As the approaching spring begins to melt the remnants of winter, a coffeehouse on the corner of Grant and Lafayette is trying to melt the reigning perception of the West Side.
Prish Moran, the owner of Sweetness 7 Café, is the conduit for a progressive movement rippling through Buffalo’s West Side.
“It is like a bohemian hangout for Buffalo,” said Harvey Garrett, executive director of the West Side Community Collaborative, an organization dedicated to the revitalization of the West Side. “Activists from all over the city meet here - from elected officials to neighbors. Everybody.”
Moran, 50, is as spontaneous as she is optimistic. In a city often mired in political recoil, her impulsively forward thinking is fresh and rewarding.
The building she chose to restore was vacant for nearly three years. Its walls were covered with graffiti; its seven apartments a tattered mess. Moran noticed the brick building while she was walking her dog. There was something about the building. It “spoke” to her.
A month earlier, Moran lost her eldest son - Stefano, 23, died in a car crash.
After her son’s death, Moran gave up two years worth of contracts. Restoring buildings was what Moran had been doing for over 20 years. It was not until that fateful meeting with the brick building did she decide to start again.
Some of Moran’s friends felt she may have been a bit too spontaneous. She bought questionable buildings before, but never one this daunting. The building’s price was just one-third the cost of the entire rehabilitation.
“The building was screaming for someone to do something,” she said. “It’s such a spectacular building.”
Though there were doubters, people like her sister, Rene, believed in the idea. In fact, Rene moved from rural Pennsylvania to Buffalo’s West Side - in an effort to establish a flower shop in her sister’s building. Back in Pennsylvania she worked in a dentist’s office. Now Rene is a florist.
“Prish has this great idea that it (Grant Street) is going to change,” Rene said. “Elmwood used to be like this. I’ve already started to see change.”
The idea of change was never an overt motivation. Moran said it is coincidence and fate that has produced such a transformation. Renewing the old and bringing back to life the hidden potential within the brick building was, for her, enough incentive.
Going into the project, “flipping” the building - a money-making venture where an individual buys a building to rehab it, then sells it - never crossed Moran’s mind. Rather, the restoration became an unexpected and impromptu personal therapy more than anything else.
Moran believes the project saved her life. It kept her busy.
And she stays busy.
What happened on the corner of Grant and Lafayette is more than anyone, including Moran, ever expected. Sweetness 7 has become a community meeting ground. People promoting progressive change in the city of Buffalo have made the little café their gathering spot.
Moran speaks of community, not in terms of buildings and streets, but rather in terms of minds and philosophies.
To Moran, the different minds that come together within a community space are what make a community. It just happens to be at Sweetness 7 Café.
“We never imagined this,” Moran said. “We never dreamed this. We really didn’t. I kind of love that.” This is the main story body copy paste area. Highlight this text and your copy will pickup this style.