A killer put their ZIP code in the spotlight. But in the 14208, 'All we see is hope'

Open Buffalo, a civic organization aimed at advancing racial, economic and ecological goals, is across the street at 1327 Jefferson Ave.

The Exchange at Beverly Gray, a business development center that helps residents open their own businesses, is at 334 E. Utica St., at the corner of Jefferson Avenue.

Northwest Bank. Urban Family Practice. M&T Bank. Belmont Financial Education Center. All are on Jefferson Avenue.

It is not a coincidence.

“The location of all of these institutions helps to reinforce this street as the spine, the heart, the soul of Black Buffalo,” said Henry Louis Taylor, director of the Center for Urban Studies at the University at Buffalo and a professor of urban and regional planning at the school.

Last weekend, a racist from the Southern Tier put the street, the community and its 14208 ZIP code in the international spotlight when authorities say he chose it for a murderous rampage specifically because it is home to so many Black people.

But the people who live and work there and the business and institutions that serve the community say there is much more to their neighborhood than a demographic designation, and they aim to see to it that it continues to come back from years of neglect brought on by politics, policies and poverty.

“It’s a vibrant part of this neighborhood and this community, so we’re trying to rebuild,” said Larry Stittz, owner of Golden Cup Coffee on Jefferson Avenue, about a block from the Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue where a gunman shot and killed 10 people – all Black – and wounded three others Saturday afternoon.

The 14208 ZIP code indeed has a high percentage of Black residents, about 78%, according to the U.S. Census.

“But there’s a lot of things going on in the area, too,” said Adagio Butler Parker, who lives nearby.

“It’s more than just a Black neighborhood,” said retired Buffalo firefighter Gerald Walls, who has family in the community.

“We believe in this community, and we want the world to know that,” said David Femi, a senior vice president at M&T bank and head of its multicultural banking and diverse market strategy. The bank is located at 1300 Jefferson Avenue, across the street from Tops. “There’s so much hope and belief in that community.”

Overview and history of Jefferson Avenue

After decades of neglect, millions of dollars in investments have been pouring in and around Jefferson Avenue in recent years.

Northwest Bank opened and upgraded branches there. New affordable housing units – with a day care center – opened two years ago. The city started a business development center in 2016 to help residents open their own businesses. Northwest opened a free financial education center last year.

It is also one of the poorer communities in the City of Buffalo. Within the U.S. Census tract that includes the Tops supermarket, the median household income is just over $24,000. Almost 29% of its 2,666 population live below the poverty line. That’s about the same rate as the City of Buffalo, more than double the rate in Erie County.

Before World War II, Black life in Buffalo was centered around William Street and Michigan Avenue, near the Colored Musicians Club, Taylor said.

Post-World War II, he said, thousands of Black people moved to Buffalo, with Jefferson Avenue becoming the new center of the community.

As new institutions “have been brought into Black Buffalo, they are typically located on Jefferson Avenue, in that corridor,” he added.

Investments pour in

According to a 2019 report from Empire State Development, the Jefferson Avenue commercial district has a vibrant lineup of community resources, entrepreneurial strengths and stable businesses, but has long struggled with high vacancy rates and outdated infrastructure. The state report counted 67 businesses on Jefferson or on corner lots, accounting for 608 jobs.

When Northwest opened a branch at 1228 Jefferson Ave. in 2019, it provided a spark of new investment. Northwest officials say the new branch – a project valued at $1 million – was a catalyst for other new development in the corridor.

“We saw an area of town that was really underserved for banking services five years ago,” said Rick Hamister, Great Lakes region president for Northwest.

In its first year of business, the branch ranked No. 2 among Northwest locations in opening new checking accounts, Hamister said.

“That pace has really continued. We open a lot of accounts there. To me, that means we’re serving a lot of folks in the community,” he said.

Northwest was able to get in on the ground floor of community revitalization in the neighborhood, Hamister added.

“I know we’ve got a long way to go right now, but I think in the long run, the economic investment in that community is going to matter,” he said.

Just down the street, Northwest sponsored the Belmont Financial Education Center, which opened last year. The center provides free financial education coaching, counseling and educational workshops. Belmont Housing Resources of Western New York staffs the center.

The space is attached to People Inc.’s Jefferson Avenue Apartments, 88 affordable units and retail space as part of a $31 million project that transformed two entire city blocks at 1140 and 1162 Jefferson Ave. It opened in 2020 and has a waiting list of 250 people. Say Yes Buffalo, a not-for-profit that covers tuition at state colleges and universities for Buffalo students who graduate high school, will move in soon.

“It’s been great for us,” said Rhonda Frederick, president and CEO of People, Inc. “It’s a vibrant community."

Just as Northwest saw a need in the area for banking services, so, too, did Tops in the run up to when it opened the Jefferson Avenue supermarket in 2003 – a grocery store many area residents depend on for fresh food close to home.

Urban Family Practice also saw a need for services in the area. That is why in early 2018 it decided to open a location at 1315 Jefferson Ave., replacing a University at Buffalo Family Medicine clinic that closed in that space because of difficulties recruiting physicians to the practice to supervise the training of residents there.

“It’s a hub of Black businesses,” said Toni Vazquez, vice president of G-Health Enterprises, which includes Urban Family Practice. “That was the place to be.”

Efforts are underway to make that the case again.

For one, the city announced in July a $3.5 million minority-owned business support program to be administered by The Exchange at Beverly Gray.

M&T Bank recently invested over $2 million to renovate and install upgraded technology into its East side branch network, including its Jefferson Avenue branch.

“There’s tremendous opportunities for economic growth. There’s opportunities for economic development, and when you look at the history of that area and the recent renaissance that’s been taking place, all we see is hope,” Femi said.

Taylor is glad to see new investments come into the corridor, but he said too many of them are what he calls “symbolic projects,” those meant to symbolize hope and possibility, but not tackling root problems.

For instance, substandard housing in that corridor is a root problem, something that causes other issues such as health inequities and sleep deprivation, and can also affect kids. A new apartment complex doesn’t fix the substandard housing stock that exists in the neighborhood. The median value of owner-occupied housing units in the Census tract that includes the Tops supermarket is $48,700, about half the value of a Buffalo home and about one-third of an Erie County home.

He’d also like to see other root problems tackled, such as improving the neighborhood’s infrastructure, its streets and sidewalks.

The future 

Desiree Parker is “happy to be a part of the Jefferson Avenue corridor, with the way it’s building and growing.”

Her family has owned the building at 1339 Jefferson Ave. for about two decades and, during the pandemic, she decided to put some empty space in the building to use.

She opened her own business, DLP Consulting, which offers bookkeeping, business coaching, employee relations, LLC formation, notary public and tax preparation services. She serves clients nearby and as far away as California. Parker, who in 1998, at age 21, became the youngest African American woman to open a Subway franchise in Western New York, said she wants to provide the kind of business assistance she wished she would have accessed when she was just starting out.

Parker said she’s still struggling to wrap her mind around what happened Saturday at Tops. She believes, however, that the business community and families in the community will pull through – together.

“This whole thing that happened this past weekend is not going to stop me,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

News Enterprise Editor Patrick Lakamp contributed to this story.