Thank you very much. It’s truly a pleasure to be here tonight, and an honor to be a part of what is clearly a very important moment in the life of this city.
I want you to know that I have been blown away by the City of Buffalo. I had been through your town many times in the past. It was on one of the driving routes from Chicago to Washington where I went to school at Georgetown. But I was always driving through and never got to see the city until now.
Buffalo is a truly remarkable place. I’m talking about all of the great buildings by the American masters: the Guaranty Building, the Darwin Martin House, H.H. Richardson’s State Hospital. I’m talking about other wonderful buildings like Buffalo City Hall. But I’m also talking about an incredibly rich fabric of city and neighborhoods you have, a very rich material culture. It’s something to cherish, and protect, and build upon.
Tonight I want to try to put in context the issues you will be grappling with tomorrow, as the conference proceeds, and in the weeks and months, indeed, in the years to come. Because what you decide here in Buffalo will have implications for the rest of the nation, and what is happening across America will have an impact on you.
We have seen a great change in the focus of historic preservation over the last twenty-five years or so. We’ve broadened the definitions of just what is historically significant. We’ve broadened the spectrum of historical resources we believe are worth preserving. No longer are we interested solely in the buildings where famous people lived or the sites where famous battles took place. We’re interested in the buildings and sites that tell the stories of ordinary people, working people, and the stories of the different ethnic groups that constitute our larger American story.
We’re also moving from an interest in single buildings to an interest in districts and whole regions that tell those important stories about us as a people. We’re now including industrial buildings, sites, and landscapes; ethnic places and districts; the whole approach is more inclusive than it has ever been before.
We’re also looking for authenticity. We have been inundated by theme parks and historical replicas and other ersatz offerings. There is certainly a place for Disney World and amusement parks and Las Vegas. But we have felt the power of real places. We’re hungry for them. And we can tell the difference. I don’t mean that historic preservation experts can tell the difference. Just plain folks can tell the difference. We know the real thing when we see it.
This
demand for authenticity has been reflected strongly in the growth in the
tourism industry. The tourism and travel industry is one of the fastest
growing sectors of our economy. But within that category heritage tourism,
cultural tourism,
and eco-tourism are the fastest growing sub-categories.
And authenticity is one of the motivating values of this growing market.
The people who make up this market are more sophisticated than other travelers. They’ve traveled more. They’ve been exposed to more places and more things than other travelers. They are more discerning. And not incidentally, they are higher-end, more up-scale, bigger spending tourists. They seek out real places and then they spend more time there, and they spend more money. That’s important.
But economics is not the only reason why we would should preserve and develop our heritage resources. Their greater value, perhaps, is for the people of the communities in which they exist. The same real places that have power for tourists have power for local residents, as well.
There is an important role for these places in the education and cultural development of everyone who lives here. All of these building sites, landscapes, and regions help tell the stories about how a community grew and developed, about who you are as a community. These things need to be preserved, interpreted and celebrated for their own sake, for you and all your neighbors.
There is, related to these broader developments, a growing interest in archaeology, which has some relevance for your situation here. Somehow, people today are captivated by archaeology of whatever vintage, from ancient sites to relatively recent industrial places.
This isn’t necessarily a new phenomenon. There was a great upwelling of interest in archaeology in the 19th century. Napoleon’s trip to Egypt triggered a revival of interest in ancient Egyptian sites and relics. Americans in a democracy that was still relatively new were interested in the ruins, as well as the ideas, of the ancient Greeks.
But there’s a new resurgence of this interest today. At one point in the re-development of the Illinois and Michigan Canal – which you will hear much more about tomorrow – we needed to drain a length of the canal to reconstruct it. When we let the water out we found several canal boats stuck in the mud on the bottom. Which led to a whole program of lectures and visits by school kids and tours and education. More than half of the people of this little town of 7,000 were involved in one way or another. So, that’s a kind of homespun example of the power of archaeology to attract our attention.
Recently, during the fires at Mesa Verde, the ancient Native American cliff-dwellings in Southwestern Colorado, there was an extraordinary level of both local and national media coverage and public interest. People were concerned. People care about archaeology.
Another piece of the picture is America’s rediscovery of its waterfronts over the past 25 years. As a people, and as a culture, we had turned our backs on the water. We saw the waterfront as merely functional, economic, not significant in cultural or ecological terms. Now we are trying to reconnect our communities to the water. It really is a national movement.
We can trace much of this to the Clean Water Act. Before that it was hard to think of our waterways as amenities. But the return to the waterfront has been part of even larger movements. Books like Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Jane Jacobs’ Death and Life of Great American Cities, led a wholesale change in attitudes and perceptions and values about both natural and urban environments. Our return to the waterfront in the eighties and nineties and beyond is an extension of that.
It’s much like the reinventing of our Main Streets. Re-focusing our attention on the traditional centers of our cities and towns was a reaction to the ugly and vacuous character of post-war suburban commercial landscapes.
We should remember, of course, that not all of those efforts were successful. The malling over of our Main Streets was mainly a failure. We did it in Chicago, on State Street. We took the cars off and narrowed the streets and made it buses only. It didn’t work very well. Now we’ve widened the street again, opened it up to traffic, restored the period lighting, and things are lively again.
In this regard, Buffalo is really in a great position. You’ve made some important investments in your waterfront, but there is still a lot of acreage, still a lot of opportunities for you to take advantage. And the great thing is that you have the ability to learn from both the failures and the successes of waterfront developments, festival market places, Main Street redevelopments, and on and on.
We’re facing some of the same things in Chicago as you’re facing here. We just recently adopted a new master plan for the Chicago River. Of course, we have always focused on our Lake Michigan waterfront. Because of the Burnham Plan we have a wonderful lakefront without obstruction by industry or highways and a wonderful park system.
But until recently we had paid little attention to the Chicago River. At one point it was widely considered to be an “open sewer.” The water quality issues have been addressed, and now we have a plan that calls for new development along the river, new access, new uses. It’s very exciting.
Part of that is a plan for Canal Origins Park. The site had long been forgotten and overlooked. There was a gas station there, and at one point a fish shack where they sold fried fish, and there were underground storage tanks, and it was essentially a brownfield.
More than that, people didn’t even know the canal started there. But it was crucial to the history of Chicago. The city was literally laid out by the canal commission. It’s a very important site both in the history of Chicago and the larger story of the American canal system of the mid-19th century. Now it has been cleaned up and designated. It’s ready to be redeveloped as an educational site with interpretive resources. It’s going to be great.
But
I must tell you, we in Illinois are very jealous of you and your Erie
Canal. There are a lot of canals. You’ve got the brand name canal. Everyone
knows the story of the Erie Canal. Everyone knows the name. The Illinois
and Michigan Canal is almost certainly the second most important canal
in the nation. But it’s hard
to get attention or recognition because people
don’t know about us.
We need Buffalo. You’re part of our story. The Erie Canal was constructed to connect the Eastern seaboard to the Great Lakes. The I&M was constructed to connect Lake Michigan at the Chicago River with the Illinois River and all the way down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.
This is your story. But it is also a great story for all of America. It is about the very making of our nation. It needs to be told all along the way. But it most needs to be told at South Street in Manhattan, and at the “Origins” site in Chicago, and it needs to be told here at the Commercial Slip in Buffalo. You’ve got the brand name piece of the story and what you do here is of great importance to all of us.
My mother’s side of the family came from New England, through Western New York, and then on to Illinois. Her maiden name was Reed and for a time the family lived in Reed’s Corners down near Canandaigua. It was a typical story of the westward migration, the Yankee migration to the West.
Like everyone else, they came through here. They came by the Erie Canal and through the Commercial Slip. This was a place that witnessed the passage of more immigrants than Ellis Island did. If we are looking for an anchor for the culture and history of the canal system, if we are looking for an anchor to tell this story, this is the place. This is one of those real places.
Whatever happens there needs to set very high standards. It can’t be mediocre. It has to be great. Which is to suggest that there may be some other places to put some of the things now contemplated for the immediate site. They don’t necessarily have to go right there.
Remember, it’s not just the slip. It’s the area around the slip, the foundations, whatever else is there. We don’t want to slow down this development. But there remains a great deal of archaeological work to be done. We don’t even know all of what’s down there. So, you should take the time you need to find out and make sure that you realize the full potential of what is clearly a very rich site.
Before the Civil War there was a tradition of the American Grand Tour. People would come from Europe to see America and make the Grand Tour. There were a number of “musts” on this tour, the Hudson River, Lake George and the Adirondacks, were on the tour, and the White Mountains. And of course, Niagara Falls and the Erie Canal.
Niagara Falls remains one of the most visited sites in North America. The numbers are not so reliable, but it’s right up there with Disney World, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas. The question you face is how do you re-establish the connections that existed one hundred and fifty years ago between visits to the Falls and visits to the Canal.
Of course, in those days, people traveled on the Canal to get to Niagara Falls. But they also saw the Canal in its own right and appreciated it for the engineering marvel that it was. You need to figure out how to connect the Falls and the Canal again. Because it is a real place with great power, you can do it.
It is a rare opportunity in American civic life to have this kind of civic dialogue. What you are doing is truly impressive. I’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people who are here, the level of their interest, the depth of their concerns, and the quality of their sensibilities. This is something we need more of in our country and you are setting an example for all Americans.
You are also lucky to have a citizen like Kevin Gaughan in your midst. Sometimes it takes an intensely committed individual like Kevin, someone with great drive and imagination and perseverance to pull something like this together. We all owe Kevin Gaughan a great debt of gratitude.
I am not sure what the outcome of this conversation will be. It is most likely not a dialogue that will end at 4:30 Tuesday afternoon. You will be grappling with these issues for some time to come. Our part is easy. We’ll be leaving Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning.
But for you, for Buffalo, this is an opportunity for the community, broadly defined, to come together and shape its future. As you do that, remember that it is not just about the artifacts. It is about re-establishing the connection between your downtown and your waterfront.
It is about setting new standards for the quality of public spaces. It is about the long-term development of your cultural and heritage resources.
It is appropriate to take this seriously. It’s appropriate to have the close involvement of the Mayor and the County Executive. The intense interest of citizens and the media is likewise appropriate. But it is not a parochial issue. This is one of national importance.
We
are in the process of rediscovering sacred places in our nation. We talk
a lot about economics, and that’s fine. But there are important stories
that need to be told. The story of the Erie Canal is my family’s story.
It’s the Illinois and Michigan Canal Story. It’s the nation’s story.
The great English landscape painter Constable once said “we see nothing until we truly understand.” That applies to your consideration of the Canal, too. Until you really understand what this is and what it means, it will look like a bunch of rocks and a hole in the ground. And once you uncover it and understand what it is and see it for what it is, you can’t cover it up again.
Still, you have to decide exactly what to do. Tomorrow is one way to begin that process. Thank you very much.
(This text of the keynote address was reconstructed through interviews with Mr. Adelmann. This final version is published with his approval.)