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Poor folks have called Buffalo’s Fruit Belt neighborhood home for more than 150 years — first German immigrants, then African-Americans. Billion-dollar medical buildings are expanding at the edge of the Fruit Belt, threatening to push out its low-income residents.
For Medium’s OneZero magazine, 2019
New medical buildings dwarf older homes in the historic Fruit Belt neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y.
Activist Veronica Hemphill-Nichols stands for a portrait in front of the medical buildings across from the Fruit Belt.
Above, Buffalo’s Fruit Belt, left, and new medical buildings.
Activist India Walton stands for a portrait near her former home in the Fruit Belt, February 21, 2019. Walton lived in the Fruit Belt for three years but can no longer afford her former rental home after the rent spiked last year following growth on the nearby medical campuses. “People who live in the Fruit Belt are not against development, we just want development that’s community-driven and development without displacement,” said Walton.
Community organizers fought to keep development from this open field, where youth often play football in warmer months, in the Fruit Belt neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y., photographed on February 20, 2019.
Dennice Barr, a resident of the Fruit Belt for the past 17 years, stands for a portrait near her home in the Fruit Belt. The house has been in her family since 1964.
The Gethsemane Grape Street Baptist Church, a historic site as well as a Fruit Belt community staple.