The Old, Weird Niagara
Damon W. Root | May 13, 2008, 5:35pm
From last Thursday's
Wall Street Journal, here's the great
reactionary radical (and
reason contributor) Bill Kauffman on Ginger Strand's intriguing new book
Inventing Niagara:
Ms. Strand's populist defense of the glorious disorder of the private Niagara Falls Museum is of a piece with her appreciation of the falls as God and nature intended them to be. But just as the five-story museum was leveled by the New York State parks authority and replaced by a parking lot, so have the falls, in Ms. Strand's words, been "manicured, repaired, landscaped and artificially lit, dangerous overhangs dynamited off and water flow managed to suit the tourist schedule." One can't help noticing that the "improvements" Ms. Strand deplores were almost entirely the work of government. Those overhangs were blown off by the Army Corps of Engineers, which has trimmed, blasted, dammed and fortified this natural wonder and its river. State, not commerce, was unable to leave well enough alone.
As an American patriot, I've long been ashamed of the fact that Niagara's greatest attraction, the uncanny
Criminals Hall of Fame Wax Museum, rests on the Canadian side of the falls. And as Kauffman notes, we can thank the bulldozers of the vile Robert Moses, among other government villains, for the destruction of "the carnival-barker spirit that once gave the city brass, if not class."
Whole thing here.
NP | May 14, 2008, 5:23am | #
Pepe - Sounds like you enjoyed your trip. I await the day when I'll be able to shout "fortissimo!" myself.
Citizen Nothing - Thanks for the info.
shrike,
Yes, indeed. It's nice to do something besides bickering about politics once in a while. And you described those 3 dead white males pretty well. My beef with Bruckner is that, as you pointed out, he didn't seem very keen to show off his orchestra. I mean, dude, if you've got a full-size band to spare, why not use it for some cataclysmic gestures, like Mahler? His music is kinda like Wagner's (at least for me): certainly great, but not something I'd listen to over and over often. (As you know, Bruckner worshiped Wagner second only to God.)
As for Shostakovich, I like his sardonic humor and his ability to show without any cute gimmicks that the past
is the present. More importantly, though, the guy could actually write
tunes, unlike many others from the last century. And I think you already know my views on Mahler.
You also mentioned the Stones and Tom Waits. I'll grant that the Stones deserve the title of the greatest
rock 'n' roll band, but I also think that the Beatles will outlast them in the long run. Mick's band just don't have the same level of popular appeal as John and Paul's. And I frankly haven't listened to much Tom Waits; it's one of the (many) things I plan to do eventually.
Doc | May 14, 2008, 8:52am | #
NP,
Hard to say really. Much really does have to do with changes in industry, what is made and where. The need for new facilities, companies choosing not to sell their old industrial sites since they'd have to clean them up first. Cheaper to let their rusted skeletons sit until gov't concessions/buyouts. Dow, Hooker Chemical, good o'l Love Canal all legacies of the mid 20th century.
Something it really was the decision a century ago for NF, NY to go the industrial route. Take advantage of the cheaper power, tourism was a skeevy business at best there (high wire walkers, old ships with live animals set ablaze and plunged over the falls...you know, old fashion enterainment). Fast forward to our ever increasing service economy.
The local gov't is hopelessly corrupt (enjoy the local area's version of the NY Post, the Niagara Falls Reporter: http://www.niagarafallsreporter.com/ ). Famous boondoggles include a gov't financed 'Water Park'. Outside. Away from the falls. Any idea how cold it is much of the year there?
Nothing new ever came there, so desperate attempts were made to hold on to what was there. The companies took the money and *still* left. Then the Casino, which promised not to build hotels so that those local businesses would still get customers. Then the Casino put up it's big hotel. Now they want to build another Casino in Buffalo. I'm sure it will do wonders for that, better off but still hurting city.
The roads are a mess, my parents are lucky if a snow plough comes around with less then 6" of snow. Property tax rates went up last year after they said there hadn't been a reassessment in years. So this year they do the reassessment and stick with the higher rates.
The Casino does well, the mountainous (no lie, it's a giant green mountain in the town of Niagara) hazardous waste dump (complete with a few trees on the sides and 'pretend' picnic tables that no human could or would want to use since you have to cross a highway and security fence.
No legitimate business is moving in. Plenty of schuysters (sp?) come in and get gov't money/concessions/tax abatements (make the property owners cough up some more!) and they're out of there quickly. And what company is going to come in there with the 'working pool' left in the city? Undereducated or too old it's not going to be Boeing! Clinton lobbied to keep the Air Force Reserve base open for a while longer. But that's barest of life support.
Problem is, much of upstate NY is in a similar pickle. I've not no clue how to turn it around. It never will be what it once was. The best they could do I imagine is make it a sort of Schengen-like area where the boarder would be more open in that area to permit tourists to come over without a 90-120 minute wait and strip search and spend the now valuable Canadian dollar on sites, hotels, restaurants, etc. Some sort of better run service economy.
