Niagara Falls – There’s more than one way to skin a cat. And there’s more than one way for a city to get into the headlines. A good way and a screwed up way. And of course when Niagara Falls gets itself into the news it’s gotta go the screwed up route.
Over the last couple of weeks the city hit the news for two reasons, both really, really messed up: music coming nonstop from an empty downtown building and the falls being dried up. First, the Associated Press latched onto the “mysterious” playing of the University of Iowa fight song coming from an empty building on Third Street. When I heard the music was coming from “an empty building” the first thing I thought was, Third Street is nothing but empty buildings! Mayor Paul Dyster’s given out a million dollars in grants and loans in the last eight years to fill those empty buildings and they’re still empty buildings. There’s more life on Mars than on Third Street. You could fire a cannon on the street and not hit anyone. However when a 38 pistol goes off it usually hits someone. Go figure.
As for the falls being dried up by the state, how funny is that? The one thing – a world famous waterfall – that city hall hasn’t broken or bankrupted and the state’s gonna yank the tap and shut it off! After the state blockaded the city with a parkway, ripped off our hydroelectric power and dumped Indian gaming on us they’re gonna take away our tourism attraction. Your gotta laugh. Or maybe cry would be more fitting under these particular circumstances.
Why do I get the feeling that Niagara Falls is some sort of CIA mind control experiment and all these crazy shots we think are being called from Albany are really coming from the Pentagon. I mean, hey, we got a hotel project that isn’t really a hotel project and a downtown that could only pass for a downtown if you’re talking about downtown Mogadishu. Downtown Niagara Falls is Sheboygan without the culture. It’s Cheektowaga without the quaint bowling alleys. I think the entire city is on a hidden camera and back in central command a bunch of government yokels with pocket protectors are laughing their asses off at us. For once in the lives of these tech geeks they’ve found someone they can feel superior too: The residents of Niagara Falls! We’re a small “used to be someone” city in the industrial northeast in the most powerful nation in the world…we’re the city that time forgot.
Me, I gotta get going. I met this very nice girl and we’re having our first date. I’m taking her to a free concert on Third Street…”The word is fight, fight, fight for Iowa! Until the game is won!”
