IN DEPTH: Business owners tap into Grant St. culture

          Many new business owners see Grant Street and its surrounding neighborhood as a blank canvas and a unique opportunity to forge a new path in an area. Full story by Sean Dwyer and Youleidy Vega

Restaurant week closes

 

Blue Monk was one of 12 Elmwood Avenue restaurants participating in the 2013 fall Restaurant Week. The week is designed to give customers the opportunity to try elegant dishes at a discounted price that corresponds with the year. Expensive entrees are priced at $20.13. Blue Monk was established in 2010 and with the week coming to a close, it hopes to prove that it belongs with the rest of the upper tier restaurants of Western New York. By Patrick Lawler and Joe Sarro

Urban Roots in holiday mood with pumpkins

 Harvest season has come upon us once again, and local community garden center Urban Roots has all of the farm connections to make this time of year a success.

Pumpkins are of the utmost demand, with Halloween being right around the corner. Urban Roots gets their pumpkins from the Kelkenberg Farm of Akron. Patti Jablonski-Dopkin, Urban Roots manager, remembers visiting the farm with her son before they became a pumpkin supplier.

“I used to take my son out there because they have a beautiful farm, and they'll take you on a horse-drawn cart out to the pasture and pick your own pumpkins,” she said.

Jablonski-Dopkin says that their shipment from the Kelkenbergs included both smaller, pie pumpkins and larger, jack-o-lantern pumpkins.

“The larger pumpkins you really don't cook with. It's the smaller pie pumpkins that you're going to cook with,” she said.

According to Jablonski-Dopkin, Urban Roots received over 100 large pumpkins from the Kelkenberg harvest.

Clearly, even in the city, pumpkins are in high demand. Local community organization, The Westside Art Strategy Happenings Project, came to Urban Roots to pick up pumpkins for a carving contest on Oct. 20.

No need to fret once the pumpkin inventory is cleared out though; heirloom squashes and gourds will be available for purchase through the end of the season. Urban Roots members can educate those who are interested about the best ways to cook them for upcoming holiday meals. By Lauren Coppola and Samantha Wulff

Ghostly walks

Tour guide Robert Lockhart explains the haunted history behind Babeville, located on Delaware Avenue and Tupper Street as part of The Haunted Pub Crawl: The Theater District. Lockhart takes people on a journey through time while visiting Allentown pubs and relives the history of their apparitions. The tours are one of Mason Winfield’s Haunted History Ghost Walks that take place through Nov. 2. There are also several themed tours taking place through the West Side. The dates and times of the tours can be found online at www.hauntedhistoryghostwalks.com By Ebony Linzy

A call to re-tree

Matt Quirey, horticultural manager at Forest Lawn, digs deep into the soil marking where a new tree will be planted during this year’s tree planting event at the cemetery. Seven years after the surprise October snowstorm, Forest Lawn still lacks approximately 700 trees that once decorated the historic 269-acre cemetery. Forest Lawn, with the help of Re-Tree WNY, is scheduled to plant 300 trees this fall. The public is invited to help re-plant those trees from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2.  at Forest Lawn, which is located at 1411 Delaware Ave. at West Delavan Avenue. Children under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult 18 years or older. To register, contact Catherine Meyer at 716-885-1606 ext. 242 or at cmeyer@forest-lawn.com. By Mike Loffredo

IN DEPTH: Popular restaurant to move to West Side

          Bistro Europa, a long-standing staple among Elmwood Village restaurants, is moving to 376 Connecticut St.  most likely in August 2014. The chef-owners Steve and Ellen Gedra have been waiting 20 years for a bigger place, all their own. Full story by Lauren Coppola and Samantha Wulff.

IN DEPTH: West Buffalo Charter to add 4th grade

         

Kindergartener September Doh  at West Buffalo Charter

West Buffalo Charter School includes kindergarten through third grades for now, but in the spring will begin construction in on a new wing that will accommodate a fourth grade. Full story by Matt Bove and Gabrielle Mediak