March 26, 2010

NIAGARA FALLS: Another positive sign for Echota

Gazebo, new housing being considered

By Michele Deluca Niagara Gazette

NIAGARA FALLS — A new sign noting the entrance to the Echota neighborhood is finally in place, and residents are looking forward to a gazebo they expect will be completed soon.

The sign was placed several days ago on a corner of land given to the club by Mary Ann Rolland, developer of the historic Stanford White House at 21 Hyde Park Blvd.

Rolland gave the block club a 10-by-10 easement to place the sign.

“The sign is beautiful,” said block club president Kathy Russell.

“We’ve been trying to get that sign up for a good year and a half,” she added, noting that the club had to promise the city zoning board that they would maintain the corner indefinitely.

Russell said the block club has planted bushes and bulbs and there are several other plans in the works for the historic neighborhood.

Echota was one of the city’s first established neighborhoods, stretching from A to D streets and from the west side of Hyde Park Boulevard to Gill Creek. It represents around 100 homes and buildings built during the 1890s by the Niagara Falls Power Company as part of a model city for its employees. For many years, the homes were considered among the best in the city, but had become neglected and dilapidated over the past few decades as population dwindled.

Rolland and her husband, Bill, who died last year as the couple was finishing renovations on the White house, have led the charge to bring the neighborhood back to its former vitality. Help has also come from the City of Niagara Falls, which has been tending the neighborhood’s infrastructure needs and Habitat for Humanity which has been building affordable housing in the neighborhood.

The White house, now refurbished and for sale for about $150,000, may soon be joined by another renovation of a second abandoned White designed home at 31 Hyde Park.

Russell and Rolland are meeting today with City Historian Tom Yots and an architect from the University at Buffalo to discuss plans to fortify the entrance to Echota with the renovation of 31 Hyde Park and the possible construction of at least two new homes where two others were recently demolished.

Russell said that both the sign, which cost about $2,000, and the gazebo, which will cost about $8,000 are being funded by grant money from state Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte. The gazebo will be placed off D Street near Gill Creek Park. The block club is hoping the gazebo will be completed by the end of April, Russell said.