A Brief History
The last surviving members of the Neutral Nation, a tribe that called the Eastern shore of Lake Erie and the Niagara River home before the arrival of the Seneca, provided unknowingly the name that now refers to creek, urban street, expressway, and drain: Scajaquada. Beyond the Multitude. John Kenjockety and his son Philip were well-liked by Buffalo’s early settlers. Philip was remembered in an obituary published by The Buffalo Courier and The New York Times for his prowess in oration and his remarkably long life; many claimed he was over one hundred years old at his death in 1866. Kenjockety, or in the Seneca language, Sky-dyo-gwah-deh, became Scajaquada, and it remains so today.
The creek runs from Lancaster and Depew, eastern outer ring suburbs of the city, and through the first-ring suburb of Cheektowaga. There, Scajaquada Creek enters a several-mile-long living grave. It flows beneath the economically and socially troubled East Side, emerging in the historic Forest Lawn Cemetery, flowing again in the daylight among the buried.
From there, its path continues south of what remains of Frederick Law Olmstead’s Delaware Park, through the stately Parkside neighborhood, and beside a college, churches, art and history museums. New York State Route 198, the Scajaquada Expressway, overshadows the creek in this final leg of its journey. It empties into Black Rock Canal, the historical terminus of the Erie Canal, after passing through an industrial district that begat, among other things, the first air conditioners and the first death in the War of 1812.
Once a treasure of Northern Buffalo, a site for fishing, trade and recreation, Scajaquada has been abused throughout the 20th and into the 21st centuries. It was dammed to create a series of lakes for Olmstead’s Gala Waters (now Hoyt Lake), overrun by visitors and their trash during the Pan-American Exposition, and turned into an open sewer as the city’s eastern neighborhoods grew. Between the years of 1922 and 1927, the creek’s eastern portion was buried for its own protection, a misguided attempt at ecological and public health improvement. The three-mile section of the creek disappeared off of all maps, becoming, officially, a drain.
Unfortunately, Scajaquada Drain joined a network of similar drains beneath Buffalo, becoming a part of the city’s growing network of sewage and storm drains. Raw sewage flowed into the lake in Delaware Park, further threatening the public health and turning the site of recreation into a lagoon of human waste. The Delavan Drain was constructed, channeling off much of Scajaquada’s flow from the end of its original drain directly out to a water treatment facility, and an interceptor was built which separated the lake from its source creek.
As if its earlier burials were insufficient, in the 1950s, responding to a growing need for rapid automobile transportation, the notorious city planner Robert Moses designed a major regional expressway over much of the northern arc of the creek, hacking historic neighborhoods and Olmstead’s original park design in half and dramatically reducing the size of Delaware Park Lake. The 1980s brought further eastern expansion of the city, and a major shopping mall, Walden Galleria, was built directly on top of one of the creek’s last remaining floodplains, which had been deliberately set aside by the Army Corps of Engineers (themselves to blame for many of the creek’s woes) in order to control the downstream flooding that had filled the basements of many of the town of Cheektowaga’s residents with several feet of water.
And yet, miraculously, there is some life left in the creek yet. Fishermen still hook brown trout and rock bass in the mouth of the creek, and I have seen a three-foot-long muskellunge further up the creek, sunning itself in the shallow water amongst aquatic grasses. A multi-use trail runs alongside the northern arc of the creek in Buffalo, lined by mature trees and grasses and sheltering the creek from pollution and sun. Much of the creek (including the drain) is lined by parkland, and the greenery, even if it is only mowed grass, is a welcome sight. If not for the many natural springs located in Forest Lawn Cemetery, which rejuvenate the trickle that exits the drain on dry days, Scajaquada would no longer complete its journey the Niagara River.
Relevant Practices: An Informal List
- Watershed Milwuakee
- Betsy Damon
- The Harrisons
- London is a River City
- Lauren Rosenthal
- Under the City
- Dominique Mazeaud
- Buster Simpson
- Stacy Levy
The Clean-Up
Each Spring and Fall, a massive regional watershed clean-up takes place throughout the Niagara Frontier, from the Lake Erie shoreline north to the Lower Niagara River. Though “site captains” adopt dozens of sites throughout the region, the Scajaquada clean-up, sponsored by the Scajaquada Canoe Club, the Grant Amherst Business Association, and Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper has one of the longest histories and strongest participatory traditions. Some combination of tight-knit and up-and-coming neighborhood, managable size, and underdog enthusiasm ensures that each clean-up event regularly is attended by fifty to one hundred people — from local college students, to neighborhood activists, to three-or-more-generation families.
The clean-up lasts from about nine until noon, with volunteers breaking up into teams to achieve such tasks as painting over graffiti, picking up trash, stenciling storm drains, cleaning out invasive species such as Japanese Knotweed, and fishing out floatables with nets and canoes. A cook-out typically follows, complete with awards for the strangest or most interesting trash. Items pulled from the creek have included a motorcycle, dozens of shopping carts, a diamond ring (still in its box), a vintage shotgun, air tanks, car axles, dozens of tires, furniture, and more!
As with any seasonal, large-scale volunteer event, the question of sustainability is an important one. How can future clean-ups involve new groups of volunteers? How can we make the energy of a twice-yearly Saturday morning event sustain itself throughout the year? Can a clean-up fuel a movement? Does positive action translate into activism?
The Art Exhibit
In an attempt to explore possible answers to some of these questions, and to further collaboration between art and activist communities in Buffalo, an art exhibit was organized in coordination with the Fall 2010 Scajaqauda Creek Clean-Up. The show, called “Beyond the Multitude,” would combine work by contemporary regional artists with historic photographs and maps. The call for works was sent out in late May, and the show was scheduled for the week before the clean-up event in 464 and Blink Galleries — two side-by-side galleries on Amherst Street in Buffalo, just north of the creek itself.
Ultimately, the show included a variety of work, including video installations, maps, on- and off-the-wall sculpture, outdoor installations, paintings, and other mixed-media work. While the show ran for less than a week and opened on a Sunday afternoon, the opening event was well attended, with other one hundred visitors to the relatively small gallery space. Installations done in the windows of both galleries, as well as the outdoor installations seemed to garner the most attention — this may in part be due to the limited hours (and also limited foot traffic) of both galleries.
Unfortunately, it is not immediately apparent that the approach was successful. While the show certainly attracted an interesting and diverse audience, and certainly provided some compelling moments of meaningful dialogue, very few people who attended the show came to the watershed clean-up and vice-versa. However, there were a variety of communication/outreach and scheduling issues (including a conflict with the Jewish High Holidays) that could certainly have contributed to this seeming disconnect.
