Giambra files suit to stop $30 million building at ECC North

[300miles]

M&T has grown but the majority of its growth has been outside NY. That's why their customers in Maryland get an ATM card with a Ravens logo. I'm talking about the study reported on numerous times by the News commissioned by NFTA to study the possible expansion of rapid transit.

Well of course it's growth is outside NY. They've been based in Buffalo for over a century. They're the biggest bank in WNY. They can't keep growing where they're already dominant. They need to expand somewhere else. You're not making sense... to you it's bad when a bank shrinks and it's equally bad when a bank grows. Nothing is good, apparently.

Anyone who seriously believes that rapid transit has been a success need only look at the state of the rail bed downtown to be disabused of that notion. It's crumbling before our eyes and the notion that they should expand that infrastructure when they can't maintain what they have is just plain stupid.

Are you referring to the brand new rail bed they just installed? Once again, there's no answer that pleases you. If they do nothing you complain that it's rotting. If they replace it and fix it up, you complain that it's a stupid project wasting money. You can't have it both ways and stay credible. Sitting back, doing nothing and complaining about everything is easy, isn't it.

[grump]

We pay the highest real estate transfer tax in the state of NY for the privilege of having a subway that almost no one rides in a region with a shrinking population. You have odd ideas if you call that a success. Of course they replace the rail bed. They even refurbish the cars even if it takes 5 years to do 3 or 4 of them. They should be able to maintain what they have before they think about expanding. And that doesn't even address the fact that they have no ridership and this is a shrinking community. We've all heard the caca they're spreading about the ridership expanding because of the medical school expanding downtown deliberately designed with insufficient parking to encourage ridership. I do know that there's behind the scenes infighting going on now to secure parking in the area because everyone knows deep down that this ridership increase stuff is horse dung and parking will be at a premium. (And let's don't even get started about the idiots at UB who state with pride that their new medical school is deliberately designed with insufficient services... A selling point if I've ever heard one.)

[Linda_D]

The point is we've heard it all before. Remember, we were gonna be the banking capital of the world in the early 80's. Instead, some of the largest, soundest, mutual savings banks in the country were pillaged and the cadavers were devoured by the few scavengers left. Finally, HSBC, the successor to Marine Midland, which was synonomous with WNY, left the area. We had a new subway built that was gonna lead to the rebirth of downtown. After construction killed most Main street retail, we've decided, 30 years too late, to bring autos back to Main street. And as proof that in WNY no bad idea ever goes away the morons at NFTA are finagling the outcome of a "study" to support extending the subway. Always avoid Buffalo News Kool aid about a city rebirth.

There are two issues that you're confusing here I think, grump.

As I said in a previous post, while Buffalo's population continues to decline, parts of the city have been prospering. All the indicators point to a significant revitalization happening in the neighborhoods west of Elmwood and south of Amherst Street, and even west of Richmond south of Forest. These are predominantly residential neighborhoods with limited commercial/retail. You're wrong about that not happening because it is.

You are right about the economic development issue, however. The use of public monies and the sacrifice of public institutions and assets (like Main Street) to promote "downtown redevelopment" has been an utter and complete waste of resources. It has yielded virtually no gain for the city or its residents while generating big profits for the politically connected developers and landlords in downtown. Buffalo, Erie County, and NYS and their residents have benefited far more from the redevelopment of the North Buffalo commercial corridor between Delaware and Elmwood from Amherst Street north to the city line that's gone on in the last 20 years than from the last 50 years of pouring money into downtown Buffalo, and the NB redevelopment was accomplished without investing the billions in infrastructure or demolition of historic buildings or other developer goodies that were given to downtown. Certainly no public institutions were sacrificed. That's not to say that the city didn't ante up to encourage development with public $$$ but the ROI is 1000 times more in NB -- which is so much closer to where most Buffalonians and many suburbanites live -- than in downtown. Delaware Avenue on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon resembles Niagara Falls Blvd by the Blvd Mall or I179 by the McKinley Mall these days.

The Medical Corridor is another area outside of downtown that has started to develop. It's cost a lot more in public monies to get it up and going but it's begun generating significant numbers of well paying jobs that are transforming the Buffalo employment scene from a blue and pink collar venue into a white collar tech area. The positive part is that Buffalonians with the education and expertise to take advantage of these jobs are prospering -- and some are buying in city neighborhoods and raising real estate prices -- but the downside is that many Buffalo area residents who are lacking the required skill sets are on the outside looking in.

Giambra's "plan" is simply the same old failed economic plan of using public institutions to try to force the revitalization of downtown. It's time to realize that downtown is what it is: a central business district that's sort of busy between 8 and 6 during the week and might be busy during the evenings and weekends when there's special events in some of the nearby venues like Shea's or the FNC. It's NOT going to become some 24-hour city because it never was and it will never be NYC or Chicago; it just does NOT have the population to support that. Contrary to myth, most Buffalonians did NOT attend Shea's and other downtown theatres and venues weekly. They didn't shop downtown every week, either. They attended local events in their neighborhoods: dances at the Polish Kadets or local bars or neighborhood theatres. They shopped in smaller neighborhood stores and might go downtown shopping 3 or 4 times a year or even less if they weren't particularly well off.

Finally, Giambra and the Snooze yap about "regionalization" but actually exacerbate the urban/suburban divide by trying to force any and all businesses and public institutions into the city as close to downtown as possible. Well, guess what. NOT everybody NOR every business NOR every institution has to be within half a mile of each other. In fact, historically, Buffalo was NOT that way at all. In the 19th century, businesses started near resources, which put a whole line of them along the Niagara River from downtown to the city line, creating Black Rock, which eventually became the home of the Pratt and Letchworth works over by Tonawanda Street between Niagara and Amherst. In South Buffalo, the grain elevators straggled down the harbor into the First Ward. There was a massive stone quarry on Amherst Street between Main Street and Bailey, and stockyards out on William Street. UB moved its campus from just north of downtown out to what is its South Campus today back in 1909 when that area was cow pastures and farms.

[grump]

My dear Linda, I read the real estate sales results in the Sunday Snooze. If the sales prices listed are an indication of this residential revitalization it's gonna be long a-bornin'. I suspect that much of the talk is a part of the same hype promoted by the Snooze that identifies 6 or 7 people who return to Buffalo after living elsewhere and then tries to claim its a trend. Don't forget people have bought and remodeled old homes all over WNY for years. It's nothing new. I do agree with your historical information. We tend to have a romanticized, idealized view of the way things used to be downtown. I'm pretty sure the same is probably true in Rochester and Syracuse; may not be such a bad thing. Ever read The Last Fine Time? Not being originally from here, I found it an interesting picture and even though it's fiction it confirms your comments about the role of the neighborhoods.

[Linda_D]

My dear Linda, I read the real estate sales results in the Sunday Snooze. If the sales prices listed are an indication of this residential revitalization it's gonna be long a-bornin'. I suspect that much of the talk is a part of the same hype promoted by the Snooze that identifies 6 or 7 people who return to Buffalo after living elsewhere and then tries to claim its a trend. Don't forget people have bought and remodeled old homes all over WNY for years. It's nothing new. I do agree with your historical information. We tend to have a romanticized, idealized view of the way things used to be downtown. I'm pretty sure the same is probably true in Rochester and Syracuse; may not be such a bad thing. Ever read The Last Fine Time? Not being originally from here, I found it an interesting picture and even though it's fiction it confirms your comments about the role of the neighborhoods.

I haven't read The Last Fine Time but I've heard of it, and I will probably read it in the near future.

One of the very best historical novels about Buffalo is Lauren Belfer's City of Light, which is set in Buffalo at the time of the Pan American Exposition in 1901. It's a "women's novel" in that the protagonist and the issues are women's issues, but the picture of turn of the 20th century Buffalo that Belfer paints, including bringing some local historical figures into her novel, is superlative. An excellent read.

[grump]

Linda, I've heard of "City of Light" but never read that! The thing about "Fine Time" is its set in the post-WW II era as Buffalo began the great downhill slide. It's a quick read once you get past the author wanting to prove to you all the big words he knows.