Last business standing after a fire in a poor neighborhood
A struggling neighborhood faces yet another set back after a fire burns down a business.
Businesses are the economic building block of any thriving neighborhood. But a fire brought down one of this block's last keystones. Mother's Food and Liquor.
Pastor Robert Wilson says, \"The empty storefronts they're all over Milwaukee it's a problem in the inner-city.\"
Tommie Moore, an area says,\"It's going to be sad to not see anyone come around anymore.\"
No one feels the loss of the corner grocery and liquor store quite like Sidney Fumbanks, a local barber.
\"I'm the only active business in this block.\"
Like a 'yellowpages' obituary, he's seen decades worth of businesses closing.
Fumbanks says, \"The grocery store burned down. A restaurant between here and there is closed, and on the corner we had a tavern.\"
He says his business is now the last gathering place on the block.
\"I guess that's what happens in these neighborhoods or when we don't have the money. The dollar don't stay, it just comes and goes.\"
With more businesses on the block closed than open, and the neighborhood changing around him, he worries what it will look like when he closes for good.
\"When i'm gone in the ground there won't be anything here.\"
As for the fire, firefighters say they're still investigating a cause.