For a city in dire need of a unique selling point, the Woodlawn Row houses on Woodlawn Avenue represent a perfect example of a fix-it-up opportunity for Buffalo, and a chance to help improve its image.

Every so often, a lone voice of reason is able to penetrate the levels of bureaucracy at City Hall, and the administration slowly embraces and tries to implement a clear-eyed solution to one of its problems. More often than not, if the solution involves an East Side problem, the lone voice belongs to activist Michele Johnson.

Lombard Street, just a few block’s from the Harriet Ross Tubman School, is one of those East Side streets that most people have given up on, and for obvious reasons. Two thirds of the houses are boarded up and empty, lending the street a creepy air, like a ghost town. The street goes completely dark as soon as dusk hits, making it hard to recall that it’s only a couple blocks from the grand old Central Terminal. Simply put, it’s a street that would usually be left to drug dealers and prostitutes.