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This time around, the ears fit.
In a first-of-its-kind deal, Niagara Falls Mayor Irene Elia announced that the city will turn itself over to the Walt Disney Corporation, effective immediately, and become the world's largest theme park.
"This is the day the Lord has made," Herroner crowed. "If you liked Splash Park, you're going to love this."
The takeover resulted from negotiations to settle the family-entertainment giant's copyright infringement lawsuit, filed after Elia's repeated use of the Disney name when announcing plans for a miniature golf course downtown.
In order to secure the mayor's cooperation and replace her defunct job, Disney guaranteed Herroner a permanent supporting role in a stage version of "The Flying Nun," with pop star Britney Spears slated to reprise Sally Field's starring role.
Construction on a long-delayed casino will begin immediately, with or without state approval, Disney CEO Michael Eisner said.
"Hey, we're Disney," Eisner said. "Who's going to f--- with us?"
Plans for "Disney Presents Niagara Falls" include a diverse variety of attractions for all ages, not just children and families, Eisner said.
"We realize that in today's marketplace, we need to appeal to adults with and without children," Eisner said. "And why should gambling be the only vice we capitalize on?"
The centerpiece of the former city's redevelopment -- Disney's "Wonderful
World of Prostitution." Under the plan, Memorial Parkway will revert to its
original name, 11th Street, and again host what Eisner called a "first-class
red-light district."
In addition to recreating the bordellos that made 11th Street infamous in the first half of the 20th century, adjoining neighborhoods will be leveled and rebuilt to replicate other well-known prostitution zones, like those in Amsterdam and Bangkok.
Other attractions will also highlight the history of Niagara Falls, N.Y.
Much of the city's crumbling areas will become "Toxic Town," where kids of all ages can explore the wonders of chemical, nuclear and other industrial pollution.
"The beautiful thing about 'Toxic Town' is that it won't cost a lot to build," Eisner said. "We'll just use the empty factories and surrounding brownfields."
The attraction will literally have an interactive flavor. At the conclusion
of the tour, kids will participate in a taste test in which they try to tell
the difference between various toxic sludges and delicious lime-green Jello.
In "Crack City," guests will try to make it through a gantlet of men demanding "50 cent to catch the bus to Buffalo," women offering companionship in exchange for beer and random flying cinder blocks. Adults and kids who successfully negotiate the obstacle course will receive bags full of rock candy and 40-oz. bottles of non-alcoholic beer.
But the prime attraction in "Disney Presents Niagara Falls" figures to be "It's a Mob World, After All."
Eisner said Pine Avenue would be remodeled to recreate the heyday of Don Stefano Magaddino in the 1930s and '40s.
"Visitors will get the chance to live both sides of the experience," Eisner said. "It will be like one of those Old West ghost towns, but with machine guns and fedoras instead of six-shooters and cowboy hats."
In one interactive feature, visitors get the chance to shake down merchants for protection money, learn how to properly organize their "family" organization and make a real Molotov cocktail.
On the flip side, guests will be forced to buy souvenirs and refreshments they don't really want or need. The "Mob World" experience closes with a "fake hit," in which unsuspecting visitors will be briefly hog-tied in the well-ventilated trunk of a 1963 Cadillac, "strangled" with imitation piano wire made of licorice and finally have their throat "slit" with a rubber knife -- vertically, instead of horizontally.
"I guess that hurts more, or something," said one source familiar with threats of such violence.
In order to head off possible protests from irate Italian-Americans, Eisner said "Mob World" will also include interactive displays celebrating the legacies of Irish, Russian and Vietnamese organized crime.
"No one ethnicity has a monopoly on this sort of thing," Eisner said. "We won't leave anyone out."
| April 1 2003 |