Highways Kill Cities. How should Buffalo Fight Back?
Campaign for Greater Buffalo to unveil plans Saturday
The Campaign for Greater Buffalo, at its first public event since 2019, is to unveil its proposals for removing highway infrastructure from the East Side, West Side, and Downtown. It will introduce a concept called the Urban Hamlet, to be built on public land freed-up by highway removal, that would knit neighborhoods back together and to the city at large. The Urban Hamlet concept could also be used to build landmark-focused settlements around the city that reinforce transit, small neighborhood businesses, and downtown.
The presentation will take place at Eugene V. Debs Hall, 483 Peckham at Clark in Buffalo, at 11:00am on Saturday. The event is open to the vaccinated public and is free for Campaign members. The general public is asked to make a donation. Food and beverage will be served outside after the presentation, with beer provided by Flying Bison. The Debs building, a classic Buffalo shophouse consisting of a ground floor commercial space with upper floor residential, is newly restored by Buffalo planner Chris Hawley. The event will be a soft opening of sorts for Hawley’s social club.
In addition to the out-with-the-bad-in-with-the-good Urban Hamlet proposals, Campaign Executive Director Tim Tielman will also provide updates on preservation issues across the city, including the endangered Voelker’s Lanes in Black Rock, the Meidenbauer House in the Fruitbelt, the collapse of historic vacant buildings on Oak and Ellicott streets due to neglect brought on by long-standing city policies, the DL&W train shed, and sketch out a proposal for a do-it-now emergency open-air market for Broadway-Fillmore that seeks to leverage the local landmarks that are visible from Eugene Debs Hall.
