Like any concerned citizen, I am eager to answer the mayor’s call for ideas for Canal Side.

As we know, our nine-year courtship of Bass Pro ended badly last month. Whatever one thinks of that, the big-box retailer’s rejection opens the door for new ideas, new plans, new proposals.

I have one. Eight years ago, an idea was floated for Buffalo that slipped away for lack of county dollars. But the notion of Buffalo as the permanent home of the National Comedy Hall of Fame made sense to me.

For starters, we could use a few laughs. Beyond that, no city has better claim to the Comedy Hall of Fame than Buffalo, which has been the butt of more jokes than perhaps any other place in America. Getting it here would be our revenge on the rest of America, a classic lemons-to-lemonade turnaround, a way to take our reputation and make it work for us.

I think the idea has a lot of potential —and no other city has staked a real claim. The current Comedy Hall of Fame is in oft-shifted, undersized quarters in Florida. It is, more or less, there for the taking.

Best of all, it fits the plan for Canal Side: attractions that not only draw people to the downtown waterfront, but prompt folks to hang around afterward and check out the district’s coming shops, bars and restaurants. In contrast, destination retailers with connected parking and an in-house restaurant (sound familiar?) are the civic equivalent of the Holding Center. They don’t want you to leave.

“I think [the Comedy Hall] fits in well with the tenant mix at Canal Side,” said Eric Lander, a locally based real estate consultant who has worked on lifestyle/ entertainment centers. “It has the potential to draw people from outside of Western New York, which you want. . . . I could see it as the lead anchor of a cluster of museums.”

We are not talking about a dull snooze site filled with display cases. It would include space for live comedy shows. There would be rooms where classic bits from comedy’s greats—from Charlie Chaplin to Chris Rock—play nonstop on flat-screen TVs.

Given the storehouse of great comedy, it would be easy to keep things fresh by rotating sketches and clips. A different comedian could be highlighted every month, and there would be memorabilia and a gift shop. Unless all of us have our senses of humor surgically removed, it will not go out of style.

“Comedy crosses all boundaries— race, religion, whatever,” said Bill Wende. “I think there is so much you could do with this.”

Wende, a project manager for HSBC Bank, gathered more than 5,000 petition signatures eight years ago to bring the National Comedy Hall of Fame to Buffalo. Joel Giambra, then the county executive, looked at relocating the Floridabased attraction—which was searching for a larger, permanent home. The county ultimately passed on the idea for lack of funds. Money is less of an issue for Erie Canal Harbor officials, who have in hand the $35 million targeted for Bass Pro.

The Comedy Hall—housed in modest quarters near Tampa Bay, Fla.—still is looking for a place to call home and a way to grow. Tony Belmont, a former rock concert promoter, started it as a nonprofit in the early 1990s. Belmont, in an e-mail, said the place draws 750 people daily, despite little advertising.

“In the right building, with access for buses and crowds, and a good city to work with, we could conservatively bring in more than 450,000 [visitors]a year,” Belmont said. “I liked Buffalo. . . . I would give any offer from the city serious consideration.”

The attraction is there for the asking. And we won’t have to wait nine years for an answer.

desmonde@buffnews.comnull