Vacant Homes on the street I grew up on...

[palaszewskic]

Your video disgusts me! Only because its the truth and has happened all over Buffalo, I can relate to you, my Dad had a bar at Sycamore and Miller, well its an empty lot now, I feel like part of my life was taken away as well. I also lived on the West Side, Prospect and Hampshire, been down there laetly, its bad and its sad..Used to be all (mostly) Itialian, corner stores, butcher shop, neigborhood resturants, clean side walks,manicured lawns,popcorn man (anyone remember him)?

[frankiebones01]

When industry died along the Great Lakes, it took much of Detroit & Buffalo with it. It's not a black or white thing. Most people moved south and west and I mean with Buffalo, who wants to live in a city which gets pulverized by snow year after year? It's not fun.

[ilovfigurs8ing]

why is it abandoned ?

[tylersilverchoice]

Damn I guess detroit is the only place this is happening.  America is crumbling.

[katiekat724]

It horrible to see what happen to your street. But, I see the same thing happening in Cheektowaga where I grew up. It's creeping folks.  It's not black or white, it's poverty and lazyness. It's "I don't care " attitude. It will destroy our nieghborhoods like it has in Buffalo. It's coming. I see it.

[hunterkiller002]

haha my moms still lives on ashley street...her house in in this vid (next to an abandoned house of course) most of these homes are over 200 years old maybe even 300...eh what ya gonna do? sux

[kwazymee]

it is a shame what happened to the neighborhood. i grew up there also on ashley st

[emailbryan]

I have driven through Buffalo on my way to the NY / CANADA Border. Has anyone seen the Canadian side of Niagra Falls? So what are the Canadians doing that the Americans are missing? Maybe this is a chance for a rebirth?

[zunk11]

What happens is the city becomes negroided.

No one admits it, but everyone knows it's true. It's true in every city in the US.- you can't provide one example otherwise, anywhere.

[narcolepsy2006]

You know, there's this guy named James Howard Kunstler who believes that smaller post-industrial cities like this, will be re-populated when we run out of cheap oil because larger cities are leveraged to cheap oil. It'd be great if this area was re-populated.

[ReviewCam]

I agrew up on the upper west side of Buffalo. Beautiful Italian American working class neighborhood; beautiful backyards.

MThe house I grew up in was torched. Burned to the ground. Forever gone:(

What happened to the west side????

[randallsellis]

Excellent video. Thank you for posting it. Best.

[Al3zza]

fucking Niggers ruined your city, I used to live in NY but moved here to WNY 2 yrs ago, and I would have fucked them up, if they did that to my town.

[narcolepsy2006]

You'll have to forgive my ignorance, but what exactly happened here? Is it really this bad in these cities? I've never seen poverty like that.

[jimkinner]

Buffalo was an industrial port city. It became an important commercial port soon after the completion of the Erie canal. Grain and Steel were the primary industries. When the St Lawrence seaway opened in the late 50's the area began to decline. by the mid 60's most of the grain mills were gone. By the mid 80's, the steel industry had left. Gov'nt gave aid, but this attracted parasitic types, and many of those who had ambition left. Areas like this one were overrun by uncivilized people.

[EthylMerts]

@narcolepsy2006 This is not poverty. This is depopulation. Elsewhere I posted the statistics. It's not that poor people are huddling inside these houses. They are all EMPTY!. In 1950 Buffalo was pop. 532,000. Today it's just over 200,000. There is no one to live in these houses and keep them up.

[seminolz1]

I grew up on Liddell and Wick st.....this was an amazing neighborhood...the people and families and friends made there are made forever!!!!! Whenever you talk about "Hey I seen someone from the neighborhood" they know exactly what you are talking about...its too bad that the scumbags and dirtballs and low lifes came in there and trashed it...sickening, and heartbreaking...once the "Czarny's"(for my polish people) came it was over...

"GET OFF MY LAWN"!!!!!!!

[bigmomma1947]

During the late 60's and 70's Broadway and Fillmore was mainly the Polish community. Remember the old Sattler's store? The Broadway Market.

[eze14213]

ohh yeah get out while you still can you make it sound like this is all over its not us white people that make our city look like this keep in mind

[MondoBeno]

Buffalo, Rochester, Pittsburg, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City; they all began to suffer when industry collapsed. The factory jobs which that used to provide employment are gone.

The rust belt is no longer rusting. It's been sold for scrap.

[JDSabre]

Who used to live in these areas back in the 70's and 80's?

....and who lives there now?

Set... Match.... Point.

[bigmomma1947]

Mostly Polish people. I know I used to shop at the Broadway market. It is really run down now due to the economy, big companies pulling out, recession, like Niagara Falls.

[stillrob420]

hey im from detroit! o ya it is alot worse here..nevermind sry

[drummer2fear]

this is not love canal. this is the east side of buffalo. as a city and bank property contractor i work over there on homes like that daily. i see the severe poverty everyday. but i also see a comunity that has givin up on there area. there is no pride in there naiborhood. it overruled by crime and people who dont care what thay do or happens. i love walking into one of those propertys and finding crack bags human ficies smeared evrywhere dead starved pets. thats the peoples doing. not gov.!!

[viketaker]

you should see detroit

[FlyinRyans35]

THIS IS THE LOVE CANAL! LOOK IT UP.

[redrooster5]

second poorest city in the country.

[BuffaloBills2k8]

the repair of the houses cost more than the homes are worth. that's why they are abandoned when people leave. if the people that left were classless they would have torched the homes to collect the insurance money. buffalo died when the steel plant closed years ago. save yourselves and leave buffalo now!

[geezer1946]

Post all the comments you like, if they got their lazy asses out there to work and quit soakin' up my tax money maybe there could be a turnaround (yeh, Right) It's headin' to the Burbs, time to install a 15' high electric fence at the city line.

[Beatpoet7371]

Woah ... hold the phone! The company responsible for the toxic dumping bought these homes and they cannot be sold. It was not the laziness of the people in the homes that vacated, but the dirty deeds of the people who poisoned them. Who's tax $ cleaned up that FEDERAL mess? Everyone's!

[Beatpoet7371]

I posted this on the wrong page because I had two tabs open -- it supposed to post on the Love Canal page (sorry).

[zzsql]

I wonder what other way than the American way could have prevented such a situation depicted here.

What are the options?

Communism? Probably not

Fascism? Maybe.

Capitalism? No, that's what got us into our predicament.

What other concepts are out there?

What are the solutions?

[graffboy384]

there are no solutions for buffalo, every1 stoped tryin years ago

[kathrynfilms]

I went there every weekend from 1956 on to shop at the Broadway Market with my parents,I saw blacks move in and would INNOCENTLY ask, "Why is is not pretty anymore?" It WAS nothing but attitude that changed that area. A message of despair rather than the message of hope was/is passed along. Wrong thinking...No more hope. No more homes. It IS true. Where there is a will...there is a way! No will...no way. Up to you...you're the control!

[GaryBoy54]

Because someone calls the shots the way they are-they should not be called racist.

Thats the problem with society-dont like a view? Racist.

But fact is that when white flight took hold (many of these were great polish neighborhoods)the next that came in-destroyed the place.

Leave decent houses to pigs and you get a pig pen- no respect.

Drugs-alcohol- unemployment-breakdown of family units and pride.

Not tough enough to try and work hard-stick it out.

We all can agree-its a damn shame.

[lelee75]

What happened ? People with no work ethic or pride moved in the area. Women having babies before they can afford them , so then it drains the economy. People moving in the area that are too lazy to work and want to take the easy route has destroyed the hard work of others. No excuse for this - just cause your poor doesn't mean you have to live like a pig.

[hilby]

Stop blaming the single mothers. It took two you know.

[parakeets4me69]

Sad to see houses were generations of hard working people lived and worked end up looking like this! Now, 30-40 plus years ago these were strong vital neighborhoods. So what happened? Old fashioned white flight to the suburbs. And the those that moved in have a lot to answer for. They were left decent housing. Sure it wasn't fancy, but it certainly didn't look like this! The houses were well cared for and clean. Women out on a Saturday morning scrubbing the steps and sidewalks. That's long gone.

[AKJackie]

Where did everyone go?

[MilesIgnatius]

Economic dislocation- jobs left - and those who were able to followed [regardless of race, manix.] Those who bravely stayed hung on as long as they could until the forces of decay took over.

[PRIMANOCTE]

WHAT HAPPENED TO EVERYBODY?

[manixthewolf]

black infestation

[abangthebeat]

I'm kinda surprised to see a racist have a MC 900 Foot Jesus video in his favorites.