The Mad Traveler strikes again

The Mad Traveler, Dave Seminara, in May vilified Niagara Falls in a Youtube video made popular by Mark Scheer of the Niagara Gazette. He returned for another visit. I watched the video so you don’t have to but it is linked below.

He got more right this time. He even went to Gadawski’s for beef on weck and found his father’s old home on Tronolone Place after some locals pointed out 14th Street as identified by Google maps is not 14th Street he visited in his previous trash job.

He also talked about Niagara Falls Redevelopment owning large plots of vacant land and derelict buildings for more than 25 years and doing nothing with it.

He found DeVeaux, LaSalle and the state parks but somehow thinks only wealthy people live in DeVeaux. We may not be wealthy but we are rich for having the chance to live her.

He endlessly questions how this happened but never examines how New York State does nothing for the city. The death of the chemical industry and the abandonment of the city by New York State are at the core of the trouble. It is not the fault of city government or local taxpayers.

There is no mention of how the Schoellkopf Power Plant was a quarter of the city’s tax base and went away when it slid into the gorge. The State shares no parking or Maid of the Mist revenue with the city and pays no property tax on the waterfront along the Niagara River which is the most valuable property here.

He also misses that the partially completed Ralph C. Wilson visitor’s center was built by the state inside the park with state money because it ensures all of the supposedly 9 million visitors stay in the park and support Delaware North not the surrounding community.

As he criticizes the train station and Underground Railroad Heritage Museum, he also fails to mention it was not bonded. It may have been expensive and ill-conceived but at least we aren’t still paying on a note even if we subsidize it for about $130,000 annually.

He wouldn’t know if he didn’t live in Western New York that the daily paper here has allowed a morning radio show to trash the falls for 30 minutes a week with its Niagara Falls Police blotter, branding the city as a shithole, driving down real estate values.

The Gazette, and Shredd and Ragan, are the reason for the branding of our community as a bad place in Western New York. Ask most people locally what they think of the Falls and they will say it is trash. Ask the people in DeVeaux or LaSalle or on Cayuga Island and they will tell you it is special. A modest home in DeVeaux should be worth twice what it would cost in Lewiston, East Aurora or Williamsville not half. Blame Shredd and Ragan and the Gazette. Then travel outside the region and tell someone you are from the Falls. They think it is like Disney.

I could go on, but Seminara still doesn’t get it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk_EqbsnVVs&t=4s