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Broadway-Fillmore police substation coming soon

"Much like the police substation at Canalside, we're going to start with a temporary substation as we build out a more permanent station," Mayor Brown said about a new police substation coming to the Broadway Market.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Mayor Byron Brown says promised help for a high-crime area is coming soon.

A Broadway-Fillmore area police substation was first brought up in Mayor Brown's budget proposal last May. It was supposed to be up and running around now, but there's still no sign of it; meanwhile the crime-ridden area rides a fine line between a reputation as one of Buffalo's most troubled neighborhoods and a historic strip that thousands flock to each year as an Easter tradition.

“Much like the police substation at Canalside, we're going to start with a temporary substation as we build out a more permanent station,” Mayor Brown said Friday night.

He didn't explain what appears to be a delay, but said he is confident that the temporary version of the police substation will be built in the Broadway Market this Spring.

“We are working on the temporary substation now. We expect to be up when the weather breaks as we move into the Springtime,” Mayor Brown said. “As we move into the Easter season, we will have the temporary substation functional.”

Several business owners in the area echoed the same feelings: A Broadway-Fillmore substation is overdue. They feel that, right now, they fend for themselves when it comes to crime. However, those sentiments are why they said they didn’t want to be identified in an interview. One business owner said the main business on their corner is not any storefront business, but rather drugs.

Cedric Paige, who operates security for the Broadway Market, looks forward to a larger police presence.

"The area itself, it just needs a lot of help,” Paige said as he locked the market’s doors on Friday.

M.D. Uddin opened up shop, Amana Plaza Halal Food & Variety, six months ago. He’s more confident in the neighborhood and said it’s better now than when he moved to the area in 2012.

"So at that time, the area was a little scary for me, but now everything's getting changed, and it's better, better than before,” Uddin said.

Still, he said, a larger police presence can only help. His shop already has several cameras.

"More secure,” he said.

Mayor Brown says the city is working with the owner of the Broadway Market building on the logistics of the new police substation.

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