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It appears developer Peter Stranges will not get to open the proposed "Haunted House" tourist attraction at his building on Rainbow Boulevard North because the nearest neighbor, Comfort Inn The Pointe, objects under various lame whines, like there is no room to put a dumpster. It hasn't opened yet and they're worrying about a dumpster?
Mr. Stranges didn't get to build the House of Wax museum he bought the site for seven years ago because the owners of the Comfort Inn -- an architectural nonentity -- objected for another stream of self-serving reasons. Thus, the famous Josephine Tussaud Museum syndicate yanked their name from the project.
And another development idea bites the dust, a decision decreed by the brilliant local minds that think AquaFalls is genius because it doesn't tread on their commercial toes. It is just a ditch in the middle of nothing much, yes?
The non-Comfort Inn's owner is Sevenson Hotel Associates, which is controlled by the Gang of Seven, Mayor Irene Elia's family. And my goodness, what a coincidence! Guess who is chairman of the Urban Renewal Agency, the group of community leaders who get to say yay or nay to a project that would surely be better than a vacant building? Mayor Elia.
Does anyone else see a major conflict of interest here? Elia should at the least have recused herself from ruling on the issue to give the appearance of fairness. At the best she should have told her brothers to quit their whining and think about the rest of the city. Elia voting or not probably wouldn't have made any difference because her family has half this city in its pocket.
So, Mr. Stranges would lose anyway. As he lost in 1995, when he wanted to build that House of Wax. Sevenson's petty objections put paid to that idea. Now they've started the diatribe again, claiming Stranges has to begin the approval process for developing the site all over again because a Haunted House is not a House of Wax.
And the difference would be? It's a tourist attraction, one way or another, rather than an empty building. Quite frankly, anyone with oxygen getting to their brain can see what's going on. The will-never-be home of that tourist attraction blocks the view of the Comfortless Inn from Rainbow Boulevard and executives at Sevenson Hotel Associates think this is why no one is banging on their vacancy sign to check in. The company was too cheap to pay $76,000 to buy the property, so they have spent the past seven years making Peter Stranges' life miserable -- and his property worthless -- so he'll walk away in disgust.
Maybe he'll sell it for a pittance, because who else wants to run the gantlet of the Sevenson Hotel Associates? Then some cheapskate can buy it, tear it down, and we'll all have a real good view of a hotel so non-attractive that it will have traffic speeding across the Rainbow Bridge to Niagara Falls, Ontario, and its Wax Museum and Haunted House, not to mention Marineland.
Of course, it also sends developers across the gorge as well. Who wants to spend development money in a town where you have to lock horns with alleged leaders who care nothing about what happens to this city? Our version only care about protecting their turf and screw the rest of us.
I truly love Niagara Falls, but I despise the self-serving businessmen and politicians who try to control it, ruining it in the process. Hotel occupancy in our city is officially under 50 percent, and I believe that is optimistic. The national average is about 60 percent. Lodgian Inc., an Atlanta-based company that owns the Holiday Inn Select on Third Street and the Four Points Sheraton on Buffalo Avenue, has filed for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code because they hope the summer tourist season will lift them out of the red before creditors start dismantling the assets. A vain hope, I fear.
Why couldn't the Comfort Inn group go bankrupt? I once stayed in a Comfort Inn in Key West because a spur-of-the-moment whim sent me meandering across the Seven Mile Bridge without reservations at my usual lodgings. When I walked into the bathroom I discovered that I was expected to transfer a bar of soap the size of a postage stamp between the bathroom sink and the tub. The two meager towels provided were thinner than parchment paper and the bath mat was actual paper. I complained to the front desk to no avail. So I walked the halls until I found a housekeeping cart, grabbed a dozen towels and 30 bars of soap, ignoring the Spanish imprecations of a maid. I have not stayed in that inhospitable and unsanitary hotel chain since.
I'm seeing red again, dear readers, and so should you. Stand up on your hind legs and start screaming: "We want a Haunted House." Or a House of Wax. Some tourist attractions like those that draw young families, not to mention young people, to our Niagara Falls.
On my first vacation after I began my professional career, my girlfriend and I drove across Ontario from Michigan to visit both sides of the falls. We spent most of our time and money in Canada because at 22 you want that silliness of Haunted Houses. I have a staged picture of me going over the falls in a barrel, and a street artist's rendition of me that is so flattering I have hung it in the basement. Kath and I had a ball at the wonders of the Great Cataract. But there is not much fun here. In winter you can't even take a fling at derring-do because the balloon ride isn't floating and the Maid of the Mist isn't sailing.
And why is this beautiful city ignored, or frankly avoided? Because we have the biggest jackasses in power I've ever seen. I lived in South Florida for 12 years so I know world-class jackasses when I see them. I talked to a lawyer on another subject not long ago and asked him if it was possible to impeach Mayor Elia. The lawyer, a lovely man, cited various clauses under some public act that would allow us to bring our grievances to the attention of the state government. Of course, Gov. Pataki, a Republican, would decide whether things should move forward against Elia, another Republican. Hopeless waste of time, I decided.
We won't get a Haunted House. We won't get a new aquarium either, though the Canadian side is getting a major expansion of Marineland to include Arctic Cove, a two-level site featuring beluga whales, and Discovery Reef, devoted to marine species usually found in Caribbean reefs.
And we still have AquaFalls, which has featured mud for three years. That project is so not going to happen.
Citizens, call your politicians to task or watch your city's continuing deterioration.
At least give a good loud bellow that you're seeing red and aren't going to take it anymore!
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 19 2002 |