The Antithesis of the Buffalo blogosphere
Do you find yourself thinking such thoughts as…
*Bills are raising parking prices. This is one of the most devastating things to happen in my life other than the fact that Briere and Drury left.
*American Axle closed which obvs means Buffalo is now as good as dead. How there are any people living in downtown apartments if manufacturing jobs are gone?!@?!
*If the Hyatt is getting $5 million in public funds to renovate why can’t I have the government pay for half of renovations I’m doing on my single family home in Cheektowaga? How ridiculous that the government fund a downtown project that they already financed to begin with.
If so…likeminded folk await you in the comment sections of each WGRZ article. Although there are some interesting thoughts and insights, I’m usually overwhelmed with the written word of the most cliche Buffalonians.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
um,
that is the NFTA site
July 30th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
wow. thanks steel.
July 31st, 2007 at 9:45 am
Zubaz?
Just gotta’ mention some recent findings. Google search results:
Buccaneers zubaz: 208
Jaguars zubaz: 280
Seahawks zubaz: 299
49ers zubaz: 403
Ravens zubaz: 412
Texans zubaz: 419
Falcons zubaz: 422
Panthers zubaz: 446
Titans zubaz: 470
Redskins zubaz: 535
Broncos zubaz: 588
Raiders zubaz: 593
Saints zubaz: 626
Steelers zubaz: 640
Bengals zubaz: 653
Browns zubaz: 660
Vikings zubaz: 695
Rams zubaz: 708
Chargers zubaz: 721
Cardinals zubaz: 736
Packers zubaz: 815
Patriots zubaz: 831
Chiefs zubaz: 861
Bears zubaz: 871
Lions zubaz: 875
Colts zubaz: 892
Giants zubaz: 973
Cowboys zubaz: 1,150
Dolphins zubaz: 1,350
Eagles zubaz: 1,540
Jets zubaz: 1,930
Bills zubaz: 9,610
July 31st, 2007 at 9:48 am
By the way, after reading this post:
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/wgrz/TRNRTHMV6738DULDU
I think it would be a good idea to rename the WGRZ Web site “Cheektowaga Rising”. What does Lancaster Stan think?
July 31st, 2007 at 10:28 am
I always find it interesting that people who moved away and (say they) hate Buffalo spend an tremendous amount of their time reading and commenting on the place. That WGRZ site is full of these types
By the way DAN. I thing 8900 of those Zubas hits are on your site.
July 31st, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Downtowns should be reserved for intensive uses - large office buildings, seats of government, higher-density residential development, frequently used arenas, and busy shopping districts. Urban downtowns historically have such intensive uses because of the high land values.
Football stadiums are certainly intensive uses, but only for a few days every year. The rest of the time, they’re mostly empty. Sure, there’s also the rare monster truck rally, or high school game, but that’s about it For football, it will be active 10 to 12 times a year, including pre-season games, as opposed to the 60,000 office workers that go downtown 250 days every year.
A stadium will have minimal ibenefit on surrounding businesses. I don’t believe most fans will substitute their grills and Genny-filled coolers, or Pinto Ron and the others, with the likes of TGI Friday’s, Chef’s and the Cobblestone Grill. Chippewa Street won’t really benefit much either; ten to twelve days a year of stadium use compared to the 104 days that Chippewa currently swings hard. Also, Chippewa Street’s bars cater to a much different crowd — twentysomethings, mostly college students and educated young professionals — as opposed to the generally older, predominantly blue-collar Bills crowd. Cheektowaga Stan probably isn’t going to party at Big Shotz after the game.
There’s also parking, which in Buffalo will mean surface lots. Rapid transit isn’t an option; there’s nowhere near enough park-and-ride spaces, neighborhood parking, and train capacity to currently handle tens of thousands of Bills fans in the space of an hour.
In short, a stadium, practice facilities and parking — in Buffalo, likely to be on mostly surface, because land is so cheap — that occupies hundreds of acres near the CBD will have much less of an overall benefit compared to devoting the same amount of land for high-density residential or commercial use.
“But Cleveland has a downtown stadium”, you say. Downtown Cleveland isn’t the equivalent of two downtown Buffalos - it’s much, much larger. The stadium is adjacent to a downtown with many large underground parking ramps that are normally used by hundreds of thousands of office workers. There’s also three transit lines that serve downtown, including two lines with stations at the stadium itself. The footprint of the stadium is limited mainly to the building itself, while in Buffalo, it would require far more space.
July 31st, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Dan I agree with most of what you say, but think an additional (and probably intangible) benefit of having the stadium downtown(ish) would be that it would be a big boost to the concept of downtown being the heart and hub of all of WNY. I don’t really know where a downtown stadium would fit, but think it would be nice to have, provided it didn’t require large scale demolitions and the conversion of private property to public.