Charlotte Lahr (1970 – 2017)

Posted by [email protected] | Mar 9, 2017 | Human Interest | 0 |

3/8/17 [Photos: David Kramer]

from Remembering Char and her murals

As we wrote about in Remembering Char and her murals and covered extensively throughout the media, last week Charlotte Lahr, owner of Char’s South Avenue Wines and Liquors, was murdered with a suspect in custody, a parolee who was living in the Rochester Psychiatric Center.

Char from Remembering Char and her murals

Last evening, about 100 people, including Mayor Lovely Warren and about a dozen members of the Rochester Police Force, gathered at a vigil in Charlotte’s memory. The tragic event has sparked a discussion about parole reform and has left some concerned about inmates in the Rochester Psychiatric Center.

But last night was not about parole or psychiatric centers. It was about Char, whose message to the gathering would undoubtedly have been not to live in fear and hate.

With balloons that would shortly be sent aloft

Colin and Gena live next door to the store. see Remembering Char and her murals

Mayor Warren (center) preparing the ballons

Mayor Warren in purple

SEE ALSO

Remembering Char and her murals

About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.