BUFFALO, N.Y. — For our Most Buffalo Story of the Day, we are celebrating Allentown.
Shop Allen Street is a group that is new this year. It is made up of business owners in Allentown, and it is hosting a big community block party to celebrate back-to-school season.
"We have a lot of things to do, from all sorts of different cultures, and everything under the sun, and we really wanted to form this group to kind of unify ourselves, find all of the things that we have in common, and aim towards those goals," said Barrett Schwalenberg, Shop Allen Street Block Club President.
Barrett Schwalenberg owns Allen Street Art and Buffalo Big Print. He is also the Shop Allen Street Block Club President. The group just formed about four months ago, and on September 7 will host the "Back At It" community block party.
"Playing with the dual theme of the start of the official football season and back-to-school gives you two kind of good points to be pushing. We have a lot of things from vintage shops to art studios that play to both audiences, so there's really a lot to offer, and, you know, you hear of Elmwood, you know, you go to Larkinville. We want Allentown to be on that list," said Barrett Schwalenberg.
The block party will give people a chance to check out all of these shops.
"Just to bring more eyes on Allentown. We went through road construction, and so we were kind of cut off for a while, but we are this beautiful, vibrant, historical district with great local retail," said Danielle Webb, Allen Street Dress Shop owner.
They will also have games outside to play and school supply giveaways.
"Giving things for kids to go to school, that's lovely. I like that. Yeah, just Allentown's doing something, giving something back," said Danielle Webb.
"We're working with the city still to get the street, the street should be shut down and we have the road map for that. The contingency and rain plan is this parking lot right around the corner. So Allen and Franklin intersection. It's either on the street or in the parking lot right there," said Barrett Schwalenberg.
And later in the season, they're looking to get watch parties going for Bills games. They also have a Halloween Pup Strut and Christmas shopping events planned. The goal is to have a positive impact on Allentown.
"There's a lot of good people here doing a lot of good work trying to keep everything clean and nice, and make our rent, make our living, feed our families. And we really just wanted to focus on the positivity, but also try to do some systemic things to combat those problems, too. So it isn't all fun and games like the events we're going to be throwing. We are trying to do safety and beautification things. The fact that we got thirty businesses to sign up right off the bat shows that there's common interest and that it's a good effort that we're trying to do," said Barrett Schwalenberg.