All of us here at the Niagara Falls Reporter lost a great friend and mentor last week with the unexpected death of Frank Amendola at the age of 73. He was one of those larger-than-life characters you always hear about but rarely meet.
A connoisseur of fine art and prime real estate, Frank got his start selling used cars with his father on a small Pine Avenue lot. In his later years, people asked him when he was going to slow down, but there was no slow in him.
We started doing business with Frank even before the first issue of the paper hit the streets some seven years ago. Bruce and I had what we thought was a good idea, but that was about all we had. One of our first priorities was putting together a list of people around town who we thought might be interested in taking a flyer on something as quixotic as launching a new newspaper here in the Falls and who might have a couple of shekels put away with which to do it.
Frank's name was on the short list, and Bruce went up to see him. After handing him the one-page "business plan" I'd typed up the night before, Bruce began his spiel. He was about halfway into it when Frank put up his hand.
"Bruce, I'm not going to give you any money," he said. "But what I will do is rent you an office." It was classic Frank. Bruce was kind of dumbfounded as the tables were turned before him. Suddenly, instead of being the pitcher, he'd become the pitchee.
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
At that time, Frank's Niagara Office Building at Third and Niagara was the prestige address in town. Rep. John LaFalce had a suite there, along with Niagara Falls Redevelopment, the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, the National Organization for Women and many of the city's top attorneys and accountants. Downstairs, off the lobby, was the HSBC bank branch, and we opened our business account there.
While we didn't have a suite, the price was right. He said he'd charge us more for rent when we became more successful. Frank was taking a chance on us in his own way, and it wasn't always easy for him.
Other tenants got the idea that we smoked cigarettes in our office and complained. They even called the Health Department, and the building got raided. We started writing about the gangsters who used to run Laborers Local 91 here and they complained, which had all of us looking under our cars for bombs. Mayor Irene Elia complained and, after her, Mayor Vince Anello complained. Some of Frank's good friends in the real estate and development business also complained and, one time, even his own cousin complained.
But Frank took it all in stride. He'd come in the office with a half-smile on his face and pull up a chair.
"What are you guys trying to do to me?" he'd ask.
We'd talk about it and laugh and when he left he'd say, "Hey, take it a little easy on those guys," knowing full well we wouldn't. Still, he could honestly say he'd had a talk with us about it. Once Frank accepted you as a friend, you had a friend for life.
A lot of people have commented on his keen business acumen and ability to drive a hard bargain, but when it came to media relations, Frank was quite possibly the smartest businessman I've come across in 30 years.
Most guys either want to clam up and not say anything, or talk too much and hold press conferences to announce plans that aren't yet finalized. The former type makes the media suspicious, while the latter invariably misses one of their self-imposed deadlines and winds up with egg on their face.
Frank took a different approach. Friendly and helpful when a reporter called, he made friends with most of the good ones. He was always an open book and he'd tell you honestly what was on his mind about anything you asked him. But you had to ask him. He never gave anybody a bum steer and, in the news racket, that's something more valuable than gold.
He never held a press conference I know about, but if he asked some reporter friends to drop by the building because he wanted to talk about, say, the Niagara Aerospace Museum, they'd arrive to see trucks unloading airplanes out back.
That night, the story would be on all the news broadcasts, and the next morning it would dominate the local dailies.
The Reporter, of course, had an unfair advantage in a lot of ways. Frank knew everybody and he knew their business, and as often as not, a five-minute chat with him could result in a column, an editorial and a front-page story.
There was plenty of concrete business advice, too, and I don't think Bruce would disagree if I said the Reporter probably wouldn't be around today without Frank's guidance and counsel.
When the Senecas bought the Niagara Office Building, we all had to move, and he asked if we had any plans about where we were going.
"Wherever you're going, Frank," Bruce said. "That's where we're going, too."
And so we wound up as the first tenants in Frank's Niagara Business Center on Buffalo Avenue. Last week, the big flag out front flew at half staff.
The problem with writing a piece like this is that it could be 10,000 words long and you still wouldn't do the man justice. His devotion to his family was such that he had framed photographs of his mother and father, uncles and aunts hanging on the walls of his office. He lived for his beautiful wife, Jerauldine, and kids, Michael, Greg, Gerry, Geff, Susan, Geannine and Amanda Rose. If you knew Frank at all, you knew where the kids went to college and how they all were doing.
After my son, Richard, died a few years ago, I'd just gotten back from making the arrangements in Cleveland and was sitting on the couch in the living room, mad at God and the world. It was a Saturday afternoon and the phone rang. On the other end was Jerauldine. She said some very kind things and then said Frank had wanted to call but didn't know if I'd feel like talking; would I mind if she put him on?
He got on and we said hello and then he almost blurted out, "You know I lost a son of my own."
It might sound funny, but Frank's words were like a weight being lifted off my shoulders. We talked about people saying they know how you feel when they couldn't possibly know how you feel and about how, no matter how much you know in your mind you did everything you could do, there's some part of you that's convinced that if you did something differently, you could have prevented it. We talked about his boy, Francis, and mine, and how they died.
It was a long phone call, and as it ended, Frank said, "The point is, you've got to get through it. You never get over it, but you've just got to get through it. It's the only thing you can do."
As always, he was right.
He'll be sorely missed around here, I can tell you that, and our hearts go out to his family.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | December 5 2006 |