the only supermarket on our side of the city. Now, with the mainly Bangla community opening a large grocery store on Bailey Ave, two on Fillmore and another on Walden Ave at Bailey, the “not so nice” designation of the eastside of Buffalo being a food desert should be put to rest.
The warehouse where the supermarket is located has been vacant and unused for years. With new tenants and a new use for all that space, it is hoped that this building and others like it will be successful and find their way back on the city tax rolls. This could ensure the city gets itself back on its much-needed, positive, financial footing. We, as consumers, can do our part by patronizing those new as well as older businesses located in our community. That way, we can start the effort to rebuild our commercial districts by opening new businesses ourselves or by supporting others who do.
The key word is support, as it relates to building up or bringing back wealth and vitality. This was evident when hard working Eastside residents walked to Jefferson Ave, Broadway Market and the Central Park Plaza, to shop at IDS, Sattlers, Norbans, Twin Fair, and other neighborhood stores. We did not boycott those stores because they were not owned by us. We shopped at them because they were located, for our convenience, right in the neighborhoods where we lived.
There are many more vacant buildings struggling- to- survive on commercial strips such as Jefferson, Broadway, Clinton, Broadway, Genesee and East Ferry St. Let us learn about organizing and recruiting potential owners and investors, while we practice Kwanzaa’s Principles of Unity and Self Determination. As we strive to work hard to improve the quality of life for all who call the Eastside of Buffalo home, let us remember what Baba Kamau R. E. Fields always reminds us: “ Working together works!”