Buffalo gardener brings Japan to West Side

By Sean Brock and Ally Rotundo
Bengal News West Reporters

            To the average person, the work done at the Japanese Garden of Delaware Park consists of raking, planting, and weeding. For Abi Echevarria the work means so much more.

             Echevarria, senior zone gardener of the Japanese Garden, has worked at the Olmsted Parks Conservancy for nearly a decade. He has even spent an extensive amount of time in Japan learning the proper ways to care for and maintain the gardens.

              “For me it’s just another day, it’s all a part of the job description,” said Echevarria.

Echevarria on his role with the Japanese Garden:

A normal day for Echevarria begins early in the morning, walking the garden, looking for trash and debris, and will lead into the care of the plants, trees and soil that take up the majority of his day.

“You’re really doing similar things most days. You have to have a passion for this. It’s something I take pride in,” said Echevarria.

The Japanese Garden at Delaware Park are a distinctive piece of Japanese culture that have become a symbol of friendship between Buffalo and its sister city in Japan.

            The friendship between Buffalo and the city of Kanazawa began nearly 50 years ago in 1962, the bond became stronger when Kanazawa planned to build a Japanese Garden for Buffalo in the early 1970s as a gift to show a  lasting bond to Buffalo.

Completed in 1974, the garden is modeled after one of the most popular gardens in Japan, Kenrokuen Garden. 

During the late 1980s to early 1990s the gardens were neglected by the City of Buffalo, becoming known as place for trash and debris.

“It wasn’t that long ago that the parks were in a bad place,” said Echevarria. “People in Buffalo forgot what the gardens were really about for a while.”

In 1994 the Japanese Garden group along with then Mayor Anthony Masiello, submitted a grant proposal to redesign the garden’s landscape.

As the garden continued to improve over the next decade, care for the park was turned over to the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy in 2004.

During this time the conservancy put into place new methods of maintenance. Focusing on creating a stronger relationship with its sister city, the gardens began sending workers to Kanazawa for proper training to make strong improvements to the landscape of the gardens.

When the Olmsted Parks Conservancy asked Echevarria to be one of the first to travel to Japan, it was an easy choice. 

            “When the friends of the Japanese Garden offered a trip to Japan for us to get cross trained with the original landscapers, I was honored,” said Echevarria. “On that trip I really began to understand the importance these gardens have around the world, the planning and effort that is put into each one.”

While on his trip, Echevarria met with many of the leaders in the field.

“I learned from the original creators of the garden and it put it into more of a perspective. I could see their long term vision for the garden,” Echevarria said.

The creators taught Echevarria many things that he now uses in his garden.

“When I went to Japan they told me that their landscapers can’t touch any hand tools for their first five years,” said Echevarria. “We don’t go to that extreme, but we make sure our workers have a good grasp of what they are doing before they get hands on in the garden.”

Echevarria said that he has regular contact with the gardeners  in Japan through email and phone conversations.

“I stay in contact with the friends of the Japanese Garden and they have talked about sending me back eventually. They taught me to always be looking to improve the gardens, to always keep working,” said Echevarria.

Echevarria said that his trips to Japan have improved his quality of work.  

  “This is my playground," Echevarris said. "To be able to do what I love and do it at higher level because of my experiences in Japan is a great feeling.”

West Side plays host to sweet piano sounds

By Jeff Pawlak and Brittney Singletary
Bengal News West Reporters

Not only will May bring sunshine and warmer weather back to the West Side, it will also bring two new colorful pianos for the public to enjoy.

For the second year, local musician and singer Mark Weber is breathing new life into a number of worn down pianos to put out on display in select spots of the West Side and other locations in Buffalo. These pianos are more than just eye candy—they’re fully functional instruments that anyone can play.

Pianos like this one will grace the West Side soon.

This year, he’s readying seven to set up, one of which will be outside the Mansion on Delaware, and another outside the Brisbane Building.

There could be even more than that, Weber said, depending on how much money he receives in donations in the coming weeks.

“It was a lot of work to make it happen, I wasn't sure if I'd do it again in 2014, but enough people are asking for it to happen again, and that encourages me to do it,” said Weber. “I'd estimate the pianos were seen by well over 200,000 people last summer. One of the pianos, on Grant Street, was played by a man who regularly performs at Carnegie Hall in New York City. A lot of little kids also liked trying out their skills on the pianos. I was told that sometimes the pianos would be used non-stop by various people for four hours straight.”

Jeannene  Petri, one of the owners of the Westside Stories used bookstore on Grant Street, was as enthusiastic as anyone about the piano that sat outside her shop last summer before Weber brought it indoors for the winter.

“It was a really nice fixture in the neighborhood,” said Petri. “It’s the same as all of the public art displays—the murals, and as people fix up their store fronts, it adds to the general sense that this is a community that is vibrant, and it’s a community that is cohesive, and that invites people to come and experience not just their house, but their neighborhood.”

Jeannene Petri, on having a public piano outside her bookstore:

Weber gets these pianos from anyone willing to donate them, and as an independent singer and songwriter, he knows more than enough people who own one.

“Everybody and their brother either has or knows someone who has an old upright piano they want to get rid of,” said Weber. “I think I could literally collect 100 pianos in one month's time from people around Buffalo who would be more than happy to give me their pianos just to get those 500-pound heavy beasts out of their house.”

Acquiring the pianos is the easy part. Weber also refinishes, paints and retunes the pianos. Then there’s the issue of protecting them from the weather, which Weber learned the hard way after two pianos were ruined by rain last year. This year, Weber plans to place most of the pianos underneath roofs and awnings, while those that are more exposed will have attendants to cover them as needed.

Moisture can be a problem for more than just the outside of the pianos.

“I also buy dehumidifiers to stick in the piano to suck up the moisture, and then replace as needed,” said Weber. “I go to the laundry/closet section of Super Wal-Mart and buy these small boxes that can be placed in the pianos to absorb excess moisture. They help because pianos and high humidity don't get along, so anything to reduce the humidity helps.”

One person who truly appreciates Weber’s hard work is Geno Principe, the owner of the Mansion on Delaware, where one of this year’s pianos will be located.

“Mark called me, and it sounded like fun,” said Principe. “It’ll be fun to have it in front of the mansion and fun for people to play it.”

Of course, no one is more excited by this year’s set of pianos than Weber, himself.
“My goal is to help change people's perceptions that Buffalo is old, worn out, ugly and ‘nothing good ever happens here’,” said Weber. 
“If old pianos can be loved thanks to paint and placement in unexpected places, Buffalo, too, can be loved as more and more creative types bring their fresh vision and ideas to the area, transforming it for the better."