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People
walk
dogs and
bike
near
Cold
Spring
Market
on Deli
on
Jefferson
Avenue
on
Tuesday,
May 17,
2022, in
Buffalo,
N.Y.
After
decades
of
neglect
and
decline,
only a
handful
of
stores
are now
along
Jefferson
Avenue.
(AP
Photo/Joshua
Bessex) |
|
Buffalo,
NY
shooting
leaves
neighborhood
without
a
grocery
store
By
PIA
SARKAR
and
NOREEN
NASIR
apnews.com
BUFFALO,
N.Y. -
Tops
Friendly
Market
was more
than a
place to
buy
groceries.
As the
only
supermarket
for
miles,
it
became a
sort of
community
hub on
Buffalo’s
East
Side —
where
you
chatted
with
neighbors
and
caught
up on
people’s
lives.
“It’s
where we
go to
buy
bread
and stay
for 15,
20
minutes
because
if you
just go
in for a
loaf of
bread,
you’re
going to
find
four or
five
people
you
know,
we’re
going to
have a
couple
of
conversations
before
you
leave,”
said
Buffalo
City
Councilman
Ulysees
O. Wingo,
who
represents
the
struggling
Black
neighborhood,
where he
grew up.
“You
just
feel
good
because
this is
your
store.”
Now
residents
are
grieving
the
deaths
of 10
Black
people
at the
hands of
an
18-year-old
white
man who
drove
three
hours to
carry
out a
racist,
livestreamed
shooting
rampage
in the
crowded
supermarket
on
Saturday.
They’re
also
grappling
with
being
targeted
in a
place
that has
been so
vital to
the
community.
Before
Tops
opened
on the
East
Side in
2003,
residents
had to
travel
to other
communities
to buy
nutritious
food or
settle
for
snacks
and
higher-priced
staples
like
milk and
eggs
from
corner
stores
and gas
stations.
The
fact
that
there
are no
other
options
lays
bare the
racial
and
economic
divide
that
existed
in
Buffalo
long
before
the
shooting,
residents
say.
“It’s
unconscionable
to think
that
Tops is
the only
supermarket
in that
neighborhood,
in my
neighborhood,”
said
retired
Buffalo
educator
Theresa
Harris-Tigg,
who knew
two of
those
killed.
Wingo
said it
was no
accident
that the
gunman
chose
the
store to
carry
out the
shooting.
“Knowing
the
density
of
African
Americans
on this
side of
the city
and
going to
that
Tops
knowing
that
this
side of
the city
is a
food
desert
was
intentional,
it was
deliberate,
and it
was
evil,”
Wingo
said.
“And we
know
that
because
he did
reconnaissance
the day
before
to
ensure
that
there
were
Black
folks
there.”
Tops
said
Sunday
that its
store
would
remain
closed
until
further
notice
but “we
are
steadfast
in our
commitment
to
serving
every
corner
of our
community.”
In the
meantime,
Tops and
others
are
working
to make
sure
residents
don’t go
without.
A
makeshift
food
bank was
set up
not far
from the
supermarket.
The
Buffalo
Community
Fridge
received
enough
monetary
donations
that it
will
distribute
some
funds to
other
local
organizations.
Tops
also
arranged
for a
bus to
shuttle
East
Side
residents
to and
from
another
of its
Buffalo
locations.
Pastor
James
Giles,
coordinator
of the
anti-violence
group
Buffalo
Peacemakers,
said he
has been
juggling
calls
offering
help
from
area
churches
and
businesses,
the
Buffalo
Bills,
competing
grocery
stores
and even
the
utility
company
after
the
shooting.
“I
want us
to be
the City
of Good
Neighbors.
And I do
hope
that we
aspire
to live
up to
that
nickname,”
Giles
said.
“But I
feel
like we
can’t
get
there
until
and
unless
we tell
the
truth
about
the
white
supremacy
and
racism
that is
already
present
in our
town.”
After
decades
of
neglect
and
decline,
only a
handful
of
stores
are
along
Jefferson
Avenue,
the East
Side’s
once-thriving
main
drag,
among
them a
Family
Dollar,
a deli,
a liquor
store
and a
couple
of
convenience
stores,
as well
as a
library
and
Black-run
businesses
like
Golden
Cup
Coffee,
Zawadi
Books
and The
Challenger
News.
Jillian
Hanesworth,
29, who
was born
and
raised
there,
said
construction
of an
expressway
contributed
to
cutting
off the
neighborhood,
with
drivers
passing
underground
without
ever
having
to see
it. At a
recent
rally,
Hanesworth
said she
asked
the
crowd
how many
needed
GPS to
get
there,
and many
of the
white
people
raised
their
hands.
“A
lot of
people
who talk
about
Buffalo
don’t
live
here,”
said
Hanesworth,
the
city’s
poet
laureate
and
director
of
leadership
development
at Open
Buffalo,
a
nonprofit
focused
on
social
justice
and
community
development.
Like
many
residents,
she
pauses
to think
when
asked
where
the
next-closest
major
grocery
is
located:
None is
within
walking
distance,
and it
takes
three
different
buses to
get to
the
Price
Rite.
Before
Tops
opened
on the
East
Side,
residents,
lawmakers
and
other
advocates
pushed
for
years
for a
supermarket
after
groceries
and
other
stores
closed
in the
neighborhood’s
Central
Park
Plaza,
Wingo
said.
Yvette
Mack,
62,
remembers
when the
streets
weren’t
so
empty.
But when
she was
around
15 or
16, she
noticed
places
going
out of
business.
“Everything
started
fading
away as
I got
older,”
she
said.
Eventually
she
moved
downtown
but came
back to
the East
Side in
2020,
happy
that a
supermarket
had
returned.
Mack
says she
shopped
at Tops
daily,
sometimes
three or
four
times,
to buy
pop,
meat and
to play
her
numbers.
She was
there
Saturday
before
the
shooting.
Now,
she’s
not sure
she can
go back
once the
store
reopens,
but
hopes
community
conversations
lead to
more
businesses
on the
East
Side.
Hanesworth
worries
that
when
Tops
does
reopen,
“it’s
not
going to
feel
like
ours
anymore.”
“And
we
fought
so long
for
something
to feel
like
ours.
And
Black
communities
across
the
country
have
been
fighting
so long
just to
feel
like
something
belongs
to us,
like
something
is safe
for us,”
she
said.
“Like we
can go
shopping,
we can
go to
church,
we can
go to
school,
we can
go to
the
movies.
And
that’s
just
continuously
being
taken
from
us.”
___
Sarkar
and
Nasir
are
members
of AP’s
Race and
Ethnicity
team. AP
writers
John
Wawrow
in
Buffalo,
New
York,
and
Tammy
Webber
in
Fenton,
Michigan,
contributed
to this
story.
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