Burmese refugees see no change from summit

By Autumn Evans, Olive Porter and Melissa Zimmermann
Bengal News West Reporters
                 When Myo Thant began protesting his government at age 24, he never expected where it would lead him. He couldn’t have known he would become a target in his own land, forced into hiding in a neighboring country, eventually ending up separated from his home and family on a different continent.

     As a political refugee from Myanmar, formerly Burma, however, Thant  is far from the only one of his countrymen to go through that process. He and others now living or working on the West Side are watching with interest the conference that is casting international attention in Myanmar and its politics.

     Myanmar will host a major diplomatic event next month in its capital of Naypyidaw.  The 25th Summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a conference to be attended by leaders of East Asian countries, as well as Western leaders, including United States President Barack Obama. The conference will begin on Nov. 9 and last through Nov. 11. 

     Once known for its oppressive military regime and human rights violations, the government in Myanmar underwent reform in 2011 under President Thein Sein. Since then, it has released some of its political prisoners and enacted laws to protect human rights.

     The effect those reforms have had on the international community is evident in Myanmar’s successful bid to play host to ASEAN this year. The country attempted to do the same in 2006, when pressure from the United States and European Union caused the country to surrender the position to the Philippines.

     However, some Burmese refugees on the West Side, including Thant, now 42, argue that politics in Myanmar haven’t really changed at all, calling the summit  a way for Myanmar to improve its relationship with the West without making any lasting political changes.

     “It’s a political game, to make people confused,” he said. “In reality, they’re squeezing opposition’s neck and killing innocent people.”

Myo Thant, on leaving his homeland, the former Burma:

  
     The politics  Thant is familiar with are the ones he began protesting as a student activist alongside Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in 1995. Though Aung San Suu Kyi recently was released released from house arrest, she was still a target for Myanmar’s military junta. Through his association with her,  Thant also became a target. He stayed in a compound with Aung San Suu Kyi for two years, until the situation became too dangerous to continue.

     “I couldn’t go back home, I couldn’t go back to the compound, so I had two options. You have to go to jail or you have to leave the country,” he said. 
      Fearing the physical and psychological torture political dissidents might face in prison, he decided to leave.

     Thant spent the next two years hiding in Thailand illegally. When the Thai government reopened its Burmese refugee camp in 1999, he registered there and applied to go to Australia. When he was denied, he decided to try again in February, this time applying for passage to the United States. In late October, he stepped off an airplane and into Buffalo, where has lived   for 15 years.

Since then, he’s seen many political refugees from Myanmar resettle in Buffalo.

       So has Barrett Gordon, co-owner of the WASHProject, a community group at Massachusetts Avenue and 18th Street serving Buffalo’s refugees.  Because his co-owner, Zaw Win, is a political refugee from Myanmar, one of the groups served there is the Burmese.

       “They all have different stories,” Gordon said.   “A lot of them are from war-torn countries, dictatorships, certainly coming from difficult situations.”

Among those refugees is Soe Maung, 28, who arrived in the United States about nine years ago. Now, he runs Kyen Sein Hein, a Burmese restaurant in the West Side Bazaar. 

       Maung was still in school when his family was forced to leave Myanmar because of his parents’ political affiliations. Though the new government is said to be less restrictive, he doesn’t think there has been much change.

       “Burma is hurt. They have released some political prisoners, but they still arrest more,” Maung said. “What I see for my country, they just wore a military uniform, that is all that’s changed. We won’t know if they have changed until (the) 2015 election.”

       Maung hasn’t been back to his homeland, but he said he would like to go back, if the government became truly democratic.

       Thant, on the other hand, has been back to Myanmar. Under the new government, he applied for a Visa last year and was accepted. He said he felt safe while he was there, but he avoided talking about politics there. He also said he felt there had been little actual change in Myanmar’s government, because the military holds most of the power. He said a freelance journalist, a friend of his, was arrested just weeks ago for photographing a fight between military and ethnic minorities.
       “The army has so much power still,” he said. “The old regime still exists.” 

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."

Demand prompts rise in ethnic food options

By Angelica Rodriguez and Brandon Waz
Bengal News West Reporters 
        The retail strip of the West Side known as Grant Street has seen a great deal of change over the past couple of decades.  With the introduction of African and southeast Asian refugees to the area there  has come a change in the businesses – particularly in its food markets and restaurants.

Win Shwe puts some spice into Burmese chicken soup

 
        Take a walk down from the campus of SUNY Buffalo State, and as the rows of houses and community centers give way to business, the number of ethnic food and clothing stores becomes apparent.  
        “It’s amazing, to see how diverse it all is,” Grace Guercio, part of the family who owns Guercio and Sons, Inc., a grocery store that has stood at 250 Grant St. since 1961.
        She has been involved with the business for 10  years, and she remembers the neighborhood as being mostly Italian before she joined the store. Now, she said, the shopkeepers see everyone from Somalis to Muslims come to buy their wares.
        As a result, Guercio’s still has a heavy Italian influence, but among the jars of olives and bags of pasta one can find rice of every variety, from long-grain white to sushi and purple sticky rice. There are also coffees from Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Sumatra (an island in Indonesia) as well as the United States, Italy and Colombia. Gluten-free varieties are even available. 
        Guercio said the store’s stock is based on demand and what it can order from its  markets, which are largely based in bigger cities like New York; however, Guercio and Sons does carry plenty of specialty items, and the store is open to requests from customers.  
        “Basically, whatever you’re looking for, that you can’t find in other stores like Wegmans or Tops, we’ll try to get for you,” she said.
        Other stores like Vineeta International Foods, at 98 Grant St., just about five blocks south of Guercio and Sons, cater to specific ethnic crowds. The shelves hold different types of flours, rice and spices specific to the foods those from Southeast Asia know and love.
        Another spot on Grant Street known for its cultural flair is the West Side Bazaar at 25 Grant St., a part of the Westminster Economic Development Initiative. The brightly-lit storefront, which started in 2009, is home to a number of clothing spots and restaurants providing Burmese, Ethiopian, Laotion, Peruvian and Thai cuisine.
        WEDI’s executive director, Benjamin Bissell, said the point of the Bazaar is to help those in the community essentially create their own market based on what their needs are.
        “We don’t directly encourage people to create certain goods for the community,” he said. “We let them decide that for themselves.”
        Good business planning, he said, stipulates that you create a business plan based on the needs of the community you plan to serve, and so owners will state in their plan what the need is and how they will serve it.
         “We let the market essentially decide,” he said. “If you offer product and people have the ability to buy it, then that’ll kind of show whether they will be there selling it.”

 
        Manager Michelle Holler has been a part of the process for just three months, but she first came to the Bazaar for the food and loved it.
        “The food is a huge hit on the West Side,” she said. “It’s actually doing a lot better than the retail side right now, but hopefully that will change when summer comes.” 
        Indeed, the Bazaar is filled with the smell of spices, meat and coffee, and people of all ethnicities mill about. Holler said   the presence of restaurants that provide a taste of home for the refugees in the area also  has  fostered a sense of community for customers and vendors alike.
        She pointed out Kyen Sein Hein, a Burmese eatery owned by Soe Maung, and said: “Every single day, he has a huge following of Burmese people that come here, his family, his friends. Just to be able to come in here and speak the language and to have the sense of community is huge.”
        Those who are interested in experiencing different cultures also get their fix. Maung said scores of people from the city and suburbs come to sample the Bazaar’s offerings. 
        The West Side has proven to be a breeding ground for those of all nationalities and creeds to offer a piece of their homeland to those in the area, and the diversity is encouraging to Bissell.
         “Our (WEDI’s) goal is community and business development,” he said. “We’re here to support all businesses, and provide more healthy food options, more food options in general – just more options, and it’s great. I’m very excited to see that.”

Compost adds to fruitful West Side gardens

By Jeff Pawlak and Brittney Singletary
Bengal News West Reporters

As the weather warms up in Buffalo, so does the composting effort across the West Side. While most of America tosses away its yard waste and kitchen scraps, food markets and farmers on the West Side band together to provide compost to nourish the city’s farms and gardens.

         Composting is a means of fertilization that reuses crops and other organic foods, particularly the scraps. Since farming can be difficult in the middle of the city, the West Side’s movement to provide fertilizer through composting has become an invaluable asset to urban farmers.

         “In the past few years, more and more folks have rallied around community gardens in Buffalo, which is really exciting,” said Nicole Dionne, a prominent community gardener. “Community gardens have the potential to be such a boon to a neighborhood—they can be a gathering space, a source of food, a break from the monotony of concrete and asphalt, a way to create a healthier urban environment, and something that allows folks to practice working together toward a common goal.”

Nicole Dionne, on West Side gardens

         Dionne is one of many urban farmers who receive  compost from Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo, an organization dedicated to agricultural growth in the city. Grassroots collects its compost from a variety of sources, from produce markets to some of the West Side’s largest gardens, before parceling it out to local farmers in need of additional fertilization; particularly during Buffalo’s chilly spring season.

         Grassroots isn’t the only program spearheading the compost movement. The Lexington Cooperative Market on Elmwood Avenue assists groups that manage urban farms, such as Grassroots, as well as the Massachusetts Avenue Project and farmers from the East Side. 

Lexington provides those farmers with organic materials from some of its   own products: the tops of carrots, the outsides of cabbages, even produce or vegetables that are past their due date.

         Lexington expects to increase its  compost supply as winter finally fades from Buffalo.

         “If you were to take a look at our produce section now in comparison to two months from now, it’s going to be way different,” said Tom Vrabel, a bookkeeping clerk for Lexington. “A lot of the stuff we have right now isn’t local, just because farmers can’t do much aside from apples and things like that, so that’s definitely going to be picking up a lot in the next couple months.”

         Lexington currently provides its   urban farm projects with compost between three-to-four days a week, but Vrabel hopes that the market can expand to a seven-day-supply soon enough.

         “I think that what a lot of grocery stores do and what they’ve done traditionally is they’ll just throw it into the garbage,” said Vrabel. “I mean, that’s wasteful when there’s people down the street who want to use it and would benefit from it and know that’s it’s kind of a higher quality because a lot of it is organic.”

         The compost movement also benefits the grocers who provide it. According to Vrabel, Lexington’s dedication to separating compost from its  trash has kept its  garbage containers from filling up quicker, saving  money since it  requires less garbage pickups.

         Much of the United States can’t claim that benefit. According to a report filed by the Environmental ProtectionAgency, the country sent approximately 26 million tons (67 percent) -  of its yard waste to landfills in the year 2012 alone.

         “If you take a look at nationwide organic waste statistics, you start to see why it's great that our city is starting to be proactive about this issue,” said Dionne. “A lot of folks will start out throwing that stuff into a landfill, but as you begin to think about and understand how different resources cycle through our environment, you realize that it makes more sense to figure out a way to re-incorporate all that organic waste back into the soil, where it will help create a healthy garden.”

         According to Dionne, several gardens are working with the city government to start a yard waste composting pilot program.

         “Compost is a valuable resource, while the stuff that gets trucked off to a landfill is a burden,” said Dionne. “I would like to see zero percent of our yard waste going to the landfill.”

Internship breeds 20-year plan for parks

By Sean Brock and Ally Rotundo
Bengal News Reporters

Over 10 years ago an intern was hired by the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy to assist on a project aimed at returning the parks to their original glory. 

The intern, Brian Dold, began his career with the conservancy soon after graduating from Cornell University with a degree in Landscape Architecture, and immediately began work on a new 20-year project.

Created in 2004, the 20 Year Management and RestorationPlan has adopted a mantra of complete change. The intern, now the Associate Park Superintendent, has remained one of the Conservancy’s few constants. 

 “I was wrapping up college and was wondering what my next move would be,” said Dold. “One of

Dold

my professors at Cornell knew I was from Buffalo and thought I would be a good choice for the internship created as a master plan to restore the Olmsted Parks over time. I was happy to take the internship. To come back to Buffalo and get my legs underneath me was great.” 

During the beginning of the project the Conservancy entered into a partnership with the City of Buffalo, Erie County and the community,  making the Conservancy the official organization of the Buffalo Olmsted Park System, “overseeing its management, operations and maintenance,” according to its website. “Through the development of a 20-year Management and Restoration plan with guidance of its community-based Advisory Council, the Conservancy's experienced and professional staff is now revolutionizing the way common ground is cared for in Buffalo.”

Dold has   had a growing number of responsibilities on the 20-year plan from day one, something that he took great pride in.

 “At first there was a lot of historic research, putting together a lot of information as to how the parks were run up until 2003,” said Dold. “It was a balancing act. Figuring out a systematic approach to restoring the parks to their former glory of the Olmsted era, while realizing the needs of the parks have changed since the late 1800s.”

During Dold’s time at the park, there have been major improvements to many West Side  parks, predominately Delaware and Front.

“We’ve found that people really care about the basics, making sure the paths are smooth, the benches are in good shape, and that there are open accessible bathrooms,” said Dold.

Aside from the basics, the project has given way for massive improvements in playground areas and sports fields in Front Park and the updating of several popular buildings including the Marcy Casino building in Delaware Park.

“We meet with many organizations and clubs to get their input,” said Dold. “We base our restorations on what people in the community want on a day-to-day basis.”

The impact that the 20-year plan has had on the West Side is what keeps Dold and all who work at the conservancy motivated. 

“We have an obligation to raise the quality of life within these neighborhoods,” said Dold. “You can get kind of wrapped up in the restoration process, like we're trying to create a museum, but in following Olmsted’s original plan we look to serve the community first.” 

“Olmsted’s design was done in a way that really touches every community,” said Dold. “We’re in every community in the city, in everyone’s day to day lives.”

Although the conservancy has been successful in completing many tasks for the community, Dold and his coworkers have faced numerous difficulties in their quest to better the parks. 

Dold, on what the Olmsted Parks mean to him:

“We know what we want to do, it’s a matter of finding the resources to make the improvements,” said Dold. “We have our road map for restoring the parks. It’s mainly how quick and how well were able to fundraise to implement them.”

Dold and his coworkers are putting the final touches on the restoration of two Civil War cannons that will be displayed at Front Park later in the spring. When that projected is completed Dold has a handful of options in mind.

           “I’m always thinking about what projects we can do,” said Dold. “It’s actually very hard for me to come to Delaware Park or Front Park and enjoy it the way anyone else can. My mind is too wrapped up in the way things can be improved.

West Side street names a matter of history

By Sashana Campbell and Andrew Manzella
Bengal News West Reporters

What's in a name?

If it’s a street name on the West Side, it may consist of a rich history of trade, family legacy and geography.

Many streets were named after early landowners, family and friends or for political purposes that had  nationalistic underpinnings to them.

Porter Avenue, as an example, was named after Peter Porter, who was one of the Village of Black Rock’s founders. Anything north of Huron Street to Riverside neighborhood was considered to be the   Village of Black Rock. 

"Buffalo at that time  had a series of large country estates,” said Dana Saylor, a professional historical researcher in Buffalo. “A lot of the names are related to the estates of the people who founded the city or had a lot of money.”

According to Saylor, the Porter family, who settled on Niagara and Breckenridge Street, lived on the land where Rich Products now resides.

Fargo Avenue was named after William Fargo, who was a former mayor of Buffalo and one of the owners of Wells Fargo Bank, according to Chris Hawley, a Buffalo urban planner at City Hall.

“He owned the estate that Fargo (Avenue)  bounds, so I’m sure that when the estate was broken the street was named Fargo,” Hawley said.

A video primer on street names in Buffalo: 

According to Hawley, in the 19^th century, a lot of family-owned lots were farms that took up several blocks. Saylor said those families would break up the land and sell it off during immigration waves or population booms.

“They named them after whatever they wanted to name them for. Sometimes they would name them after sons or daughters, good friends or business partners,” Hawley said.

One example is Breckenridge Street, which was named for one of Porter’s in-laws from Kentucky.

In an article published in The Courier Express newspaper, changes to street names started occurring in 1826 around Buffalo when highway commissioners decided to wipe out unwieldy names.

Saylor said Niagara Street used to be called Shimmelpenninck Avenue and was changed in the early 19th century.

A number of streets on the West Side are also named after states, like Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Virginia and Connecticut.

Hawley said naming city streets after states is an urban tradition across the United States.

“Probably every early 19^th century city has it,” Hawley said. “We were a very early republic at the time so reinforcing our patriotism and sense of nationhood was very important in place names throughout the country.”

Another reason was the early surveyors of Buffalo, who were responsible for a lot of modern street names throughout the city, were workers from the State of New York.  This is why so many other state names were used.

“Often, when streets were officially named, the reason was not recorded in the minutes of the common council,” Hawley said.  “Many streets were named, and now it’s a complete mystery as to why.”