A nice piece, but it runs the risk of allowing people to think that Buffalo’s waterfront renaissance is just 7 or 8 years old. Many of the developments that McClelland writes about were in various stages of discussion back in the 1980s, when I was a young business reporter there. And in Niagara Falls, the political nightmare the Robert Moses Parkway created among members of the tourism industry began before that expressway was ever built, and is directly responsible for leaving that city in a depressing and woeful state that should be unfathomable given its location at the edge of a global tourist attraction.
My point isn’t to find fault with McClelland’s story, but to point out that the good news coming out of Buffalo isn’t new or sudden. I hope that someday my own hometown of Cleveland may also be heralded as an overnight sensation after a mere 30-40 years of serious discussion about the issue of lake access.
Bob R.
