Sickness and Death: Constant Companions On Humboldt Parkway

By Betty Jean Grant

Betty Jean Grant

Let me tell you a story about the inhabitants of just one house on Humboldt Parkway. This is a true store; not some fictious or made up scenario.

The young bride, of German descent, moved in to a beautiful house on Humboldt Parkway with her handsome African American husband in the early 1960s. The young couple were hard working with the husband employed in one of the area’s factories, while the wife opened a business she ran from their home. So, in essence, the wife and now mother was at home 7 days-a-week with the only respite for her, from the carbon monoxide and pollutants, was when she and her family went shopping or to church.

Fast forward to today where we find this once healthy and hard working woman sick, and on a breathing ventilator, suffering from breathing related illnesses that can be directed related to the air pollutants coming from cars on an expressway that never should not have built in the poor, Black marginalized community, in the first place. Not only that, one of her daughter’s husband, who lives with them on Humboldt Parkway, is also on a ventilator, with respiratory illnesses. Also, one of the homeowners daughters has severe asthma. This is three sick persons; sick with COPD, Asthma, frequent colds, Lupus, heart disease, kidney disease and other health related sicknesses.

The suffering and illnesses in just this one household is duplicated in many of the over 200 houses already negatively affected by the 33 Expressway. Sadly, many of the original homeowners have died, more than a few from breathing the effects of toxic chemicals and carbon monoxide, over the years. I know that one of the original Black homeowner is compiling a list of deceased and sick residents on Humboldt Parkway. There have been numerous deaths and hundreds of sick or dying residents on that Parkway and yet neither the NYSDOT nor the elected officials have called for a Health Equity Study or an Environmental Impact Statement to ascertain the health and environmental damage already done or to mitigate what the current damages are and what we can expect, going forward if the tunnel is added or the Expressway is permitted to remain.

The impacted residents of Humboldt Parkway are exploring relief through intervention from the local and federal representatives, class action lawsuits, injunctions, filings of Article 78s and public persuasion; to seek relief from this terrible community and environmental injustice.

Racism against Black’s was the motivation to put that Expressway in the fastly desegregation section of Buffalo and the urban planners knew this was happening when Buffalo became a Mecca for Southern Black people during the Northern Migration of the late 1940s and the 1950s and 1960s. Racism against Black people is happening right now when credible Black organizations and groups are threatened with the money being taken away from the project and sent elsewhere if they did not go along with the proposal of putting a tunnel under the Expressway.

Those neighborhood groups and the Black people who ran them were not given the option of the removal of the Expressway and the Restoration of Humboldt Parkway before they gave in and decided to support the tunnel concept with conditions. Even now, the NYSDOT has refused to incorporate ROCC’s conditions that were asked for in a letter written to them in November, 2023. Those conditions included: 1. An active Air Filtration System to help get rid of the toxins and Carbon Monoxide. 2. A detailed Environmental Impact Statement to assess past health damages and to prevent further health issues to the residents. 3. More public engagement meetings, especially with the residents to gather consensus for the project before it went further. None of that ever happened.

So, regardless of a survey that documents the residents of Humboldt Parkway opposing the Tunnel and supporting the Restoration 8-1, the NYSDOT is hellbent on putting that COPD and cancer causing monstrosity in the middle of our community. Also there is an ongoing, online, massive letter writing and signatures Petition Drive going on.

We all say we are our Brothers’ Keepers. Let us do more than think about or mouth those inspiring words; let us take care of those who cannot take care of themselves.