Articles today in the Daily News on the Batavia City Council meeting, the fire Monday morning in South Byron and the sentencing of Robert Kirkup yesterday in county court were all featured on The Batavian yesterday. That being said, Joanne Beck put together a fine piece on the Council meeting from last night that includes a little more information than was in our post.

Beck takes as the theme of her article: neighborhood problems, taking her cue from several residents who spoke at the meeting. One resident spoke of the problems caused on some city streets as the result of truck traffic being diverted through residential neighborhoods during road construction. Another spoke of zoning concerns. While a third discussed the problem of absentee landlords and detrimental property conditions. Rather than make this article about these three separate issues, Beck finds the common thread: all three are asking for the same thing: a decent neighborhood.

Our question to that: What does it take to make a decent neighborhood, and when does city government know to step in and help out and when to stand back and let be? We're hoping to take a closer look at that question over the next couple weeks, so look for more on that.

In other news, the town of Batavia hired a third-year engineering student from the Rochester Institute of Technology for $10 an hour to help the town "catch up with project work that includes two water districts and the town's farmland protection plan." Joseph Neth, who lives on Wilkinson Road, will work up to 40 hours per week for 13 weeks for the town as part of "a cooperative effort with area colleges that was started by the town last year."

Bought a HUD house on Manhattan back in '99 for a song.

Since then I have been singing, humming, whistling a version of it ever since. It's alot different than an episode of This Old House on PBS. Few people show up to help rehab it even with the offer of good food & wine. Restoring/rehabbing an old building is a lesson in patience & persistence.

History on my house - Built in 1902  I believe by James H. Smith, part of the Lincoln Park Tract. Bought by a Caroline/Carolina Schmelzle for eventual rental income. She along with her husband Phillip, children Ruth and Raymond lived 114 Summit Street ( last known address Caroline passed 12-23-1920). Phillip later remarried to a woman named Anna M. which unfortunetly was a short lived marriage as  he later died from injuries substained from a truck accident while he was a city employee. The house eventually was quick claimed over to the son Raymond,  ending up Anna care until her death in 1945. Shortly thereafter Raymond sold it to a Juldah Janney.

Per an elderly neighbor sometime in the late '50's early '60's a family lived here with six children. She related a story about the time the kitchen stove caught fire (verified during a remodel) and how she ran in grabbed a child or two by the hand and waited with them on her porch until the fire department came.  

In doing research on my house I found out that orgianally the adddress was 36 Manhattan prior to 1920's not 42.

Quick internet search on the Schmelze family revealed that son Raymond is buried in Grandview. Haven't been able to locate daughter Ruth. Nor any of the other owners in the past 100 years save the last. My hopes are to locate pictures of my house be it smiling children piled high infront of a Christmas tree or just a pic of the front porch showing a smiling couple.

Perhaps someone in Batavia has an old photo just lying in the bottom of a drawer?

Besides the Janney family, there was Homer & Virgina Maskell in 1961, Ken & Ramona Henry in 1967, and Wes Stringham in 1970.

~~ Brenda ~~