More power to you man.
I don’t want to see them tear down a neighborhood to put up a glorified truck stop either…But I don’t think an online petition soliciting on a forum full of internet tough guys is going to enlighten politicians who think in terms of “how will this put more $$$ into my pocket”:gotme:
i just went through the hole story about Front park
im convinced buffalos decision makers have been imbredding and changing their last names to avoid detection since the depression era
the best was how in 1940, they declared the Civil War canons - which had previously been moved from Layette Square to front park - to be scrap metal. good thing those werent a part of AMERICAS history or anything :bloated:
Buffalo - Americas Emo City, because it seams to like to sit in the corner and cut itself
Thanks for taking the time to type that up. I was under the impression that they were just knocking down a few ghetto houses. Apparently not.
I’ll go look on my own but do you have any good reading handy you could link up?
+1
This needs to get built.
First, as soon as you bring up “historic homes”, I mentally want to tune you out. That’s the same excuse Buffalo uses to stop every new development. Panos wants to expand, nope, sorry, historic home. We want to build a nice hotel near Buffalo State, nope, historic homes. Casino, nope, historic grain mills. Buffalo is an OLD CITY. Everything is OLD. It doesn’t mean you have to save every building because it’s “historic”. Which is a better place to preserve historic buildings, Allentown or next to the 190?
A better plaza should HELP with the polution, not make it worse, because you won’t have trucks sitting there idling for hours and hours while they wait to be inspected. Even if they’re stuck on the bridge the prevailing winds are blowing that exhaust straight into Buffalo. With the new diesel truck emissions rules the black smokey diesel will soon be a thing of the past anyway.
As for waterfront access and the quality of the neighborhoods; that ship sailed the day they broke ground on the 190. As long as the 190 exists Buffalo will forever be cut off from the water and the neighborhoods will only continue to decline. Since the 190 isn’t going anywhere in any of our lifetimes neighborhoods don’t make a very convincing arguement either.
If you want to see the proposed expansion vs what exists now, check out these two links:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=buffalo,+ny&ie=UTF8&ll=42.904584,-78.898219&spn=0.005611,0.009978&t=h&z=17
http://www.peacebridgex.com/files/Landscape%20Plan%20Map%20of%20%20Revised%20Project%20Area.pdf
I see no change to Front Park.
I really don’t like eminent domain either. It bothers me that the government can force me to sell my home for a project they deem necessary. But this case is exactly why eminent domain exists. The need for a better link between the US and Canada outweighs the desire for a couple hundred people to keep their homes. As long as they are fairly compensated I feel this project needs to go forward.
Finally, I’m glad we’re not putting the plaza entirely on the Canadian side. Canada has far too liberal immigration policies and I don’t want them being able to influence our policies simply because our customs station is in their country.
Sure, there have been mistakes made in the past (i.e. Larkin Bldg., Sqajaguada, 190, etc.), but I just don’t see this as a mistake. Living cities are constantly changing; developing new areas and shifting neighborhoods. It’s about time Buffalo re-entered the realm of a living city and began to develop our resources in earnest. I want to see complete bridge expansion. I want to see waterfront development and a reinvigorated downtown. I want to see people who have never lived outside of this area stop being so afraid of change and finally let our area and our people catch up with the rest of the world.
A thread about expansion in Buffalo?
Lemme see… Yep, there it is: Preservation; historic homes; grain mills.
Expansion plan means new design which means improvements which will bring better efficiency. The bridge means more to the local economy then a dozen or so old homes that are presumably going to depreciate in value, based on the area’s sales records.
Not a fan of eminent domain, but not signing. This one makes sense.
Also, when is the last time that an online petition led to a tangible result?
No, Seriously?
coldaccord makes some good points, but I believe that in the end, this expansion would do more good then bad.
If you knock down 100 houses where the people are getting cancer because of exhaust fumes, wouldn’t that be 100 fewer homes of people getting cancer from exhaust fumes?
+1 to fuck the historic buildings. They were put up with irreverence to virgin land in the name of progress, they should be torn down with irreverence in the name of progress. I’m all for keeping a few historic buildings, but we can’t keep them all.
As for a bad neighborhood getting worse, that does suck but isn’t that kind of the way the west side is going anyways?
I say instead of wasting time petitioning to block something like this, we should be writing letters and calling our government representatives to get them moving on things like tearing down the skyway, downgrading the 198, and getting our country the hell out of Iraq 
word, you’ve got to pick your battles.
Careful, that got me married. 
Unless the houses were built by a famous architect or have some historic significance they have no business being catergorized as historic. My house was built in 1921. Just because it is old it is not historic. There are a million houses just like mine and if they city wants to demolish it to make way for development I wouldnt stand in their way. The only way I would is if I was not fairly compensated for the market value of the house and then some. People who are forced from their homes should be paid wayy above market value for the trouble they are put through to vacate their property.
Just wait until they start this project and someone throws an Indian arrowhead in the frontyard of one of these homes.:lol:
My turds tell the history of what I ate but, I rarely save them.
I had a feeling you’d end up here
in which special cases do you actually save them?
kinda vague aren’t we?
most of that area is a shit hole that needs to be burnt to the ground. unless we are talking about the houses long the park i am all for ripping down the ghetto.
next someone should suggest keeping the projects on the water front.
:eyebrow: