We may be on to something here.
When legendary rappers Public Enemy visited Niagara Falls last week to shoot their new video, many here wondered why exactly they chose this particular garden spot. The answer, like everything else here, is brutal.
Gentrification in the five boroughs of New York City has gotten to the point where formerly frightening neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy, East New York and Brownsville have been taken over by young families and professionals. Streets once known for the inordinate amounts of blood spilled on them are now characterized by the number of Volvos and "green" hybrid cars parked along their curbs.
Where winos once drank out of brown paper bags, young mothers now sip latte after shopping at the neighborhood food co-op.
In short, there aren't any mean streets left in New York on which a self-respecting ghetto-fabulous rapper might strut his or her stuff.
Enter Niagara Falls, a place full of substandard housing, grafitti sprayed walls and where an unreconstructed and unapologetic thug life thrives. Shootings are common, and the selling of crack cocaine still offers a viable career choice for those young people who don't want to wait to get that flat-screen TV of their very own.
We set the gold standard, all right. Take the recent summary of Niagara Falls news that appeared in the Buffalo News on one day last week: "Police shoot pit bull to death in drug raid," "Judge to keep tabs on boy accused of rape," "House on 18th Street in Falls burglarized," "Laptop computer stolen in pizzeria break-in," "Suspect smashes windshield as owner stands by car," "Electronics stolen in vehicle break-in," "Plea of not guilty entered in stabbing" and "Fire in home injures woman on Ninth Street."
All that on one day for a town of 45,000 people!
Mayor Dyster needs to get busy and not let this opportunity pass us by. Surely there must be more rappers looking for the truly authentic brand of lawlessness and decay that we've got in spades. And those post-apocalyptic movies that take place in some future following a nuclear holocaust, great plague or climatic disaster are very popular now; they could be shot here, and the producers wouldn't have to build any sets.
Dyster should appoint a film commission, immediately, to take full advantage of the hopelessness, despair and defeat he presides over.
There might even be a bit part in it for him.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Aug. 17, 2010 |