Houese Where Nobody Lives

There's a house on my block
That's abandoned and cold
Folks moved out of it a
Long time ago

Now that the heat that had me literally doing nothing—it was too hot to even sit still and read: the eye movement worked up a sweat—for what seems like the last two weeks (not counting the weekend hangovers), I finally found the inspiration today to do what I been hoping to do with my summer and hope to do a bit more frequently here—after all it’s a free activity (as long as one grants me the small cost of batteries for the camera and the power the computer uses to post them on the Internet): I took a bike ride through the West Side of Buffalo and shot some pictures of the area.

And they took all their things
And they never came back
Looks like it's haunted
With the windows all cracked

(Contrary to popular Buffalo belief, people aren’t the only things shot in that neighborhood.)

And everyone call it
The house, the house where
Nobody lives

I used to live over in the area—Upper West Side to be more exact—and find myself wanting to ride in that direction all the time. I figured what better place to start than the old place, 425 Auburn:


(not pictured, 425 Auburn)

And a pic of the place we used to stare out at while sitting on the most historic porch that will never again be enjoyed. Here, the Owl House:



Heading west on Auburn, I then crossed over Grant St and took in a view of the street that, to me, is the exact type of view I envision when picturing a Buffalo neighborhood, with the houses all neatly aligned in both distance from the street and rooftop heights. And I love this type of view, even if the street is obviously lacking in some tree cover:



I headed all the way down to a block before Niagara St before I cut back over to Breckenridge to head back east. Breckenridge, like Auburn and nearly every other street in Buffalo, has it share of houses worth taking note of for still holding out and holding up:





But also those that, well, aren’t exactly keeping up their end of the bargain:





Seeing these houses gives me an odd sense of hope that people aren’t in fact all trees and don’t all have roots. But, it is also a horrific reminder that, even though we are still not completely past our nomadic past, we are incredibly more wasteful and careless in our current methods of picking up and moving away. The fact that one can cause such neglect to a community—root word commune, or something many are a part of—and get away with it is despicable.

...I have all of life's treasures
And they are fine and they are good
They remind me that houses
Are just made of wood

But right now I’m too tired to elaborate. Even in this much cooler weather. I’m sure the subject will arise again, so long as I continue to take such bike rides as these.

What makes a house grand
Ain't the roof or the doors
If there's love in a house
It's a palace for sure

As I returned back across Richmond Ave I noticed an odd sense of quiet in the neighborhood that wasn’t in the West Side. Even though the area is a bit more vacated, people and kids were out everywhere on the west side of Richmond. I saw two football games being played in the street, kids of all ages riding bikes and playing in the street and quite a good percentage of porches having people relaxing on them. But as soon as I crossed back into the more affluent Elmwood Village I immediately noticed the more pristine houses barely showed signs of people living there at all. Other than the few people I noticed on porches, the only people I did see out were quietly watering their lawn. Nicely painted houses, well kept lawns and gardens and streets lined with cars, but no kids, no bikes, no loud laughter of play. As far as I could tell those were the houses where nobody lives. What good is a well kept neighborhood if you can barely tell anyone is alive there? Even though it might not be as densely populated as Elmwood Village, the small part of the West Side I rode through tonight is obviously more lived in.

Without love...
It ain't nothin but a house
A house where nobody lives
Without love it ain't nothin
But a house, a house where
Nobody lives.
-Tom Waits, House Where Nobody Lives

Last week I talked of hearing concertos from my porch, but I now know they were only the band opening up for the much louder show going on in the neighborhoods to the west of me. The same neighborhood I used to take in such sounds from and one I will have to eventually get back to.

Fuck all this uptight silence around me.

(And yes, I finally figured out how to use pics!)