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[Fwd: [NYERIE] Original Erie Canal site threatened (fwd)]



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Apologies for any duplication.

This message has but a small connection to genealogy, so I beg everyone's
patience.

Millions of Americans have ancestors who immigrated to the US from
Europe and took the Erie Canal to get to Great Lakes steamboats and settle
the midwest.  The mighty city of Chicago, for example, was a direct
beneficiary of population brought by the canal.

Most of you also know, from the songs you learned in grade school, that
the canal began in Albany and ended in Buffalo, NY, where I live, and was
built with a large amount of Irish labor.

A little history about where the canal ended in Buffalo: our canal
district, virtually in the shadow of our City Hall, was perhaps the most
notorious and seamy waterfront in the whole country.  The
innocent-sounding song, "Buffalo Gals (Won't You Come Out Tonight)," is
actually about prostitutes, because Buffalo's Canal Street was lined with
brothels.

The district was densely populated with the newest immigrants (Irish,
Polish, Italian) and the desperately poor.  Disease was epidemic, brawling
and murder was common.  Paradoxically, alongside the horrific tenements
and factories was some of the highest-valued real estate in the country,
where 19th century shipping and railroad companies had lavish (for the
time) corporate headquarters.

It is likely that fugitive slaves found refuge in the canal district, for
there was at least one Black-owned tavern/brothel there before the Civil
War, and Buffalo's position on the Niagara River permitted easy crossing
over to Canada. Buffalo was an important link on the Underground Railroad.

The area was enough of a local scandal for so long that it was seen as
an overdue civic improvement to bulldoze the then "blighted" canal
district in the late 1930s and build public housing highrises instead.

These apartments still stand, but under the asphalt parking lots
surrounding them are the original street network, foundation walls for the
Commercial Slip (the original terminus of the Erie Canal) and some
building foundation walls.  There may also be railroad tracks and wharf
pilings.

Long story short, along comes the Empire State Development Corp. (ESDC), a
quasi-governmental agency, to "develop" Buffalo's languishing waterfront.
Their plan pays no heed to the architectural, transportation, or social
history of the 12 acre site and is full of park-like features that were
foreign to 19th century commercial Buffalo, such as curving landscaped
walkways, insipid plazas, fake canal slips.  To build this plan requires
bulldozing what remains of the original district.

This travesty-in-progress needs national attention, for the Erie Canal is
arguably the most famous canal in the world and played a key role in
populating the continental US.  Will tourists, many of whom know that
their ancestors traveled the canal, come to see a fake "attraction" that
bears no resemblance to history?  Will travelers following Underground
Railroad routes be satisfied with mere signage and photos of what once
was?

To learn more about what is presently taking place in Buffalo, visit:

Preservation Coalition of Erie County
http://bfn.org/preservationworks/canal/canal.html

To learn more about the history of Buffalo's Canal District; visit:

Buffalo HistoryWorks: The Buffalo Harbor
http://bhw.buffnet.net/erie-canal/erie-canal.htm

IMPORTANT: We need your help to halt the ESDC project and replace it with
a historically sensitive excavation and restoration of the Canal District.
I am told that the two people who can successfully put the brakes on this
misguided project are:

Mayor Anthony Masiello
Buffalo City Hall
Niagara Square
Buffalo, NY 14202
716-851-4841
mayordept@ci.buffalo.ny.us

Joel Giambra, Erie County Executive
95 Franklin St.
Buffalo, NY 14202
voice 716-858-8500
fax 716-858-8411
(no public email address, darn it)

If you want to help save the Canal District, please contact the officials
above.  Don't just forward this message to them (they've already heard
from me), examine the websites above and then write something in your own
words.  Fax or snail mail is more convincing than email, but I know
everyone has busy lives.  I'd love to see their switchboards jammed with
concerned callers from all over the country.

This message may be freely forwarded to individuals, lists, or groups, or
reprinted in newsletters.  Interested parties might include preservation
organizations, historians, genealogists, underground railroad researchers,
rail fans, canal fans, etc.

Thanks, everyone, for whatever help you can provide.

   *:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.-*
"Too many clowns, not enough circuses."  [seen on a t-shirt]
Cynthia Van Ness, MLS, email: af482@freenet.buffalo.edu
Shameless self-promotion: http://lookup.at/buffalo





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