Can a sense of community return to the Bull's Head area?
Editor's note: This is part of Revisiting the Rochester Narrative, a Democrat and Chronicle reporting series that shows how past decisions fueled racial inequality and how new ideas can shape a more just future. D&C reporters will amplify the voices of Black and Latino/Latinx residents who often have been left out of the stories we tell. On a typical afternoon, Lyell Branch Supervisor Shamika Fusco sits at the heart of knowledge in her colorfully stacked public library, with rows of books ranging from young adult fiction to thrillers  a collection she curated herself. Her start as a librarian is rooted in her childhood spent at her grandmother's home in the 19th Ward of Rochester. She was raised down the street from Bulls Head, a historic area that converges the chaotic traffic of West Main Street, Brown Street, West Avenue, Chili Avenue and Genesee Street. "Boys and Girls Club is where I grew up, Fusco said. The young group spent their summers just being kids taking field trips to Genesee Valley Park and meeting one another's families when it was time to be picked up after a long day of play. "You mostly just kind of stuck with your friends with bicycles, playgrounds  if you got any kind of money, you definitely were going to the corner store to spend all your money buying penny candy," she said, reminiscing on the summer. The club was where she got her first job as a part of the club's Teens on Patrol program, which led her to meet the people who encouraged her to become a librarian years later. Fusco said she hadnt imagined that career before, as she had rarely seen other Black librarians in the area. Those memories of life in the city are what drew Fusco to Rochester again, after moving away to West Virginia. When she returned in 2006, she sought the sense of community she had remembered as a child. The city, however, has faced some changes. A shift away from sense of community  Bulls Head was the bustling epicenter of affordable business during Fuscos childhood in the 1980s. Fusco said she would gaze into the Payless shoe store while waiting at a nearby stoplight and that she and her grandparents frequented the meat market, which stood where a Walgreens store now exists. She rarely visits Bull's Head in present-day, though, as she fills her essential needs elsewhere. I can definitely tell that there was a dynamic shift, Fusco said. Grassy vacant lots sit alongside the few businesses remaining, the plaza is dotted with just a handful of cars, and the Methodist Church quietly sits at the converging busy traffic  its windows dark. Decades of revitalization plans by the city for Bull's Head have failed to live up to a sustained future as promised by city leaders since 1972  its first vision of repaved, tree-lined streets and rehabilitated houses brought to an end by the freezing of $2.6 million worth of federal funds under former President Richard Nixon. In 1982, a $4.5 million project was set to "bring new life" to Bull's Head. As of 1991 vacancy issues were on the rise. Community leaders, city officials and investors shifted their energy into making the area a health and education hub in the '90s. That failed. "Developers kill Bulls Head plan" sits at the top of the Democrat and Chronicle Feb.16, 1996, edition. St. Mary's Hospital, which has existed in Bull's Head since 1857, and Monroe Community College abandoned a $22 million project due to federal health care funding cuts, according to the news article. Fusco said overlapping dynamics such as violence, business competition and intergenerational familial breakdown have led to depopulation of the area. More:Bull's Head revitalization plans take off  More:Rochester part of national surge in shootings, homicides in communities upended during pandemic  Gun violence in Rochester has been on the rise, the city facing 38 homicides this year  some of which have taken place on Genesee Street. I mean, violence has always been violence. Its always, you know, present in the city, Fusco said. But today's violence leads to death.  Small businesses, too, have moved out of the neighborhood, in part due to competition from large corporations such as Walmart, according to Fusco. People felt defeated, she said. Looking to a brighter future  Although people have moved out of the city, harboring negative sentiments toward it, Fusco said, she stands with it. "I don't feel the same way,'" Fusco said. "I think the city is enriched with a lot of resources, you just need to learn how to navigate them." Through her position as a library branch supervisor, Fusco attempts to help others find and use those public resources that she believes enrich the city. She views the library as a wealth of knowledge where people can find events, job opportunities and more, not just books. More about Shamika Fusco:This library in northwest Rochester is more than just a place to check out books  When she was an outreach librarian, she would place books on the shelf of the laundromat in Bulls Head for adults and kids. I hated as a kid going to the laundromat. There was nothing for us, she said.  It was daytime. PBS was not on all day.  She thinks about Bull's Head's future and what could be. With the new revitalization plans, which began in 2009, the city intends to reshape the area. Fusco points to the lasting effect Bull's Head's legacy as a hub had on her and the community. It provided a lot of resources that I didn't realize as a kid, and now that they're gone, as an adult I kind of am sad about that, she said. It was definitely a lot of small businesses and for it to be saturated in an area like that is so unique. Even 'till today if you say, Bulls Head," you know exactly where that is.  When she was a child, Fusco would walk out on New Years Day from the West Avenue United Methodist Church  a once lively, ornate building now empty. She hopes to see a change for the better. I'm really hoping that they provide spaces for people to dream again there.