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Thread: I was in other upstate cities recently: Syr, Bngmtn, Roch, Ithica

  1. #1
    moadib
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    I was in other upstate cities recently: Syr, Bngmtn, Roch, Ithica

    I was in other upstate cities recently: Syr, Bngmtn, Roch, Ithica

    and for the life of me I do not understand why Buffalo does not have the businesses and the loyalty of the business community that other cities have toward their city.

    Why doesnt Buffalo have a Kodak like Rochester or a Corning like Ithica?

    Buffalo is the only waterfront city other than NYC and yet our city has turned its back on its waterfront for over 50 years.

    Buffalo has been a city of transportation and yet its turned its back on light rail, rail and its port.

    Buffalo has been a city of manufacturing and technology and yet its atrophied its industrial base

    Buffalo was a city of education and other than UB, the rest of the area colleges are business & liberal arts colleges certainly not training students for new technology and new industries.

    Buffalo was once an International Port of Entry and we cant even build a new Peace Bridge.

    BUFFALO DOES NOT TAX MORE OR HAVE MORE BURACRACY OR MORE UNIONS THAN OTHER UPSTATE CITIES, SO WHY IS BUFFALO SO OSSIFIED, BANKRUPT, ATROPHIED AND BARREN!

  2. #2
    moonshine
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    If I only had a train...

    I could while away the hours
    Conferrin' with the flowers
    Consultin' with the rain
    And my head, I'd be scratchin'
    While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
    If I only had a train.

    I'd unravel ev'ry riddle
    For any individ'le
    In trouble or in pain


    With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
    You could be another Lincoln,
    If you only had a train.

    Oh, I could tell you why
    The ocean's near the shore,
    I could think of things I never thunk before
    And then I'd sit and think some more.

    I would not be just a nuffin'
    My head all full of stuffin'
    My heart all full of pain.
    I would dance and be merry
    Life would be a ding-a-derry
    If I only had a train--Whoa!

    TIN MAN: I'd be gentle as a lizard ...

    SCARECROW: I'd be clever as a gizzard ...

    DOROTHY: If the Wizard is a wizard who will serve.

    SCARECROW: Then I'm sure to get a train ...

  3. #3
    Member Son of Liberty's Avatar
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    Cute...I was the Tin Man in Jr High...couldn't hold a tune to save my life!

    Anyway, I believe we don't have the business foundation as some of the other upstate cities (e.g., Rochester) because our business "big shots" are the "big fish in the small pond" and they don't want the competition.

    Also, I think the process for a business to "register" and get permits in Buffalo is soooo frustrating, they give up and go somewhere else.

    Remember the National Comedy Hall of Fame project a couple years back? I was involved with trying to bring it here but the crap the owners of the NCHF were put through by Larry Rubin, Commissioner of Economic Development for the county, was ridiculous.

    Regardless how one may have felt for the project, that was an example of how not to do business. If fact, I met with Mr. Rubin who point blank told me his sole purpose was to keep Giambra in office. Can you believe that crap?
    "...give me Liberty or give me a beer and I'll think about it awhile..."

  4. #4
    Member Linda_D's Avatar
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    moadib, maybe you ought to investigate before you complain.

    Let's just look at education.

    Rochester has ... Rochester Institute of Technology and ... St John Fisher (Bills training camp) and ... Monroe Community College and...???

    Syracuse has ... Syracuse University and ... Upstate Medical Center ... Moline College (a friend's sister teaches there) and ... Onondaga CC and .... ???

    Binghamton has ... SUNY at Binghamton and ... Broome CC ... and ???

    Ithaca has ... Cornell University and Ithaca College and ... ???

    Albany has ... SUNY Albany ... College of St Rose ... RPI ... Russell Sage College ... Siena College ... Hudson Valley CC ...

    Buffalo has ... SUNY Buffalo (UB) ... Buffalo State College ... Cansius College ... D'Youville College ... Medaille College ... Daemon College ... ECC ...

    Buffalo is the only one of these cities to have 2 4 year institutions with more than 10,000 students each: UB and Buffalo State. UB is on a par with any of the other institutions, and Buff State offers masters degrees in 30+ fields. Canisius offers 60+ undergraduate majors and more than a dozen graduate degrees, including an MBA.

    So, what's your beef? Education is one of the Buffalo region's strong points, and stronger than in most of the other cities in upstate New York. Maybe you'd like to complain that the village of Fredonia has Fredonia State College ...
    Last edited by Linda_D; April 22nd, 2005 at 09:58 AM.
    Your right to buy a military weapon without hindrance, delay or training cannot trump Daniel Barden’s right to see his eighth birthday. -- Jim Himes

  5. #5
    moadib
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    No, Im not complaining..that Buffalo has to much education or to little

    No, Im not complaining..that Buffalo has to much education or to little

    Im complaining that to little of our educational base has business incubators, entrepreneurial supports, research and leading edge technology degree programs.

    Most of the programs that I have seen, except for UB and BuffState are mostly generic liberal arts and business. None would give a reason for Bristol Myers to have kept their pharmaceutical campus open.

  6. #6
    Gold Member Night Owl's Avatar
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    and for the life of me I do not understand why Buffalo does not have the businesses and the loyalty of the business community that other cities have toward their city.

    Because this is Buffalo

    If every city had the same tourist attaractions we'd be a corbon copy of one another... and there would be no reason to travel anywhere else to see such fine things in New York State.

    If we had a place like "corning" I would probably only vist it once every 5 years like the falls. But I wouldn't mind planning a vacation to go to Corning, NY some time... I wouldn't do it every year, if so, then I would probably just move there.

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    I spent a week each in Rochester, Syracuse and Binghamton over the last year. I was actually a cultural tourist, wanting to see what each of these cities offered in terms of museums and such and to learn more about them. They were all cities that I had passed on my way to myreal destination.

    While allowing for differences in size, I was struck by how much Buffalo has to offer visitors in terms of museums and theaters. Binghamton has a really nice new library, while Syracuse's main branch is buried in the middle of a redeveloped downtown mall. It was nice, too, but there was no signage outside to let you know it's even there.

    The other thing that struck me is how much industry has left all of our upstate cities since WW II.. Binghamton had Endicott Johnson shoes and IBM. Syracuse had a number of chemical plants and typewriters (of all things). And Kodak in Rochester continues to wind down.

    Of these four, Rochester seems to do the best job at "doing downtown". It is more compact than Buffalo and seems to be more vibrant. And the museums are comparable. Syracuse's Armory Square is something that could be replicated in other towns; might be a model for a Cobblestone District that is more than a museum.

    In all four, there's not much interaction between the colleges and daily life of the city. I used to think that was a function of SUNY (no alignment between alumni, faculty and students due to state funding) buy Syracuse University seemed to be doing no better.

  8. #8
    Linda_D: don't forget U of R, which is an ivy-league type school.

    UB may be big, but the quality of UB's Engineering departments is not that great. The ranks of the various engineering departments continue to drop as compared to other universities. How many startup companies have spun off from UB? Just as a comparison, here's a list of spinoffs from CMU (which, I know, isn't in WNY, but I'm just presenting it here as an example) Computer Science department: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/research/spinoffs/list.html

    Pittsburgh, IMHO, comes the closest to Buffalo in terms of the past and the problems. But with their slow migration into high-tech, they seem to have shed that old blue-collar image. Buffalo, on the other hand, continues to struggle.

  9. #9
    Member WestSideJohn's Avatar
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    I grew up in Syracuse. In a lot of ways, Buffalo and Syracuse are alike, but Buffalo has so much more to offer. Sure, size is a factor but there's more to it than that. I think the main difference is the economic and cultural impact of Syracuse University. This impact is larger than anything here in Buffalo. There are a few reasons for this.

    1. Syracuse is a smaller city.
    2. Syracuse doesn't have any major league professional sports teams, so Syracusans follow the Orange the way we follow the Bills and the Sabres. All Syracusans identify with SU in a way that Buffalonians simply don't connect with the colleges or universities here unless they happened to attend school there.
    3. SUNY Buffalo is bigger than Syracuse University, but it also has a higher percentage of students who are from this area to begin with. SU brings students into Central New York from all over the country, and these students are often financially comfortable. The University has an enormous financial impact on the city.
    4. The Syracuse University campus is well integrated with the rest of the city. It's fairly close to downtown - a longish walk or a quick bus ride. Compare that to UB's Amherst Campus.
    5. SU as a whole isn't among the top-level Universities. In fact, at times it veers dangerously close to "party school" territory. But it has several excellent programs which attract top students. The School of Journalism and the School of Architecture in particular are among the best in the nation, and I believe the business school is moving up the ranks as well.

    Syracuse has a decent amount of culture for a city its size, but naturally things are typically on a smaller scale than Buffalo. The Everson Museum of Art for example is an excellent gallery, but it's nowhere near the size of the Albright-Knox. Syracuse never had the wealth Buffalo had back in the day, so while there's no shortage of lovely architecture, there are no masterpieces on the magnitude of the Central Terminal or the Olmstead Park system.

    There are, however, two areas where Syracuse kicks Buffalo's ass. One is that they seem to have done a better job in preserving or restoring the architectural treasures, especially downtown. Syracuse's downtown is looking damned good, and it's not 50% parking lots.

    The other area is that I believe the Syracuse area as a whole has a more positive attitude than Buffalo. People are less likely to complain or focus on the faults of the area than Buffalonians. It's a shame, too because we have so much more going for us here in Buffalo yet we could learn a lesson or two from Syracuse.
    Last edited by WestSideJohn; April 23rd, 2005 at 08:51 AM.

    Treachery made a monster out of me

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    I spent my week in a former apartment building which was recently renovated into a hotel. I was right at the edge of the area where SU is and I didn't notice much evidence of it.

    The big news in the paper that week was that SU was going to buy a building or two downtown and hold some classes there. The profs didn't seem to like it.

    I believe you that SU is bigger to Syracuse thatn UB is to Buffalo. But the natural tendency of a school to keep to itself and the way I-81 cuts off that part of town really does tend to isolate SU from the rest of the city.

    Architecture is great. Disappointing that there's no history book on local history, altho the Onondaga HIstorical Society says "we're working on it."

    Again, that Armory Square is a great draw.

  11. #11
    Member Linda_D's Avatar
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    mea culpa on U of Rochester, hackativist.

    originally posted by biker
    The other thing that struck me is how much industry has left all of our upstate cities since WW II..
    It's not just the bigger upstate cities that lost industry, but the smaller upstate cities and towns as well -- and a lot of it since the 1960s! When my family moved to the Gowanda area in 1960, there two major private employers: Moench Tanning and the Peter Cooper Glue Factory. Combined with the Gowanda State Hospital and the JN Adam Developmental Center plus smaller private employers, there were probably close to 5,000 jobs within 4 miles of this little town, so that people from the entire area of southern Erie, northeastern Chautauqua, and northern and western Catt County made their livings working in Gowanda.

    This isn't just a phenomenon of upstate NY, however. You see the same empty factories in western PA and in many Ohio cities as well, and it also occurs in many of the small cities and towns in the Southeast that once produced textiles, wood products, furniture, etc. That there are fewer empty factories in many of these places today stems from the fact that they had fewer factories to lose. Upstate New York -- especially along the Erie Canal route -- was an industrial bee-hive going back to pre-Civil War days.
    Your right to buy a military weapon without hindrance, delay or training cannot trump Daniel Barden’s right to see his eighth birthday. -- Jim Himes

  12. #12
    Member concernedwnyer's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Night Owl
    and for the life of me I do not understand why Buffalo does not have the businesses and the loyalty of the business community that other cities have toward their city.

    Because this is Buffalo

    If every city had the same tourist attaractions we'd be a corbon copy of one another... and there would be no reason to travel anywhere else to see such fine things in New York State.

    If we had a place like "corning" I would probably only vist it once every 5 years like the falls. But I wouldn't mind planning a vacation to go to Corning, NY some time... I wouldn't do it every year, if so, then I would probably just move there.


    Yep, this is why we need to bring in Elmer fud's Bass Pro and of course give them the discounted rental fee of $1.00 for up to 49 years. We buffalonians will even pay to gut the place and put up a parking lot.

    Buffalo did not mature with the times. The industrial revolution left Buffalo and Buffalo should have adjusted accordingy. Buffalo did not and Buffalo still is not. This city is getting old and tired quicker than a forward time warp. Hotel industry seems to be picking up though. What gives with all the new hotels going up? Are people realizing it is cheaper to rent a hotel room then it is to pay the taxes and fees????

    I am hot tonight!

  13. #13
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    Originally posted by concernedwnyer
    Yep, this is why we need to bring in Elmer fud's Bass Pro and of course give them the discounted rental fee of $1.00 for up to 49 years.
    What are you, a pro complainer? And you dont like the hotel developments either? What does a chronic complainer such as yourself like?

    And what would you propose happens to the aud? We own the property and it remains a neglected disgrace. So what do you propose?

  14. #14
    Member concernedwnyer's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Boost Buffalo
    What are you, a pro complainer? And you dont like the hotel developments either? What does a chronic complainer such as yourself like?

    And what would you propose happens to the aud? We own the property and it remains a neglected disgrace. So what do you propose?



    Sorry, I was being sarcastic with some truth sprinkled on top.
    You did not get the pun line with the hotel comment though.
    To answer your question. No I am not complaining. I think something should be done with the Aud. However, not at the proposed deal that is being conjured up between US and Bass Pro. I say us because we will in some fomr pay for it. If you had taken the time to read the memorandum of understanding you will quickly discover that it is loosely written and it is not in the best interest for Buffalo taxpayer base. If Bass pro wants to come in here great. Let Bass pro rennovate the place of stay themself and also pay a fair market lease rate. Issuing 14 million in Bonds plus all the other financial incentives for them to come here makes little sense. Someone is smoking a long pipe if they think Bass pro is going to turn downtown Buffalo around.

    Hotels, you have not noticed all the hotels in the burbs that seem to be going up?? Cheektowaga...... I just made an observation that is all. I did not say Oh, I am sorry they are all in anticipation of Bass Pro. I wonder if keeping a dead fish in a hotel room is concidered having a pet?? Will the people be charged for an additional occupant????? The logistics are far to grand sometimes to ponder.



  15. #15
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    Originally posted by concernedwnyer
    I think something should be done with the Aud. However, not at the proposed deal that is being conjured up between US and Bass Pro. I say us because we will in some fomr pay for it.
    So, then what should be done with the aud? And who should pay for it? We own it. And just what is the fair market lease rate for the aud if it isnt a dollar, how much should it be?

    Or can all you do is claim its bad and complain?

    And what about the other extensive waterfront/infrastructure improvements included in that deal? Or dont you like them either?

    Just what would you propose to do? other than complain...

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