Boarding time

New Yorkers: Who should be our next governor? And will he or she continue to ignore what's happening in Western New York?

Dizzyhead Arlo sends us three photos.

This piece in Buffalo's Artvoice explains the Pataki phiz that's been gracing the plenitude of boarded-up buildings in the city:

In some of Buffalo’s East and West Side neighborhoods, children who wake up in the morning eager to get outside and enjoy the summer sun are greeted instead by rat-infested, condemned houses. PUSH Buffalo (People United for Sustainable Housing) estimates that the State of New York is responsible for 1,499 neglected and abandoned properties in the city. On July 12, PUSH opened a new front in their campaign to shame Governor George Pataki into forcing the state agency that owns these derelict properties to take responsibility for them.

The plan is to nail eight-by-five-foot pieces of plywood to the doors of as many condemned buildings as possible. The large pieces of plywood are complete with a stencil drawing of Pataki, a sentence about the problem and a phone number to his office for complaints (518-474-8390). The goal is to keep the neighborhood secure from the threats these buildings pose and draw attention to the fact that MBBA, the agency that holds the mortgages on these properties, has not taken responsibility for the problem.

Arlo writes from the Queen City:

I took another picture of the store front of Vy Vy's Gifts. I've seen it for the last three years because it's on my way to school. There's a poster of Bruce Lee in the window. This place, along with so many others on Bailey Ave., are just empty and have been that way for years. It's kinda sad. I wanted to drive down Dartmouth Ave. today to take a picture of [of birthplace of Dizzyhead Ed] but they were cutting trees and stuff so I didn't.

I like the idea of a Bruce Lee image—taped up at the last moment or simply left to be—warding off would-be encroachers, who might think twice before trying to bypass such a guardian.