John (Gurtler), thanks very much. Good morning one and all and on behalf of John and every other wonderful volunteer and colleague and individual and community group that collaborated to make this magnificent event possible, a warm welcome on a typically soft and bright Buffalo morning.
As we tried to say last night, I think it was John Adams who said, “We cannot guarantee success, but we can deserve it.” And I think, principally we deserve success for ourselves and our region and our magnificent city when we participate in inclusive and collaborative discussions such as this. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to have played a small part in crafting this wonderful gathering.
As John said, we began last night with a magnificent tour — actually yesterday afternoon. Our almost dozen speakers and experts from around the nation, these wonderfully eloquent and compelling Americans from whom we are about to hear today, had a terrific time touring our Inner Harbor on the Edward Cotter and thinking about this very site-specific challenge with which we’re presented here.
When this first occurred to me, this idea of A Canal Conversation, I turned to several greater minds than mine in an effort to think through, and as a logistical matter figure out, how we might be able to attract the type of experts and experience and knowledge that we’re going to hear from today. An old college professor of mine, Senator Moynihan, recommended heavily that I perhaps think of partnering with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, America’s most prestigious preservation group and one that, of course, has enormous obligations and tests to discharge throughout the country beyond certainly our humble region.
And, everyone with whom I spoke said: there’s one woman who you have to have involved. Her name came up over and over again and her admirers are legion throughout the country. And, think about it, what a noble and enormous contribution you make to this nation to devote your life to sustaining and overseeing and ensuring the continuation of the American story and heritage that’s reflected in our architectural and historic treasures.
So, I got hold of Wendy Nicholas who is here with us today and I said, “Wendy, I have this small idea. I thought maybe, perhaps, in an effort to advance this public policy challenge with which we’re faced here in Buffalo, that we could have this conference and have this discussion.”
She said, “Kev, that’s a great idea. It’s really wonderful. Good luck.”
I said, “No, no, Wendy. We need your participation.”
And again, I can’t tell you how much it means to me and indeed to this effort, that Wendy was kind enough, after a little bit of encouragement, to contribute not only the imprimatur and prestige of the National Trust, but her own time and energy and knowledge. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to attract the magnificent minds that we have here this morning.
By the way, I’m just going to interrupt for one moment. We have some very distinguished guests here this morning: a number of students from the Buffalo School District. Would you guys stand up and take a bow. (applause). In many ways, we are doing this for you: those of you who are going to be responsible for and indeed crafting Buffalo’s future story, so, thanks for being here.
Wendy’s roots, by the way, in connection with Western New York, did not begin with this conference. Her father was a long-time colleague of the magnificent Barber Conable, a representative from this region in the United States Congress, and I was pleased to hear that when we first met. So, without further ado, I would like to introduce the woman who really was quite responsible for assisting and collaborating so that we could all be here this morning, the Director of the Northeast Regional Office of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Wendy Nicholas. Wendy.
I’m going to have to throw out what I was going to say. Kevin tells an accurate story and I have to say that I haven’t had so much fun in a long time since getting recruited to help with this Canal Conversation. Listening to Kevin this morning, I’m reminded all over again why, as a high school student, I started down the path in historic preservation and have been working in this field ever since. One of the things that I love about historic preservation and working with communities is the opportunity to work with so many people who really care about the place that they live and they want to make it better. (applause).
I
am bowled over by the passion and interest on the part of the Buffalo
community for the future of Buffalo, but in specific, for this opportunity
now presented to you by the discovery of the western terminus of this
magnificent Erie Canal. It’s an extraordinary opportunity and you’re so
smart to take the time to say, “Now, what do we do?” We find a treasure
we didn’t know we had and “now what do we do?” and I think that is what
today is all about. Kevin has recruited a terrific lineup of people who
bring to you different expertise and a depth of knowledge and experience
in working in communities across this country. I’m hopeful they’ll shed
some light on the question, because I think you have a real challenge
before you: What do you do with what is essentially an archaeological
find?
I like, when I have an audience of this size, to tell you a little bit about the National Trust for Historic Preservation because I realize, in my travels, not too many people really know what the National Trust does. We’re the national leader of America’s vigorous historic preservation movement. We are a non-profit, non-governmental organization. We have about 270,000 members across the country. I’ve managed to bring some membership brochures and left them on the table if you’d like to join. It’s a terrific organization.
We work to protect the irreplaceable. We work with communities all across this country to help them save the places that they care about, to revitalize neighborhoods and historic commercial districts and the landscapes that anchor them. The Trust is, unlike the environmental movement, which has lots of big national non-profits, the National Trust is really “it” for the national preservation movement.
So there are lots of different programs and so on, but we’re headquartered in Washington, D.C., and we have 20 historic sites across the country which we open for public visitation and then six regional offices. And, as Kevin mentioned, I run the Northeast Regional Office, which is in Boston, but we serve ten states from Maine to Delaware. So, you can imagine this is quite an extraordinary territory.
The Trust provides small grants and loans for projects, technical and legal assistance. We have a very active public policy program and are heavily engaged in this national conversation about sprawl and the negative effects of this sprawling development pattern that we’ve been engaged in since the 1940’s. We’re working very hard to get the Congress to pass the Historic Home Ownership Assistance Act which will provide a tax incentive to people who renovate and restore older houses in neighborhoods across the country.
I might also just give you a couple of examples of the way that we worked recently in your own community, in Buffalo. One of our most effective tools for drawing attention to threatened historic sites is our annual list of eleven most endangered most historic places. Last year we listed the four national historic landmark psychiatric hospitals in New York State on this list of endangered places because the State is in the process of de-accessioning all the mental hospitals and they were de-accessioning them all as if they were pretty much open land, developable land. But, in fact, four of them were National Historic Landmarks including your own H.H. Richardson hospital.
As a result, the Mayor really took the charge and organized an advisory committee to take a look at this hospital complex and develop a feasible re-use plan for that. Our office has been heavily involved with the Mayor and with Lucy Cook and the committee that’s been put together and, I’m hopeful, that as a result that magnificent complex will once again be a vital part of the Buffalo community.
In addition, we listed that same year “The corner of Main and Main.” That was a way to illustrate a phenomenon we’ve really seen first in New York but now in states across the country and that is what we are calling the invasion of historic Main Streets by the national drug store chains. And, you see (laughter and applause) — you know what I’m talking about. You’re seeing Walgreen’s and CVS and Rite-Aid looking for the corner of Main and Main, the most prominent intersection in the community and there they want to locate their suburban-style store.
As a result of this listing, the drug stores’ development practices received lots of national attention and we were able to go in and meet with the senior real estate leadership in the four largest chains: CVS, Rite-Aid, Walgreen’s and Eckerd’s. As a result, they’ve all made pledges to us that they will not demolish buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And as a result, Rite-Aid has pulled their plans for Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo where they were going to demolish a block of houses for a very suburban-style store. So it’s been a (applause) — thank you.
So these are the ways that the regional offices are able to work with our partners in communities. Our statewide partners identify issues that seem to be affecting lots of communities and then bubble them up and we deal with them on a national basis. It’s really a tremendous role for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and I hope you’ll join us and become members and help us and also feed to us issues as you hear about them.
In all of this, I think what we’re really about is community building: building better places for people to live and to raise their families, to work and to visit. And, Jerry Adelmann was so articulate and eloquent last night in his remarks about Americans’ interest in being part of authentic places and authentic communities and that’s what we’re really coming together for today.
As I mentioned, Kevin Gaughan has done a tremendous job at bringing together a wealth of expertise from many communities to focus on this opportunity that you have in Buffalo. Some would call it a challenge. I really think it’s an opportunity for the city. And at the end of the day, or at the end of the conversation, our hope is that Buffalo can come to a consensus about how to move forward. Our hope is that you all will come to some conclusion or consensus about the right way to handle this discovery of the western terminus of the Erie Canal and some of the remains of the building and the streetscape and fabric that surrounded that so that this community can go forward in creating the waterfront park and creating a place that is really special and very much about Buffalo.
My hope also is that the energy and enthusiasm that Kevin and his Canal Conversation has engendered in this city will carry forward and that you will work on other projects to make this a truly extraordinary place to be, for it really is. I mean, I think yesterday, as your guests came in from communities across the country, people who had never been here before and were given an opportunity to see something of the city, everybody was wowed with what you get to live with every day in Buffalo. It is really a wonderful place to be and thank you for your efforts to make it even better and Kevin, thank you for your efforts to lead everyone. You’ve been just superb. (applause).
Wendy, thanks so much. On behalf of all the Buffalo-Niagara Region and everyone who collaborated on the conversation, for all the thought and energy and time that you put into this small and modest effort, but most of all for putting up with me all these months, we have a small token of our affection and our esteem. Thank you so much, Wendy. (applause)
Thanks, Kevin. Thank you. Good morning. I keep telling Kevin, “Kevin, decaf. Decaf.” (laughter). The purpose of this first session is to provide a context for thinking about the Erie Canal and for planning for our end of it here in Western New York. Our panelists have framed the topic in terms of discussing context, icons and impacts.
One of several reasons why I feel honored to moderate this session is that almost a decade ago, I had the opportunity to chair nine hearings across New York State, across the canal corridor, on the future of New York State’s canal systems. That was an extraordinarily interesting and instructive series of hearings. They were in anticipation of the constitutional amendment on the canals that was passed by the voters in 1991 and the Canal Recreationway implementing legislation that was passed in Albany in 1992. Those hearings for that legislation helped demonstrate to me, and to a lot of others, I think, what a compelling asset and resource the canals represent to our state and to our region.
I think there’s an important point there: that we have many terrific assets in this region and in this state. Many of those, however, are not truly distinctive to us and only us. They can be matched in some way or another by other areas of the country. I think that’s important because I believe so strongly that a region can build strength and character and attraction and competitiveness by focusing on assets and resources that are indeed distinctive and unusual and compelling.
That’s one of the reasons why this conference and the whole set of issues surrounding the Canal and the waterfront are so important. No other state can match 500 miles of canals. No other state can match the resulting potential to take that corridor and resource and do something wonderful with it. Take that infrastructure that was originally constructed for commercial purposes and is used in only marginal ways for those commercial purposes today, and re-invent it into an extraordinary recreation way, not unlike what they’ve done with many of the canals in Europe.
One of the things that we learned from those hearings is that on active canals, many times more land-based visitors visit the canals and locks and trails than water-based visitors, than boaters. Many times the number in boats are in cars and tour buses and bicycles and pedestrians and so on. The potential is huge if we’re smart about pursuing it, preserving it, and maximizing it.
To help us understand some of the history and significance and potential regarding the Canal, we have two distinguished panelists for this first session, Karen Engelke, Executive Director for the Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor Commission and Tom Gallaher, Jr., a private consultant in heritage development with Community Corridors. I’ll introduce Ms. Engelke first and will more fully introduce Mr. Gallaher later.
Karen Engelke, as Executive Director for the Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor Commission has led the largest regional New York State heritage area for over five years. The eight heritage corridor counties stretch 130 miles along the Mohawk River section of the New York State Canal Way. Under the guidance of an 18-member appointed commission, Ms. Engelke was the chief strategist, public presence and fiscal manager for the heritage corridor.
With over ten years of hands-on experience in community-based heritage development, she has undertaken capital projects, has created multiple interpretive products, including extensive historical exhibits, and has worked with many local communities as they begin to include their heritage and cultural resources in a regional economic revival. She has presented sessions on heritage development, interpretation, cultural tourism, and is active on many regional and state and national boards in these fields. Join me in welcoming Karen Engelke.
(back to the top)
Thanks John. It’s a real pleasure to be here this morning. I was overwhelmed last night at the beginning “conversation” dinner. Wow! Kevin, you did a great job, as have all the volunteers, too.
My
experience in heritage development has really been hands-on. It’s not
theoretical at all and has been usually low- or no-budget. So, the fact
that you have a budget here in Buffalo to do some good work is a really
healthy sign.
How many of you know about the New York State Heritage Area System? You know, you have an Urban Cultural Park here in Buffalo — Buffalo Place. It was one of the original 14 Urban Cultural Parks. When the eight counties of the Mohawk Valley came along we were much too big to fit the traditional designation of an urban core. We were not urban at all, and so the whole system’s name was changed to the New York State Heritage Area System.
There’s a new heritage area underway right now here in Western New York. It encompasses the five counties in the Western end of New York State. The Western Erie Canal Heritage Corridor is just now beginning. I would posit that Commercial Slip here in Buffalo has got to be one of the star attractions, in whatever shape it takes, for this new heritage area.
I read in the paper this morning that Governor Pataki is going to introduce legislation this next session that will include Albany, which is at my end of the Canal, and Buffalo, in the Erie Canal System. So that’s good news because that makes you eligible for different types of funding for canal projects that materialize in the Buffalo region.
You’ll also hear this afternoon from Linda Neal, of the National Park Service, about a national designation for a National Erie Canal Way that is in the works. I understand the negotiations between New York State and the National Park Service are moving along quite nicely. So, that’s great news for all of us. (applause).
Many of the speakers today will talk to you about brand name recognition and what it means to be called the Erie Canal. I have a very short little vignette that I want to share with you. Last August I was in Zimbabwe, it used to be Rhodesia, sub-equatorial Africa. Quite a few hours north of the capital city of Harare, up in a hill town that had hosted my son Matt on one of his studies from the University of Chicago, we had driven off the macadam, we had driven off the dirt road, we’d hiked up about three kilometers into the hills and we came to a little village where Matt had stayed for three weeks on a prior visit and we met the family that hosted him.
Two of the children were about 14 years old. Now, you’ve all read about Zimbabwe’s troubles in the last few years. I’ve got to tell you, they have a 95 percent literacy rate. So, these are not uneducated people. We were talking about where I live and how different my house was from this mud hut that we were in. They’d heard of New York. And they said, “Well, what else about it, where you live?” I said, “Well, I live on the Erie Canal.”
And little Ivan, who was 12, started singing “I’ve Got a Mule and Her Name is Sal.” (applause) “Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.”
You, not only you, but we, because I live on the Erie Canal too — we not only have brand name recognition here in our country, but all over the world, and that is something that no one can give you. It’s here and it’s an asset that needs to be used.
I’m not going to presume to tell you about your canal history, because I don’t know a lot about Buffalo’s history. But, I do know that when the Erie Canal ended here, you became, for the 19th century, almost the Kennedy Space Center launching pad of today. So many people and goods passed through this very spot that we are on, to explore the interior of a new continent, and not just to explore it, but to populate it, to live there, to grow into the West.
Before the Erie Canal, there was an earlier canal in 1795, and that’s the section I’m familiar with, in the Mohawk River. At one point, Schenectady was an international port. Now, how many of you have been to Schenectady? I’ve been to Buffalo quite a few times, and by the way, it’s always been sunny when I’ve been here. (laughter)
Schenectady was an international port because that was the head of the navigable Mohawk River. The Falls at Cohoes prevented any congress between the Hudson River and the Mohawk River. The Mohawk River has been used for eons as a passageway. Certainly that’s how the great Iroquoian empire grew in the pre-European contact. It was a strategic corridor during the Revolutionary War. People have always been tromping up and down the Mohawk Valley, but not always as far as Western New York.
I would say that although the Canal began in Rome when they started digging in both directions, you got the grand finale here, right here at the Commercial Slip. This was the new frontier and a lot of Americans passed through here. Last night Jerry Adelmann talked about the “Grand Tour,” some of the first tourism in the United States and he talked about New York City and Niagara Falls, but the tourists got there on the Erie Canal. They came up the Hudson River, and across to Buffalo before traveling back home.
So this passageway through the center of New York State has always had an extremely high transportation importance and because you are the terminus here, anything that develops in the future as far as enhanced heritage tourism needs to include the site that you have within Commercial Slip.
This is, in fact, possibly a world heritage site when you think about it. A few years ago I traveled up to the very top of Newfoundland. Took two weeks to get up there. We went to a place called L’Anse aux Meadows which is where the Vikings landed and lived for three years. This site was developed after extensive archaeological digs that turned up only six little objects. One of them was a spindle whorl, one of them was a cloak pin and a couple of other metal pieces. But that is now a world heritage site. Within Commercial Slip you have the nexus of another world heritage site because its importance to the 19th century was as great as L’Anse aux Meadows was in the year 1000.
We are very blessed at this point in New York’s economic development to have a lot of focus on the Erie Canal and its renaissance. Most of the work that we do in the Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor and that will happen in the Western Erie Canal Corridor, is to create an identity. The Erie Canal gives Buffalo a strong identity.
Another job we have is to link the places that tell our stories. And when you talk about any development here at commercial slip you need to recognize that this is, I would say the tail end, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, but this is a terminus end of an incredible system that stretches 524 miles throughout New York State. New York City, Albany, Buffalo. There is a wonderful swing here that is full of real places. A lot of these real places need strengthening. The work that we do in the Mohawk Valley does some of that.
We work in a lot of communities to identify their community icons. What physical place in that community captures the essence of the community? In Waterford it’s the flight of locks. So a lot of commercial building activity, development activity, is focusing on their harbor area. In Cohoes it’s the Harmony Mills complex. Quite a derelict right now, but there are developers in the wings waiting to do something there. Amsterdam has the Painted Rocks of Amsterdam, which is a petrograph painted on rocks that have been submerged, and they’re reviving that.
There are a lot of formal projects that have come forth under the Canal Recreationway Plan and through the HUD Canal Corridor Initiative funding. Also, we in New York have the Environmental Protection Fund and the Clean Air/ Clean Water Bond Act, and the transportation monies from the Federal government. We have a lot of potential funding sources right now in New York State to really create a world-class recreation way.
One of the interesting components of the HUD initiative was to create a regional synergy and that means paying attention to your neighbors and what they’re doing. We’re seeing that in the Mohawk Valley as more and more municipalities, first of all, recognize that there’s another municipality next to them. But they are also beginning to take into consideration what’s going on in Fort Plain when they’re figuring out what to do with Canajoharie’s money. Rome is looking at Utica and saying, “oh, alright, you’re going to do that. So we’ll do something different.” And Schenectady is looking at both of these communities to say, alright, let’s see what we can do to create a continuous experience from the land side, as John said, as much as from the water side, because, probably in our lifetimes there’s always going to be more land-based visitation.
But it’s the community residents themselves who benefit from heritage development and identifying these icons. You’ve got the icon here. The Commercial Slip is an icon of what created Buffalo as the world-class city that it is. You’ve got it right here. And whatever form of development that you do with it, it needs to be highlighted as your icon as much as any of your beautiful buildings because it goes back to the root, the reason people came here and passed through here.
Community building then, is what heritage development is all about and it brings in a lot of new players. Five years ago, can you imagine us gathered together to tell our municipal leaders and our state leaders that we want to be part of the conversation? We want to have some input into what goes on? And I’ve got to say, in my experience, New York State agencies are listening. They are not up there making decisions out of context with what we who live here want. So, I would give them the benefit of the doubt because the people that I’ve worked with in the State are hard-working individuals who want what is best for our communities to grow in a healthy direction.
So, we’ve talked a little bit about context that Buffalo is part of a system. We’ve talked about community icons and how important they are. We need to talk about impacts. What you do here in Buffalo is going to influence what is going to happen to my Mohawk Valley. It’s going to influence what happens in New York City when the people there send folks up the Hudson and out the Erie Canal. What you are doing and what you are about here has significance far beyond your own community because it has the potential to draw in new visitors who come to see your beautiful new waterfront.
When we were on the Edward Cotter yesterday, I was really impressed with all those apartment buildings. I don’t know what was there before. Probably grain elevators? Does anybody know? Grain elevators were there? Can you imagine the workers in that space thinking that in the next generation people were going to pay mega-bucks to live right there on that waterfront? But that’s what’s happening all over the United States with our waterfronts. And there is a way to sensitively develop it while nurturing and stewarding the resources that made us who we are today.
You have a real place here. It ties in with a lot of other real places in New York State. There are real stories and your story here is connected to stories all over the world of people who came through here, of inventions that grew from Buffalo. You have the potential for increased renewal and economic growth. That’s what heritage development is all about: sensitive stewardship, protection, and enrichment for the future, for the young folks in the audience who need to take up the banner after we’re long gone. Thank you very much. (applause)
Thank you Karen. Our second panelist is Mr. Tom Gallaher, Jr. As a private consultant in heritage development, Mr. Gallaher is a team-member facilitating heritage preservation and resource conservation partnerships in five states. Current clients include the Alabama Historical Commission, Economics Research Associates in Washington, D.C., Economic Stewardship, Inc. in Chicago, Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism and Mary Means and Associates of Alexandria, Virginia.
As one of four partners in Community Corridors, LLC, Mr. Gallaher is helping advance a non-profit/ for-profit partnership strategy for growth management, conservation and revitalization in a corridor linking downtown Asheville and the University of North Carolina- Asheville at Interstate 26. Community Corridors may become a strategic model for next steps in regional heritage development and urban growth management.
He was also senior consultant to the Alliance of National Heritage Areas
(ANHA), where he partnered with the Institute for Conservation Leadership
to develop an organizational framework for ANHA that balances and advances
the Alliance’s programs, 
resources
and people. He also served as the senior advisor to the Alliance. With
over ten years of experience, he excelled as Executive Director of America’s
Agricultural Heritage Partnership and directed completion of ANHA’s partnership
management plan with over 50 regional leaders working in three task forces
to produce the management plan in six months. Join me in welcoming Tom
Gallaher, Jr. (applause).
Thank you John, and thank you Karen, and thank you Kevin, and thank everybody for this magnificent conversation that we’re having here. It is so wonderful to have seen the group last night and to see all of you here this morning. This is a remarkable event.
Now, I had some very wonderful comments prepared to give to you this morning and I left them in my hotel room last night and when I came down to dinner, Kevin gave my speech. So, I don’t know what to do at this point. He did such a wonderful job with my notes.
There are terms like cultural heritage tourism and heritage tourism. Karen, thank you very much for using the better term, heritage development. I know that’s a bit of an oxymoron, heritage development. But, that’s really what we’re talking about. Developing our heritage. To my mind, this is a process that is a good-humored collaboration between residents and elected leaders that creates partnerships, that creates strong, well-animated places, that honors and cherishes the past with pride and passion.
Heritage development is also about making decisions and doing hard work — making decisions and doing hard work. It involves a geographic region — a place — as well as a framework for development — a process. The place has a history and a geography, a story of broad interest to tell, and private and public support for investment in the community. The process involves building partnerships that will work to educate residents and visitors about the region, to protect the best of its natural, cultural and historic resources, and enhance the region’s economy through business investment, job expansion... and tourism.
There! That’s the first time we’ve mentioned tourism. Tourism is not the goal. Tourism is one of the benefits that come from having a good place. As a colleague of many of ours in South Carolina would say, “Heritage development is usin’ what ya got to make money.” Now, that sort of puts it in the same framework as the world’s oldest profession. But that’s not too far off the mark either. (laughter)
Nationally, we now have 18 Congressionally-designated National Heritage Areas and they are truly doing some remarkable work. That includes Jerry Adelmann and Ana Koval from the Illinois & Michigan Canal with us here today. You’ll hear them this afternoon. There are also, I think, at least 150 other places that are involved in this heritage development process throughout the nation.
This is my first time in Buffalo since, I think, 1987. And even though I’ve been here for about 18 hours now, I’ve got to tell you: Buffalo was not on my list of those places that are involved in this process. But I do think that what you’re doing here, you’re creating some lessons for the other 150 places out there. This is remarkable what you are doing.
But I want to tell you about a few other places. Does anybody here know a lot about Augusta, Georgia or maybe is from Augusta, Georgia? Okay. I can get away with a few lies here. Oh, there’s one. Alright. (laughter). Twenty years ago, Augusta decided to combine a lot of their civic opportunities into a single program. What they thought they were doing was strengthening historic preservation, building a recreational network for the citizens, boosting employment, doing something about public education, and doing something about downtown revitalization.
Now notice, tourism, once again, has not been mentioned. It wasn’t called that back then, but this is truly heritage development. Now I want to give you a thumbnail sketch of what they have done over the past 20 years. This is sort of like the architect’s conceptual drawing which explains, once the building is completed, how clear and crystalline and concise that concept was. I was trained as an architect. Let me tell you, that’s not what happens. The conceptual diagram is only done after the building is completed and generally about five minutes before the ribbons are cut. The architect doesn’t tell you about the fits and the starts and the arguments and perhaps the lawsuits that happened along the way. Nevertheless, here is Augusta.
In the mid-1800’s, Augusta built an eight mile canal that sort of paralleled the Savannah River. While Augusta’s canal was generating waterpower, the river was giving them access to Savannah and the entire East coast. Cotton was brought to the mills along the river and turned into textiles. And this arrangement was so successful that Augusta sort of stole all of America’s textile industries from Lowell, Massachusetts. A few of these old mills are still downtown and they’re still producing cloth.
Now
20 years later, the architect’s conceptual drawing looks something like
this. They used the story of the canal and the river and both waterways’
history in the region as the theme for community revitalization. That
is heritage development. Education campaigns raised awareness and then
civic passions and dozens of public meetings created a consensus plan
for the two waterways’ course through two counties.
In addition to historic rehab of the mills and some of the buildings downtown, they set aside development sites. Over the years, infill projects were built according to very strict guidelines. Hotels, mixed-income housing, convention facilities, office buildings, rehabbed schools, quite a wonderful baseball stadium, a water park, a canal museum, a major science center for children, and now a golfers hall of fame. Naturally, Augusta thinks it invented golf.
Garden clubs and fraternal organizations and neighborhood groups and libraries and schools put up exhibits along this eight mile stretch – which, by the way, has continuous waterfront access — that explained the old and new river and the old and the new canal. Developers were brought in and the proceeds from the sale of the development parcels were used to pay for part of the scheme. In a very clever sort of decision, they continued to generate waterpower along the canal. Power was sold to the developers. That financed another part of the scheme.
The Army Corps of Engineers, in another partnership, maintain the walls of the canal and dredge it annually. And in the first dredging, the Corps of Engineers found an old canal boat. The local museum stepped in, rehabbed the boat, and every year a local high school group builds another replica boat. Now, while much of the canal is the original, there are some replicated parts. But you can’t tell the difference. That’s heritage development.
This is a place for festivals: July the Fourth, graduation, political rallies, farmers markets, any kind of civic activity. This is where it takes place in Augusta. In the end, tourists came because it was a good place. It was a fun place to visit. So, that’s the architect’s conceptual drawing of their 20-year process.
Now
what are the lessons for Buffalo? I don’t know because that’s for you
to decide. What kind of people does this sort of work take? Money magazine
just published their list of the 250 best and worst jobs in the United
States and I think the best — number one — was financial planner and number
250 was something like commercial fisherman or fire fighter. A friend
of mine commented on that list, and she didn’t see heritage developer
in that list anywhere. We decided that maybe that’s because what we do,
what you do, requires a bit of skill from number one to number 250. From
financial planner all the way down to cleaning up some bloody, smelly
messes and putting out fires.
Get ready for that. It’s very hard work. It’s very challenging work. But it can also be the most satisfying work in the world. And this really is the first step. It’s the culmination of a lot of little steps that you’ve taken, but this conversation is the first major step.
Twenty-five years ago this kind of thing didn’t happen. Twenty years ago it started to happen in a number of cities. I think all of you know the names of these places: Baltimore, Burlington, San Antonio, Boulder, Minneapolis, Charleston. It is no accident that these places are now also some of America’s top tourism destinations.
Charleston, for example: Mayor Joseph P. Riley and a half a million Charlestonians have utterly performed miracles in the last 20 years. They now attract 1.2 million visitors who leave behind 2.5 billion dollars. Now, Mayor Riley will tell you that most of this economic activity is due to the fact that they embarked upon a very strong and strict heritage preservation program. That’s the real fabric of the city. Visitors come there to enjoy this fabric. But, more and more, they are learning the stories behind those facades: that every one of those buildings we see in the historic district in Charleston really represents 10,000 acres and 5,000 slaves somewhere out in the country.
They also come to eat and to shop and to drink and to stroll and to drink some more. And because of that, Mayor Riley claims that another 2.5 billion is left behind in the city. Now, I’m not suggesting that you can, or should, do in Buffalo and the Niagara region what Augusta or Charleston did, but there are lessons to be learned.
Remember from our colleague in South Carolina: you use what you got to make money. The logic of this is pretty basic. It’s taking place in Charleston, in Savannah and in a lot of other places that we’ve mentioned, but also in Fort Collins, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Cleveland; the lower Susquehanna area of Pennsylvania; Chicago; Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin; and Decorah, Iowa, to name a few of these 150 places.
Now for some of these places I wouldn’t pack my bags just yet because they’re still very much works in progress. But the same can be said of Augusta and Charleston because now they’re having to plan what happens next. Remember what Jerry Adelmann said last night? Constant change. Constant refreshment. You gotta keep that going. And a lot of these places that are embarking on heritage development are doing so with considerably fewer resources than you people have right here.
I’ve learned a lot about heritage development over the last ten years, particularly the last three years. Even though, in every place, the geography is different, the history is different, the weather is different, the foods are different, the stories are different, the politics are different, the financing is different, the early actions are different, there is something quite wonderful going on. All of us that you are going to hear today have the great good fortune to travel to a lot of these places, and to help the residents begin to think about what they want to do with their heritage.
Whenever I go to a new place — and just in the past month I’ve been able to see some remarkable things in Louisiana and Alabama — I have developed a little checklist of my own. And, it doesn’t really matter the priority that they end up in. It’s a checklist of ten items. It changes all the time. And it dawned on me, particularly after a recent trip to Louisiana, that I’m not the one who makes the priorities on this list because the consultant doesn’t do heritage development. The community does heritage development. You do heritage development. I’m going to share that list with you anyway.
First: Does this place have a unique story to tell? Is this unique story compelling? Are there physical resources to help you tell the story? Do residents really care about the story?
Second: Does this place have interesting geography, mountains, rivers, lakes?
Third: Does this place think regionally? Because heritage development has to be regional.
Fourth: Are the ideas grassroots, homegrown? Are they fairly mature ideas or are they just knee-jerk reactions against something? Can the process of heritage development actually suit the place? It’s essential that heritage development come from the grassroots, and at least the grass tops, up and not from the top down.
Fifth: Can the people in the organizations in this place form partnerships? Is there enough civility, enough good humor, and enough good will, to form partnerships and to at least meet your potential partners half way? Heritage development is built on partnerships and there are some remarkable partnerships out there.
Sixth: Are the organizations and elected leaders very, very clever and ready for change, especially when it comes to partnerships and financing? There are some outrageously clever ideas out there on this.
Seventh: Are people patient? Heritage development is like everything else. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well and it takes time. Heritage development can be painfully slow. The final result will come along later, but you gotta maintain patience.
Eighth: Does this place practice quality? Does it understand the “wow!” factor? When people come here are they going to say “wow!” or are they just going to say “gee”? And there are a lot of places out there where “gee” is good enough.
Ninth: Is it doable? Where is the money? Is the idea reasonable, suitable, feasible? Who’s got the money? And, please remember that money follows ideas, not the other way around.
Tenth: This is sort of my favorite. Do people know how to party? Do they really know how to celebrate? Do they know how to have a good time together and invite everybody?
As I said earlier, it’s not up to me to presume to know the answers here, because the consultant doesn’t do heritage development. The community does. You do. But I do have some 18-hour-old impressions of Buffalo and the Niagara region and that’s all they are. At the outset I want to say that I think you’ve already embarked on heritage development. This conversation. Last night. You may not know it, but you’re already on the way.
So, here’s what I see in Buffalo:
First:
Do you have a unique and interesting and compelling story to tell? Well,
yes. For starters there’s the real Opening of the West, the first Crossroads
of America, Lake Erie, the harbor, the Erie Canal itself, Digging the
Ditch, the engineering, the labor, the immigrant families, the Canal District,
“The Most Dangerous Spot on Earth”, “The Infected District.” For heaven’s
sake, think about those stories! “The Most Dangerous Spot on Earth!” “The
Infected District!” Think about those interpretations. Wow! That’s not
a “gee;” that’s a “wow”!
And another point, and with all due respect, and it’s been brought up before. When I grew up in Texas and Arkansas and Missouri, we didn’t talk about the Illinois & Michigan Canal. We didn’t talk about the Delaware & Lehigh Canal. We talked about the Erie Canal. So, yeah. Yeah. No question about it. You’ve got an interesting story to tell.
Second: Interesting geography? Now this is where the outsider has to look at these things and say, what’s Lake Erie? What’s the confluence of the Buffalo River and Lake Erie and the Canal? What’s the Niagara Escarpment? What’s Niagara Falls? Yeah. You got some interesting geography.
Third: Does this place think “regionally”? I understand that you’re getting a handle on that. Continue working on it. But we’ll say “yes” for now.
Fourth: Grassroots ideas? I don’t know about that yet, but that’s why we’re here today. But look how far you’ve already come with these homegrown ideas. As was mentioned last night from Dewitt Clinton to Nitwit Gaughan. (laughter) So, absolutely. You’ve got homegrown ideas, but you gotta do more with them.
Fifth: Partnerships. Is there enough civility, good humor and good will to form partnerships to meet potential partners halfway? I’ve got two answers here. Yes. All you gotta do is look at the list of sponsors and co-sponsors of this conversation. That’s a remarkable, remarkable list. So you know how to make partnerships. My other answer is: maybe. There are a lot of people who should be here but aren’t. You’re going to have to go get them. And you’re going to have to go a little bit more than halfway with some of them. Because as Karen said, there’s a lot of good will there. You’re going to have to demonstrate even more good will.
Sixth: Who can be the cleverest and the most change-oriented? In the weeks leading up to this conversation, I’ve talked to some pretty interesting folks in Buffalo. At the outset it appears to me that many are ready to be very clever and to bring about some changes. Then last night, at dinner, I looked around the table where I was sitting and something struck me. The average age at that table was probably 35 at best and I thought, what’s wrong with this picture? Now this is the end result of a lot of that work that Wendy and the National Trust have been doing. Even this morning, this is a terribly young audience to be addressing these kinds of questions. And maybe what we’re seeing here in Buffalo is the passing of the grail from one generation to the next. That hasn’t struck me in a lot of places before. But I think it’s happening here and that’s so very, very important.
Can we make peace? I’m going to suggest that here, today, perhaps at 4:30 or 5:30 this afternoon, we simply declare the Peace of Buffalo and get on with what is best for the region. (applause). You guys have been on an economic and social roller coaster since 1920 at least. Isn’t it time to get off?
So, seventh: Are people patient? Good heavens, I think everybody here has the patience of Job. You’ve been putting up with this for so long. Declare the Peace of Buffalo. Get on with it and join the Augustas and the Charlestons and the Chicagos and the Pittsburghs and the Decorah, Iowas. Just, do it!
Eighth: Does this place practice quality? I don’t know yet. But if you don’t practice quality then the rest of the citizens in this place aren’t going to proud of what you do. And when visitors come the first time, they’re not going to come back. So you’d better practice quality and I assume that you will do so. Because everybody likes to live in quality communities, people like to visit quality communities, and businesses like to invest in quality communities.
Ninth: Is it doable? Well, I don’t know about that either, but, in the several years’ editions of the newspapers and so forth that Kevin sent to us, I read about $200 million here, and $38 million there, and $25 million somewhere else, and $200 thousand over here, and $100 thousand over here. Devoted to canals. I assume the money can be found.
And tenth: if you declare the Peace of Buffalo, throw a party, call that your first early action, and I’ll come back. (laughter, applause).
Now, one more observation, and as I said to a couple of your very fine newspaper people in earlier interviews, this is off the record, okay? You’ve got one, two, three, maybe four, maybe five, architectural plans for this fairly small area down there. No more architectural plans. Please. (applause).
What you’ve got to do is decide what the story is because the story is going to inform the plan and then you can do one plan that everybody will have agreed upon because it will tell the story. No more plans. For 120 days. The first 120 days. The Peace of Buffalo. No architectural plans. Talk about your story. That will go a long way toward bringing everybody on board.
One more off the record observation: If you’re going to decide on that story, then let it strongly inform the other things that you’re doing in the area. And I mean the Peace Bridge, that “Signature Bridge.” And I mean the Convention Center. Because once you will have defined the story there, that’s going to tell you a heck of a lot about what you gotta do elsewhere for the benefit of the entire region.
So, it appears to me that Buffalo and the Niagara region have most of the things that you need to really get started, including this conversation.
f the good people of Salem, Massachusetts can work together on a celebration of America’s shipbuilding traditions and early maritime heritage as well as that city’s other widely well known heritage, witches, then unquestionably you can bring all the parties together in Buffalo.
If five competing auto makers and 50 labor unions and 25 competitive museums in Detroit can get together to tell the story of “America on Wheels,” then you can certainly rally all the factions in Buffalo.
If Selma, Alabama, a town of 25,000 can create a partnership that brings 50,000 people to the Edmund Pettus Bridge to talk about America’s civil rights heritage and the Selma-to-Montgomery march, then you can get over your differences.
And if the Alabama Historical Commission is even talking about a cultural heritage tourism theme having to do with America’s civil rights legacy, now in the year 2000, you can do something here too.
If the tiny Czech village of Spillville, Iowa, population 400, can decide to throw a 100th birthday party for Anton Dvorak’s New World Symphony, and 100,000 people come to this community of 415, then you can do some nice things here too.
The process is pretty simple. It isn’t quick. It isn’t easy. It doesn’t work everywhere. But, with enough pride and compassion and common sense, you can do it. So you know what you gotta do: do it! Thank you. (applause).