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Gov. George Pataki's really on to something. Rebuilding the Niagara Street corridor using a plan similar to that employed on 42nd Street in New York City is a tremendous idea. If he manages to pull it off, he's got my vote in the next election.
In our last issue, the editorial advocated allowing the city to go bankrupt so that the state would come in and wrest control from our local politicians, inept and otherwise. I was amazed by the number of local movers and shakers who approached me after the editorial appeared to say they had been saying the same thing for years.
Pataki's plan would accomplish many of the same objectives as bankruptcy. A state corporation would be formed and use tax money to leverage private investment. Make no mistake. Our fumbling municipal government would be left out of the loop entirely. There would be no nonsense about the money being divided and going to the North End, LaSalle or Pine Avenue because that's where the votes are.
The suits the state sends in won't care less about the votes, or about who the mayor or the council are, for that matter. Their only objective will be to clean up the mess in the vicinity of the Falls left by nearly 40 years of incompetence and ineptitude at City Hall. I lived in New York during the time of the Times Square renaissance. Once it got going, it happened very quickly, and a squalid neighborhood dominated by drug dealers and hookers--sound familiar?--was transformed into a glitzy and glamorous playground. Families now stroll unmolested down 42nd Street where, not that long ago, pimps used to accost sailors on shore leave.
And they did it without a casino.
Interestingly, New York real estate mogul Howard Milstein was a player in the Times Square project with his renovation of the Milford Plaza Hotel and several other properties in the area. Milstein currently heads up Niagara Falls Redevelopment, which controls 142 acres of downtown property, the area most likely to be targeted under Pataki's proposal. In New York, about $75 million in state money was parlayed into $2 billion in working capital. I suspect the needs of Niagara Street will be somewhat more modest. And I also suspect that NFR, Benderson, Sevenson, Harry Williams and David Cordish will be able to work together a lot better when they're not being pitted against one another by denizens of City Hall interested only in their own agendas.
For far too long, the gateway to one of the natural wonders of the world has been controlled by political hacks far more interested in maintaining their own pitifully meager power bases. The results have been tragic. National developers with proven track records have been turned away in favor of locals ill-equipped to undertake the kinds of projects needed. Every four years, the developers who found favor with the previous administration are chided by the incoming politicians and the only work that goes forward is that of the lawyers, who get rich from the resulting tangles of lawsuits.
Lackey Plaza, dismal in the day, can be downright scary after dark. Falls Street Faire and Falls Street Station, which were built without any apparent thought as to who would occupy them, are crumbling eyesores. And every day, tourists attempt to gain entry to the Teletech building, thinking there might be something to do there.
Pataki's plan, if it happens, could change all that.
Having lived downtown for the past three years, I can't tell you how many times I've been approached by tourists in search of touristy attractions. Other than the real, though prosaic, pleasures offered by a frankfurter at the Misty Dog Grill, dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, lunch at the Press Box or a pint and a game of pool at the Arterial, there's not much you can tell them.
But for the current temporary crew over at City Hall, I do have one piece of advice. Lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.