FOCUS: ERIE CANAL HARBOR
Curtain rises today on Buffalo's reborn waterfront
Official opening of Erie Canal Harbor casts redevelopment of historic location in starring role
By Phil Fairbanks NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 07/02/08 9:41 AM
-
- Nora Buchman and Christopher Moyer, who recently moved here from Rochester, read one of the educational panels at Erie Canal Harbor.
You can tell Bette Midler the joke’s over.
Who can forget how the Divine Miss M, of all people, struck a communitywide nerve during a show in Buffalo four years ago.
“I haven’t been here since 1978,” she said at the time. “I love what you’ve done with the waterfront.”
The crowd roared. No more. Something’s happening on Buffalo’s waterfront. Something big. Something real. And it’s no joke.
At 3:30 p.m. this afternoon, the city’s newest and biggest waterfront development — Erie Canal Harbor — officially will open.
The new attraction, many hope, will not only bring visitors downtown but also help end the stereotype of Buffalo’s waterfront as a vast undeveloped wasteland.
“We need Buffalonians to be proud of their city again,” said Jordan Levy, chairman of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp. “We want to change, psychologically, people’s perceptions of their city and hometown.”
Stopping the jokes would be a plus, too.
“It’s dynamite,” said Pat Farrell, a self-described history enthusiast who was touring the canal Tuesday. “And it’s a long time coming.”
Feeling good about the waterfront is an odd sensation for Buffalonians.
For far too long, people whined about the lack of development on what many consider the city’s single greatest asset and arguably its best image changer.
To suddenly have something good, something positive, to say about the waterfront seems foreign, almost alien.
“It’s impressive,” said Andy Degenfelder of North Buffalo. “I came down here expecting to see a few stones, but I like what I found.”
On the first Tuesday in July, Degenfelder was one of about 35 visitors touring the area at lunch time.
“I love the views,” said his aunt, Dr. Leo Delagarza, who travels here from Mexico each year to see her family.
“As soon as I walked through the entrance,” she said, “I noticed all the changes, all the development.”
What she and dozens of others discovered on this, the eve of the official opening, was a world-class tribute to Buffalo’s heritage.
Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the harbor provides a detailed lesson on Buffalo’s role in U. S. history. At its center is the Erie Canal’s western terminus and historic Commercial Slip, now excavated and rewatered.
On any given day, people can be found snapping photos from the wooden central wharf deck, as wide as the Atlantic City boardwalk, or reading the heritage signs that guide visitors through the harbor’s colorful history.
Then there are those who simply sit on a bench and soak up the sun.
“It’s a great first step,” said Jan Farrell, who was walking the harbor with her husband, Pat, and grandson Kevin. “What is it they say? ‘ A journey of a thousand miles always starts with a single step.’ ”
The other steps are still to come, but they include special events, food vendors, boating docks and other types of new programming.
Down the road, even bigger things are planned, most notably the $400 million Canal Side development. The centerpiece is a Bass Pro Shop where Memorial Auditorium now stands.
“It’s a start,” said Dick Sommer of Getzville, who was touring the area with his family Tuesday. “This land was vacant for so long. It’s good to see something down here.”
But in Sommer’s eyes, more is needed. “We need some shops, restaurants and other things to keep people down here, to make it a destination,” he said as he looked around.
More is coming, but today, city leaders will pause for a moment to celebrate how far they’ve come.
With a siren and fake canon fire, and with kind words from Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer, they will mark the harbor’s official grand opening at a public event this afternoon.
Talk will include the future and how Buffalo now can boast of a waterfront that shows signs of rebirth.
“Recapturing Buffalo’s history is a great start,” Andy Kitzmann said.
As director and curator of the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, Kitzmann has seen the number of visitors there increase over the years.
About two-thirds of the museum’s 20,000 visitors each year come from outside the region.
Because the Syracuse canal is filled in and paved over, Kitzmann doesn’t have the luxury of displaying the real deal — the original Erie Canal filled with water.
The heart of the Syracuse museum, located downtown, is the 1850 Weighlock Building, where canal boats were weighed as they passed through town.
Despite its lack of water, the museum, also known for its nationally recognized artifact collection, is undergoing a $5 million renovation. The project includes the acquisition of another downtown building and an expanded exhibition space.
“We would not be undertaking this unless there was broad interest in the canal,” Kitzmann said.
That’s good news for Buffalo, which is pinning much of its hopes for the future on its appeal as a heritage tourism site.
That and the deep-seated hope that maybe, just maybe, we’ve heard our last Bette Milder crack.
