Black and white.
Those are the colors that have emerged from the bloodstains on the concrete outside of Dante's Ristorante to take centerstage in the community's consciousness. When gunfire erupted early on the morning of July 6, as patrons left a hip-hop bar housed in the basement of the former Italian eatery, the carnage included two men dead, four people injured and a neighborhood shaken to its core.
"It's been hell," neighborhood resident Robert Maurer told the Niagara Gazette, concerning the loud partying going on around the bar until the wee hours of the morning.
"You had family-type people going to dinner or weddings (at Dante's)," he added. "It was decent people."
Ah, there's the rub -- decent people. Having lived at one time in the apartments behind the former Buena Vista restaurant on Center Street in Lewiston when it was turned into a nightclub, I can sympathize with Maurer's sentiments.
My life, too, was turned upside-down overnight, with loud, partying Niagara University students affecting my right of peaceful enjoyment of my surroundings. Fortunately, I was a renter at the time and not a homeowner. When complaints to the village police and zoning board failed to garner action, I took matters into my own hands and moved to a quieter neighborhood.
I'm willing to give Maurer the benefit of the doubt that when he said "decent" people, he meant quiet, law-abiding and respectful of others' homes and property. I know for a fact, however, that others have had similar conversations recently and used the word "decent" as a euphemism for "white."
The day after the shootings, I was in the Wilson Farms store diagonally across from Dante's when I overheard this exchange between two middle-aged white men:
Male 1: Can you believe this s**t? (As he was holding the Gazette and poking at the headline with his index finger.)
Male 2: It's the f***ing moonjohns. They shoulda never been let in here in the first place.
When I was growing up in the late '70s and early '80s, Pine Avenue was known as a white -- predominantly Italian -- neighborhood and business district. It was extremely rare for any African-Americans to be seen there, and unfathomable that a minority-owned business would ever open up shop on the street that housed the Cristoforo Colombo Society. It was not uncommon in those days for folks who checked the "Caucasian" box on the census form to scan their surroundings for anyone with a cafe au lait skin pigmentation or darker, lower their voices, and say, "I don't mind them, just so long as they stay where they belong."
The where that they were referring to was Highland Avenue. In those days, an overwhelming proportion of the city's African-American inhabitants lived in the Highland Avenue and Center Court district. The 11th Street Bridge was seen as some sort of a Mason-Dixon line that separated "us" from "them."
The loss of high-paying factory jobs and the resulting exodus of many young white men and women from Niagara Falls helped fuel the move from segregation to integration. Despite the recession-laced times in which that change took place, it has been an overwhelmingly positive one for the city and its citizenry.
As a people, we are largely colorblind. Our metamorphosis mirrored that of our nation and, as a result, we have been immune from the type of hate crimes that have plagued many other communities. That fact is most apropos, considering the important role that the Niagara Region played in the success of the Underground Railroad in leading thousands of men and women along the Northern trail to freedom.
I conjure up this seedy snapshot of our past in the hope that its memory will help prevent that type of bigotry from becoming part of our collective future. The community meeting that took place at the Como Restaurant on July 9 centered mainly on the economic and social impact that the shootings would have on Pine Avenue. Only Matt Davis spoke up in defense of the minority community as a whole.
But what of the individuals who bled to death on Pine Avenue that night? What of Josh Hunt and Shaloin Smith? They were 19 and 26, respectively -- barely old enough to start asking themselves what they really wanted to do with their lives. I don't know much about these two men. I couldn't tell you if they were kind or mean, honest or crooked, smart or slow. I have no idea if they had police records or if they attended church on Sunday. I do know this, however. Josh Hunt and Shaloin Smith deserved far longer lives than the ones they got. Young men and alcohol are never a good combination. Add in handguns and you have the literal meaning of the phrase "recipe for disaster."
Hunt and Smith died that night because of those factors, not because they were at a club that played hip-hop music, and not because they were black. The same scenario could have -- and has -- played out at a club featuring country music frequented by white kids.
The business owners on Pine Avenue have every reason for concern and every right to act to ensure the safety of their customers. One move that should be made immediately -- and has been suggested in this space previously -- is that the "Little Italy" district of the street should be shortened to run between the City Market and 24th Street only. It makes no sense whatsoever for non-Italian themed businesses to take up residence inside "Little Italy." By shortening the district's parameters, all encompassing businesses could be Italian-owned and a true representation of Rome could be made to the citizens of and visitors to Niagara Falls.
Something else that should be done posthaste is for the Pine Avenue Business Association (PABA) to offer a public declaration of sympathy to the victims' families and to offer any assistance that they can to bring those who pulled the triggers to justice. Do you think if the two young men who died were named Gianetti and Pappalardo instead of Hunt and Smith, the establishment of a reward for information leading to the arrests of the killers might not have been a top priority for PABA?
Tragedy of the magnitude of what went down on Pine Avenue last week invariably will serve as a catalyst to set the course of future events that will affect generations of Niagarans. The club inside Dante's will more than likely be shut down and few would argue with that decision.
When that move is made, it would be nice if PABA reached out to black-owned businesses on Pine Avenue -- like the Urban Apparel shop on 19th Street and the Bags 'n' Things store on Sixth Street -- and said, "We appreciate your presence here and are grateful for the diversity you bring to our shopping district."
Should that happen, then Josh Hunt and Shaloin Smith will not have died in vain. The greatest good of their brief lives will have been in a lasting gift to their community, one that was not reported in the typeset of their obituaries that appeared in the newspaper after they were murdered.
It just goes to show that many things are overlooked when one focuses solely on the black and white.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 15 2003 |