The Tour de Neglect: a cycle ride through Buffalo's deprived East Side

The city of Buffalo has an identity problem. One half has been reborn like a phoenix from a graveyard of industrial ash – experiencing an economic and cultural resurgence that has transformed many previously barren areas into bustling centres of commerce and entertainment. Yet the other half sits in a state of utter disrepair – its streets manifest a palpable level of poverty, blind to the recovery and optimism growing across town.

“It’s a true tale of two cities,” said blogger and photographer David Torke, who created the Tour de Neglect. “You have the more prosperous and emerging West Side contrasted with the East Side, which has been neglected on all sorts of levels for decades.”

Torke uses his fixBuffalo blog to catalogue the structural devastation which plagues Buffalo’s East Side. Eight years ago, Torke decided that his blog was too detached from readers stuck in front of a computer screen – and the Tour de Neglect was born. It is now an annual event.

“I want my readers to have some kind of response to what I’m showing them,” says Torke. “I visit these places frequently to try to establish a body of work that shows what demolition by neglect looks like – the slow erosion of these cultural assets. I wanted to show readers first-hand.”

A century ago, Buffalo stood tall as the eighth-largest city in the United States, a commercial and transportation focal point between the east and the Midwest. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 facilitated this exponential growth and by 1900 Buffalo was booming as the largest grain-milling centre in the country. The end of the 20th century wreaked upon Buffalo a harsh reversal of fortune, as shipping once bustling through the Erie Canal was rerouted with the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway. Steel, grain and other industries that once lined the Buffalo River also began to move away. As Buffalo’s industrial base fell apart, the city was devastated by a mass population exodus. Buffalo’s population peaked in 1950 at 580,132. By 2013, it was estimated that the city’s population had plummeted to 258,959. Today, Buffalo is the 73rd largest metropolitan areas in the US, a shell of its once robust self.

But the city is currently experiencing a renaissance. Buffalo’s regional economic development council and New York state governor Andrew Cuomo have pledged to invest in excess of $1bn over 10 years to create a hub for clean energy research and manufacturing, and revive the economy. Ambitious projects include a $225m state-of-the-art facility for clean energy on a former brownfield site on the Buffalo River and a $50m medical innovation and commercialisation hub. Meanwhile, the city’s historic waterfront is being redeveloped. Employment is up too, with 1.2% more jobs in June 2014 than a year earlier.

Forbes named Buffalo the most affordable city in America in 2014, highlighting a cost of living 14.4% below the national average. A median family income of $63,500 and an average house price of $100,000 means home ownership is attainable for 88.5% of the population, the report said. CNBC cited its prolific arts scene as it named Buffalo the second best city to relocate to, the League of American Bicyclists said it was the sixth fastest-growing US city for cycle commuting, and NerdWallet listed it as America’s sixth greenest city.

Just a few blocks away from the cranes dotting the city skyline, though, lies a different story. Despite all the building projects, new businesses and capital inflows, the US Census Bureau this year named Buffalo the fourth poorest city in America. Of the 58,000 families in Buffalo, more than a quarter are living in poverty.

This is the context in which a small group of enthusiastic preservationists lined up on their bikes in front of the Hotel Lafayette early one Saturday morning for the Tour de Neglect.

The hotel is an example of the type of turnaround the East Side desperately needs. When it closed its doors in 2010, its future was uncertain – but changes to New York State’s tax credit programme and the buildings inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places allowed developer Rocco Termini to pour $35m (£21.5m) into renovations. The result is nothing short of striking, with the downtown building now boasting a boutique hotel, four floors of high-end rental apartments, and thriving ground floor restaurants and shops.

As the tour peddled down Broadway, the lavish spectacle of the hotel’s foyer was forgotten. We rode past block upon block of rundown housing before braking in front of St Ann’s Church, built in the late 19th century by German residents. The Royal Bavarian Art Works provided the elaborate glass featured on the inside, as well as the stained-glass flower cutout that characterises the exterior.

In 2011, the Diocese of Buffalo tried to shut the church, claiming it needed $8m-$12m in repairs, which protesters dispute. Parishioners appealed to the Vatican and the Congregation of the Clergy, which ruled that the building should remain a religious structure. The Diocese is now appealing that decision. If it wins, the church could be sold for a non-religious renovation, or simply torn down. In the meantime, the building is falling apart.

“I understand, it’s a lot of money, but we don’t need to do all the repairs immediately,” said Marty Ederer, a history professor at Buffalo State University, who holds a weekly rosary gathering and maintains the church bells. Ederer believes that stabilising the building to allow it to once again offer religious services to parishioners would cost significantly less than $8m. “We can phase the renovations over many years.”

We continued our ride down Emslie Street to the abandoned Church of the Sacred Heart. Built in 1913, the complex was purchased in 1988 by the congregation of Reverend Ronald P Kirk. A storm in December 2008 destroyed the adjacent school building, which was razed in an emergency demolition the next month (Rev Kirk and his parish still owe the city $160,000 in demolition costs). The reverend and his congregation have reportedly migrated across town to another site, leaving the old church unsecured.

The negligence has taken its toll: the slate roof is missing dozens of tiles, allowing water to ravage the plaster and much of the interior detail – although its original decadent beauty can still be glimpsed in places. The pews have been removed; a pile of red chair cushions rots in the middle of the floor; fresh graffiti covers the walls and a stream of sunlight shines through broken stained glass.

One cannot see such disorder without asking whether the cathedral would suffer the same fate if it were located on the West Side. Would the city not secure the premises? Is this church being abandoned to demolition by negligence simply because of its location on the poverty-stricken East Side?

The census numbers for the East Side are startling. The tract around the Church of the Sacred Heart was the densest in Buffalo in 1950 with 39,000 residents per square mile. It has since lost more than 89% of its population.

Erie County clerk Chris Jacobs has proposed relocating many of the city’s government and non-profit institutions from downtown to the East Side, placing them in the heart of the neighbourhoods they frequently serve. He notes that organisations such as the International Institute, Child and Family Services, American Red Cross and the United Way – all of which operate out of mansions on Buffalo’s opulent Delaware Avenue – are exempt from paying city and county property taxes because of their not-for-profit status.

“If these properties were sold just for their current assessed values, they would reap nearly $20m for the non-profits and city government,” writes Jacobs. “Additionally, these properties would go on the tax rolls, and the city and county would receive nearly $800,000 in additional property taxes each and every year moving forward.”

The tour’s third stop – the Larkin Power House – is an example of a recent preservation win after Larkinville was designated a historic district, so protecting the building from unauthorised demolition or alteration. In its current state, the Power House would make a truly gorgeous rust-belt backdrop for a post-apocalyptic film.

“We’re hoping the developers will see the light, now that they have no option to demolish it, and rehab the building instead,” said Chris Hawley, a city planner and preservationist. “Clearly the success of the Larkin District can be linked to the gradual rehabilitation of this historic building stock.”

A blueprint for future redevelopment is the former Larkin Soap Company warehouse buildings, which Howard Zemsky has transformed into a popular open public space. Food Truck Tuesdays and Live at Larkin Wednesday night concerts have proved successful weekly events in the summer. The redesigned and renovated Larkin at Exchange building is 98% leased.

“We have in the Larkin District an example that these types of neighbourhoods can succeed outside of downtown Buffalo and Elmwood Village,” he said. “So we have a formula for success here that can be exported to neighbourhoods across the city. The economic and social value that has been generated here over the past 10 years is due to the re-emergence of these historic buildings.”

As the tour cycled on, the magnificence of the Buffalo Central Terminal’s 17-storey clock tower loomed over Memorial Drive. The bravura of the art deco architecture has landed the terminal the unofficial title of “Buffalo’s best-loved building”.

Opened in 1929, the train station handled crowds of passengers during the height of Buffalo’s prosperity as part of New York Central Railroad’s mainline to Penn Station. The terminal was envisioned as the centre of a new downtown area, but the proposal went wayward when the 1929 stock market crash hit the New York Central Railroad. Passenger rail travel fell steadily with the arrival of the car and planes, and the last passenger train rolled out of the Buffalo Central Terminal in 1979. It has now been vacant for almost as long as it was in use.

From the terminal’s front entrance you can make out the top of the Key Centre’s pyramidal rooftop, located in the heart of downtown Buffalo. There is perhaps no better spot in the city to see the disparity between the East Side and the rest of town.

After a series of ill-conceived schemes by private owners, the 18-acre site was acquired in 1997 by the non-profit Central Terminal Restoration Corporation for a nominal $1. The Buffalo Central Terminal is undoubtedly a marvel, but it’s also the closest thing imaginable to a time warp for Buffalonians: the ticket booths remain vacant; the refurbished information clock kiosk casts a faint pale light on the marble floor; the passenger concourse is now nothing more than the rusted remains of a railroad track that has been waiting decades for the sound of a train whistle. It’s eerie to think of the vibrancy of the terminal’s grand foyer in the 1920s, compared with the silence and emptiness of today.

While Buffalo’s Dyngus Day celebrations and other small fundraising events take place within the complex, the building is still very much underused. Recent progress has stalled with the Restoration Corporation’s split on whether to retain it as a DIY, project-based space, or whether to develop and expand the site into a true gateway to the city. Plans in the pipeline include an expansion of a commuter light rail system (connecting the Buffalo International Airport, Walden Galleria, Buffalo Central Terminal and the downtown business core), and incorporation of a potential high-speed rail link to New York City.

If the Tour de Neglect is intended to showcase the grave implications of inattention and abandonment, it also offers a glimpse of what can grow through the resilience and ingenuity of the city’s citizens. Nowhere on the tour was this clearer than on the Wilson Street Urban Farm, a patch of harvested land located off Broadway, though it looks more like rural Oklahoma than the narrow streets of Buffalo’s East Side.

The plot was strewn with trash and debris when Mark and Janice Stevens moved to the area. “We applied to buy it, but the city rejected our idea,” said Stevens. “Eventually we talked to a reporter from the Buffalo News. She did a story about what we wanted to do and the rejection by the city. After the story was published it attracted a number of people to our front door asking, ‘How can we help?’”

David Torke was one of the first to knock on that door. Torke strategised, organised meetings within city hall and was able to secure a lease on behalf of the Stevens. “I knew they couldn’t buy the land at the time, but I knew they could lease it, so we put together a land-leasing agreement that allowed them to lease the property for a dollar a year for five years,” said Torke.

Over the past six years the plot has been transformed into a verdant oasis of fruit and vegetables – a quiet beacon of optimism on the East Side. It has even become a kind of tourist destination. “We’ve had people from a lot of different countries,” says Stevens. “It’s crazy the people who show up at our door.”

The final stop on the tour is Trinity Baptist Church on Spruce Street. Established in 1869, the church fell out of use eight years ago – the red brick structure abandoned to the elements. It soon becomes clear that Trinity Baptist is part of a pattern on the city’s East Side: the heritage building remains unsecured, allowing people off the street (like us) to walk straight in. Though the pews are still intact, bibles and ceiling debris litter the ground.

It is a textbook example of demolition by neglect – an unsettling trend that if left unopposed, could wash away the many historic cultural assets scattered through this part of Buffalo.

Torke, who moved to the East Side 20 years ago and has been a constant activist for its renewal, has seen the story play out in a continuous loop of degeneration and futility. “These heritage assets have to be mothballed,” he says. “We have to spend the time and resources to do that.”

While Buffalo is unquestionably experiencing an economic and cultural resurgence, it remains one of the poorest cities in the country. It was also ranked the sixth most segregated urban area in the US in 2011. Researchers found that the only two outer-ring suburbs with African-American populations of above 3.7% were home to prisons.

“Buffalo is still a very poor city. When I started doing this we were the second poorest city in the country after Detroit,” said Torke. “There are 71 census tracts here in which more than 50% of the residents are living below the poverty line. Buffalo is an entitlement city where we don’t generate enough tax revenue to support city services. We rely on the state and the federal government to provide them.”

For all the sombre statistics, Torke believes the future of Buffalo lies on the East Side: “It is the city’s largest section geographically, and the least understood.”

But one wonders whether some of the stops visited on this year’s tour will still be around next year.

David Torke is holding his next Tour De Neglect on Saturday 18 October 2014