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Permalink Reply by Shawn on March 14, 2009 at 11:33pm

That is a great question Margy. I too feel that Thurston Road is slipping down hill pretty quickly. The past year we have seen not one, but 2 Cricket stores open and close leaving behind their horrible bright green facades. The little corner store at Thurston and Anthony Street installed 4 mercury vapor lights just above the doors and windows that are inappropriate for that type of installation. One bright spot is the addition of Holleys at Thurston and Brooks. But lets hope they can take down or restore the old signage, and spruce up the exterior as well.

I was excited to read about the "Street Manager" (NEIGHBORHOODS: The man (or woman) on the street, City Newspaper Feb...) that was hired to help assist business owners on Genesee and Thurston Road, until I read that they have been on the job for the past year. Where are they? Who are they? Does the community know them? When do they work? Where do they work from, and how do we contact them? Great idea, but poorly executed in my thought.

It seems that the 19th Ward suffers from a lack of communication, and cohesion. We have lots of great things going on, but no one seems to know about them. (Hence why I started Location19. My attempt to have one location to find everything 19th Ward.) I feel that maybe some form of consolidation and or sharing of people, departments, organizations could help alleviate and coordinate some of the redundancies, and efforts by folks to accomplish the same task from different means. I'm not sure how to go about this, or even if people understand the problem, let alone attempt to do something about it. Maybe there needs to be a 19th Ward Summit. A gathering of those interested, engaged and familiar with 19th Ward political, economic and social organizing. An organized meeting of the minds, so to speak. We have nothing to lose, that for sure. We're already losing our streets, it can't hurt to try!
-Shawn

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Permalink Reply by Mark Sweetland on March 15, 2009 at 12:15am

that is what the NSC is for, Neighborhood Service Center. The street manager works out of the Neighborhood Economic Development office, Unity Place, and his name is John DeMott for Genesee St. and someone else for Thurston Rd. You can contact the NSC at 428-7630 to get answers to any of these questions.

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Permalink Reply by Shawn on March 15, 2009 at 11:31am

Thanks Mark :) I figure most of us know these things. I was using the Street Manager as an example of something that is a HUGE asset to the 19th Ward, but has little visibility. Maybe the 19th ward needs a director, or a coordinator of communications. There are a ton of great things happening, and either folks don't know about them, or in my ignorance, don't care about them. Just things for discussion. ;)
-Shawn

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Permalink Reply by Margy Meath on March 15, 2009 at 4:26pm

yep - communuication, connecting various initiatives and follow through are key issues and opportunities for improvement. I like the summit idea - the suggestion has come up before! One of the main problems I think that we have is lack of follow through and lack of ongoing attention to significant issues.
Thurston is a mess. As far as I can see it gets worse every year. "businesses" come and go, some using tax payer dollars to help them. Julius was a great idea (a cafe serving healthy foods, etc, etc) and it turned into a bar/takeout place without enough support to survive. Compare it to Boulder which seems to be thriving and attracting customers from near and far! Why did Julius die and why does Boulder thrive?? I think part of the answer is attention from the city in terms of improvements, police presence, litter, crime, etc. I've seen more police at Boulder than i have EVER seen in any one place on Thurston (except when there has been a crime!). I've seen more neighborhood gatherings at Boulder in the past 4 months than I've seen on Thurston in my 20 + years of living here. Thurston is just about the 'center' of the 19th ward yet it's the place that most 19th ward residents avoid. Residents have been asked again and again to get their 'feet on the street' but walking on Thurston is dangerous (i.e. broken glass on the sidewalks, occassional harrassment from a few people) and depressing (it's not a nice place visually given the amount of litter, rundown buildings, etc). Other areas of Rochester manage to keep looking relatively clean - what is it about Thurston that attracts trash and sends a message that it's OK to dump your litter anywhere you want??

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Permalink Reply by Shawn on March 15, 2009 at 11:22pm

I give the owner of The Julius Cafe a lot of credit. I was familiar with the cafe before it opened. The man that opened it was a regular at Mt Hope Starbucks, and was constantly trying to get me to come work for him, or help him open the cafe. He wanted it to look and feel like a Starbucks. I think where he failed is with consistency. The vision for the place changed from a coffeehouse for kids to get off the street and have a safe place to be. Then a full service cafe, and then to a bar and takeout place. When he first asked me to help him out I was interested, and toyed with the idea for a while, but was turned off when I found out that he was going to have a religious undertone. Not my thing.

One of the things that is different about Thurston and many other streets, is it's every growing (it seems) number of bars. I am not anti-bar that's for sure, having a husband that is a bartender. But as always, it comes down to responsibility. Many of the bar owners on Thurston Road don't really give a shit what happens on the street when the sun is up, or after their patrons leave after 2am. They probably do not own the buildings they occupy, and the property owner only cares about the check that comes at he beginning of the month. An endless cycle of neglect ensues, buildings deteriorate to a point that they are useless and then are abandoned. The city gets stuck with them for taxes, and then has to tear them down because they can't sell them. All in all it comes down... to we need help!

Sorry if I'm ranting, just letting off some of the winter blahs! LOL
-Shawn

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Permalink Reply by Shawn on March 15, 2009 at 11:39am

The first couple of sentences in today's (Sunday March 15th) D&C article about Jefferson Ave explains it all.

"The seed for a plan to revitalize Jefferson Avenue in southwest Rochester was planted in a barbershop more than a year ago.

That's when barber and Monroe County Legislator Willie Lightfoot Jr. met with U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter to discuss his hope that the neighborhood — which a study named the fourth in the country for concentrated poverty — could climb back from more than three decades of decline.'

It seems as if it takes connections.
-Shawn

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