Mourning for Buffalo market
Deadly shooting rampage also exposes racial, economic divide in Black neighborhood
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Tops Friendly Market was more than a place to buy groceries. As the only supermarket for miles, it became a sort of community hub on Buffalo’s East Side — where you chatted with neighbors and caught up on people’s lives.
“It’s where we go to buy bread and stay for 15, 20 minutes because ... you’re going to find four or five people you know, we’re going to have a couple of conversations before you leave,” said Buffalo City Councilman Ulysees Wingo, who represents the struggling Black neighborhood where he grew up. “You just feel good because this is your store.”
Now residents are grieving the deaths of 10 Black people killed during a shooting rampage in the crowded supermarket last Saturday.
They’re also grappling with being targeted in a place that has been so vital to the community. Before Tops opened on the East Side in 2003, residents had to travel to other communities to buy nutritious food or settle for snacks and higher-priced staples from corner stores and gas stations.
The fact that there are no other options lays bare the racial and economic divide that existed in Buffalo long before the shooting.
“People talked about the demographics, the income levels, the crime and other factors,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said. “I felt that the money here was as green as the money anywhere, that there was a lot of money to be spent in this community and there were needs to be served.”
Tops said Wednesday its store remains under active police investigation. Once that’s done, “we will have a team assess next steps with the intention of rebuilding and repairing the store for the community in as short a period of time as possible,” it said.
In the meantime, Tops and others are working to make sure residents don’t go without.
A makeshift food bank was set up not far from the supermarket. The Buffalo Community Fridge received so much in monetary donations that it will distribute some funds to other local organizations. Tops also arranged for a bus to shuttle East Side residents to and from another of its Buffalo locations.
After decades of neglect and decline, only a handful of stores remain along Jefferson Avenue, the East Side’s once-thriving main drag, among them a Family Dollar, a deli, a liquor store and a couple of convenience stores, as well as a library and Black-run businesses.
Jillian Hanesworth, 29, who was born and raised there, said construction of an expressway contributed to cutting off the neighborhood, with drivers passing underground without ever having to see it.
Like many residents, she pauses to think when asked where the next-closest major grocery is located: None is within walking distance, and it takes three different buses to get to the Price Rite.
Before Tops opened on the East Side, residents, lawmakers and other advocates pushed for years for a supermarket after groceries and other stores closed in the neighborhood’s Central Park Plaza, Wingo said.
Hanesworth worries that when Tops reopens, “it’s not going to feel like ours anymore.”
“And we fought so long for something to feel like ours. And Black communities across the country have been fighting so long just to feel like something belongs to us, like something is safe for us,” she said.