The day the music died in Niagara Falls

The City of Niagara Falls and its long-suffering residents have suffered many kinds of losses since Albany took 50 acres out of the heart of downtown and created a territory for a tax free sovereign nation called the Senecas to compete against our taxpaying businesses here.

Albany gave a sovereign people a monopoly on gambling so that they and their children could get rich while we suffer and pay high taxes to help support their infrastructure here and grow poorer.

That’s what I call bad governance.

Meantime, the tax-free businesses have driven out many local businesses and the gambling is geared mostly to locals. In effect we support the casino with our gambling losses. And it shows. The city is poorer today than what it was when the Seneca’s first came to town in 2003.

Among the losses to the quality of our lives is the loss of our Convention Center.

Every great city needs a convention center and in fact for true community purpose, a city needs a convention center more than it needs a casino.
Ours was given to the Senecas for a dollar for them to use as a temporary casino. They converted it into their permanent casino which is what it is today.

With the loss of our convention center we lost all the hotel business associated with conventions, for although we do have a pint size conference center that can accommodate a small conference of 3,000 people, our old convention center which could hold 10,000 people was a real convention magnet. Married to the size and scope of our convention center was the appeal of having a convention in Niagara Falls.

For me, personally, one of the great losses incurred by the state giving away our convention center is the loss of music, of the ability of this city to host large scale musical acts. There is no large scale concert venue in the city anymore.

What music we had at the Niagara Falls Convention Center.

I remember seeing Eric Clapton and Santana on the same stage. I have seen Chicago, Seals and Croft, Bob Seger, Blue Oyster Cult, Sly and the Family Stone, the Beach Boys, the Ojays, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley (two shows), ZZ Top, Aerosmith. Deep Purple, Jethro Tull and the Allman Brothers. There was a caliber of stars that used to come to town that now no longer come because there is no concert venue of this magnitude here. There was the rodeo, the monster truck show, boxing, you name it, we had it.

It was a cause for civic pride.

A casino owned by foreigners cannot replace the thrill of having a big concert every month that brought tens of thousands of people into town who afterward poured out to restaurants and stayed at hotels and gave this city glamour and recognition.
People talk all the time about all the things we lost since Albany cheated us into a having a tax free nation and monopoly sovereign casino here, but one thing that should be mentioned prominently is the loss of music.

What a time it was not so long ago, that you could look forward to seeing great stars in the Cataract City.

In Niagara Falls, the day the Senecas came to town, was the day the music died.