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Brandywine isn’t the only corridor that needs help in Sch’dy

    Re Aug. 21 editorial, “First steps to bringing back Brandywine Ave.”: The first part of the editorial of reads “Twenty years ago, Brandywine Avenue between I-890 and State Street was a place people wanted to go to, with a couple of diners, hardware store, a family-owned drugstore and an auto parts store. But one by one those businesses closed and the corridor became a seedy-looking, crime-ridden place that most people just wanted to get through.”
    Replace the word Brandywine with Crane [Street], Van Vranken [Avenue], Albany [Street] or Broadway, all business corridors that have seen dramatic decline. The condition of Crane Street brings tears to my eyes when I remember the bustling family-owned businesses such as kora’s and White Eagle Bakery.
    Yes, it is important to have our gateways/business corridors look great for transients, but viable gateways/business corridors are also of major importance because there are neighborhoods that surround those gateways. As each gateway dies so do the neighborhoods!
    You mention Broadway, but admit the improvement is limited to a few blocks in downtown between I-890 and State Street where you state that there is heavy traffic. The rest of the Broadway corridor, which extends from I-890 southwestward through the Bellevue neighborhood to the Rotterdam town line, is not mentioned and appears, also, to be forgotten by the powers that be. It is an important corridor for auto traffic. The traffic count there is also in the thousands.
    On Broadway, we are seeing an increasing number of closed businesses and derelict buildings. Is the city going to wait until Broadway/Bellevue is so far gone that the solution will require even more money, time and effort to repair? The spreading blight does not wait. Do we delay until the whole neighborhood is diseased? Where are the actions from the 20/20 plan that was so highly publicized a few years ago?
There were positive suggestions by the Alliance Party last year on how we can approach problems. Solutions can come from many sources. We, absolutely, need our city, county and Metroplex principals, along with citizen leaders, to expand their vision, to work together to come up with plans and answers to address different areas of the city simultaneously. The city should be the focus. There is not enough time to do things piecemeal.

JACQUELINE HURD
Schenectady
The writer was an Alliance Party candidate for City Council in 2011.

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00703&AppName=1

There IS only downtown. Duh

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Is the city going to wait until Broadway/Bellevue is so far gone that the solution will require even more money, time and effort to repair?

You mean it can look worse than it already does?  Scary.

do they think there is still anything left there worth saving? I guess houses can go the way of Buffalo and become worth 15 grand on average in the ghetto

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

do they think there is still anything left there worth saving? I guess houses can go the way of Buffalo and become worth 15 grand on average in the ghetto

Many homes in schenectady are already valued at $10 - $15K! Some homes are on the market for $20K and they aren't moving!!
Ya got yer dumb a$$ folks who a decade ago bought up some of these cheap homes 'waiting' and 'believing' the city would turn around..........WELL.............a decade later they are till waiting while the homes they bought are 'losing' value!!!