WNY Non-Development Discussion

[desertpunk]

Bills vs. Patriots: never a pretty picture...

[WIGS]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

What do you guys think about the Bisons becoming an affiliate of the Blue Jays? It looks like the Bisons could part ways with the Mets.

well as the resident Canadian (that grew up in Niagara with a father from Toronto-attended many Jays games!) and as someone who went to college/uni in Buffalo I must say that strengthening ties between Toronto & Buffalo can only be positive. This might help attract some Blue Jays fans that normally don't come to Buffalo for a visit.

[benp]

With Super Flea in Cheektowaga closing and becoming a Walmart, is there any possibility that the people who proposed using the old DL&W terminal as a "Buffalo River Market" could be quick enough to pick up a good number of the vendors that must be relocated?
http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/01...velopment.html

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by benp

With Super Flea in Cheektowaga closing and becoming a Walmart, is there any possibility that the people who proposed using the old DL&W terminal as a "Buffalo River Market" could be quick enough to pick up a good number of the vendors that must be relocated?
http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/01...velopment.html

Wasn't the Albright Knox interested in that location for a satellite museum?

[homestar]

Originally Posted by benp

http://www.buffalorising.com/2009/01...velopment.html

Wait.... whatever happened to those funds and the DLW project??


"Allowing these funds to vanish into the bureaucratic abyss of Washington was never an option," said Higgins. "By pulling together federal officials in Washington and New York City and local development officials in Buffalo, we produced a plan that will fund both the purchase of 25 hybrid buses to improve transit options for Western New Yorkers, and the development of the DL&W Terminal at Buffalo's Inner Harbor into a transit hub and public exhibit space that will serve the hundreds of millions of dollars in development at the Inner Harbor."

[xzmattzx]

I'm slowly moving along with my pictures from the summer. Here's some from Sturgeon Point. I'd never driven that far south along the lake, and I got to see Greycliff (from the driveway). It was nice to see the landmarks that I'm familiar with on the Ontario side from here, because it helped me understand what I was looking at on the New York side from over in Canada. There were never really any landmarks on the other side that I could identify.


Point Abino Lighthouse





Sherkston sand dune





Crystal Beach condos



Some structure near Port Colborne; probably the lift bridge



Downtown Buffalo







Buffalo's West Side



Buffalo grain elevators, and other buildings





The shoreline

[fubo]

New Bills Lease Imminent

http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/...lImminent.html

[homestar]

Why is Ontario treating Ft Erie like crap?

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/n....html?page=all

[WIGS]

Originally Posted by homestar

Why is Ontario treating Ft Erie like crap?

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/n....html?page=all

Ontario is run by Toronto and the GTA, that's why (like NYS run by Albany/NYC). dismantling a thoroughbred racetrack that's been part of area history for over 100 years is quite disappointing and sad. It's one of those bi-national places (like Crystal Beach amusement park, Ralph Wilson Stadium, HSBC arena First Niagara Center, etc) with some years half of the vehicle plates being from New York. Thanks to my grandfather, my brother and I grew up watching 'the ponies' over the years and gambled on them at a much earlier age than we should have been allowed (the trick was a) we were tall for our age and b)to know the 'track talk'. Ex: "$2 Exactor-boxed, horses 5-6, race 4" haha :P).

I really hope something comes to fruition to save the track. It employs so many people and it'd be hard to think of Fort Erie without it.

[WIGS]

Good news for Fort Erie: The future NASCAR track - Canadian Motor Speedway (designed by Jeff Gordon) just got the approval from the Ontario Municipal Board http://www.thestar.com/sports/autora...t-in-fort-erie

with apparently money from Kuwait, Fort Erie might see NASCAR racing in 2014.

It'll be only 2 miles from the Peace Bridge

[ECoastTransplant]

Originally Posted by WIGS

Good news for Fort Erie: The future NASCAR track - Canadian Motor Speedway (designed by Jeff Gordon) just got the approval from the Ontario Municipal Board http://www.thestar.com/sports/autora...t-in-fort-erie

with apparently money from Kuwait, Fort Erie might see NASCAR racing in 2014.

It'll be only 2 miles from the Peace Bridge

Horses didn't work but maybe cars will?

[xzmattzx]

If you look back a couple pages, I had put up some pictures from my trip over the summer. I hadn't put all of them up; there's a set of pictures from Sturgeon Point that I was going to get to, but never did. I have some even better pictures for you guys, though, and figured that I would put them up as a little Christmas present.

Last December, I went to the Miami area for an Eagles game, and one of the activities that I did with my friends was snorkel at John Pennekamp State Park in Key Largo. I had bought an underwater camera for that, and now that I have one, I figured that I would try some underwater pictures up in Ontario at Sherkston. One evening, the lake was just right for some pictures, and I was able to experiment with some half-over-half-underwater pictures (and other experimental pictures). These are the best of them.











































I saved the best one (in my opinion) for last.

[xzmattzx]

It looks like the Sabres got rid of their Andy Reid.

[xzmattzx]

Did you guys know that aerial/pseudo-satellite imagery from 1934 is available for the Niagara Regional Municipality in Google Earth? There's plenty of cool things to look at. Here's some that I was particularly interested in.

~ For those of you familiar with Sherkston Shores, east of Port Colborne, the land's original use as a quarry is visible. The quarry hole is there, and little roads to the lake where rocks are delivered for shipping seem to be visible. There's no barge offshore, which beached there in 1961.
~ An old hockey arena in Grimsby, built in 1914 and burned in 1949, is visible. The Montreal Maroons used the place for training camp as early as 1924, and into the mid-1930s. The Saskatchewan Sheiks also held training camp there in the 1920s. Although originally built as a cold storage facility for fruit to be shipped out, it was also used as a skating rink in the winter, and was one of the 7 first arenas in the world with artificial refrigeration.
~ It's amazing to see how many fruit orchards are around the Lake Ontario shoreline. It seems that most are gone to residential development over the decades, and some are now vineyards or other agricultural uses.
~ You can see how much Niagara Falls, particularly the Canadian side, has eroded in 80 years.
~ In Niagara Falls, on the American side, you can see the old hydroelectric canal that once went right through the middle of town. You can also see the old hydroelectric plant, just north of the Rainbow Bridge.
~ Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake looks somewhat abandoned, with trees growing along the garrisons. Fort Mississauga, on the other hand, is still intact, and is surrounded by the golf course.
~ The fourth Welland Canal is dug and in use, but the previous canals are still visible. The third canal, which cuts diagonally across what is now the North End (the footprint is still visible due to lack of development), has been freshly filled in. The second canal is still flowing through Neptune's Staircase in Merritton, and through Thorold.

[fubo]

Interesting to note that in the Sunday paper article about the Erie County school districts only 3 have had a net enrollment gain over the past 5 years. Of the three two were cities - Buffalo and Lackawanna. All but one suburban district showed enrollment losses though many were quite small.

[homestar]

Interesting. I wonder how much is unique to WNY and how much is part of a national trend. The Echo Boom (the kids of the Boomers) are probably done with school, so we could be facing a national cyclical decline like we had during the 70's.

I hope they push that discussion further while debating school tax increases all over WNY. All the schools want more money to support their teachers and pensions, but they don't seem to talk much about the declining student population and how less teachers might actually be OK for the next 15 years.

[fubo]

Originally Posted by homestar

Interesting. I wonder how much is unique to WNY and how much is part of a national trend. .

It is not at all unique to WNY and is a national trend:

The USA TODAY analysis shows:

The share of the population under age 18 dropped in 95% of U.S. counties since 2000, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the 2010 Census.

The number of households that have children under age 18 has stayed at 38 million since 2000, despite a 9.7% growth in the U.S. population. As a result, the share of households with children dropped from 36% in 2000 to 33.5%.

There are now more households with dogs (43 million) than children.

•Children make up 24% of the nation's population, down from 25.7% in 2000. The kid population declined more precipitously in 58.6% of the country' 3,143 counties.

•Even in counties where the percentage of children grew, only 49 gained more than 1 percentage point — many of them suburbs on the outer edge of metropolitan areas such as Forsyth, Whitfield and Newton outside Atlanta and Cabarrus and Union outside Charlotte.