Mayor Byron Brown and Congressman Brian Higgins held a press conference this morning to announce that the Erie Basin Marina will now be open all year-round. This way, Buffalonians can enjoy views of the lake and the Buffalo Light, as well as the scenic concrete bunker and parking lots of the marina during the wintertime.
This past weekend, Labatt’s sponsored the local iteration of its North American pond hockey tournament, and it was by all accounts a rousing success. Although opening the marina area up during the winter was being planned, the success of the hockey event pushed it up to today.
Mayor Brown says this move won’t cost the city anything, and it is hoped that the Hatch might open up occasionally during the off-season.
The funny thing about it was that the press conference was held outside, with temps in the mid-30s and a very, very biting wind (not breeze – wind) that had most everybody in attendance shivering.
It’s a nice gesture, and will certainly be appreciated when it’s warm enough, but I don’t think that particular strip is going to be all that popular in the dead of winter.
In other news, Tim Tielman was expressly named several times as one of the people who will be consulted as to what to do with that area during the wintertime. Regular folks will have an opportunity also to be heard. My question is – what expertise does Tim Tielman have with producing wintertime attractions in a parking lot?
The Buffalo Record 
LOL! Love your last paragraph about Tielman. I’ve been wondering about why he never joined the boulevard group opposing Higgins. Hearing that Tielman was mentioned several times today (by Higgins????) makes me wonder if after the Bass Pro head-butt between the Higgins-ish and Tielman-ish folks if Tielman and Higgins didn’t reach some kind of non-agression pact. All those big waterfront ideas floated by Tielman a few months ago (skyway park, moving the Niagara Thruway,etc) seems consistent with the picture of an “understanding”. It might go something like: Tielman would stop making trouble for Higgins in the waterfront, and in return Higgins would get Tim a seat at the table on things like winter plans for the marina and even those recent BIG IDEAS.
I love the way they lower in that big speaker’s lectern for every occasion. After all, a successful man must be properly accoutered.
Are you serious ? A press conference to announce this ? What an embarrasment. Have the politicians nothing better to do ? As much as I love this city, it becomes more difficult to stay here every day.
Did anyone ask Byron if he got a response to the mean letter he sent to who knows who regarding the Landsdowne ? He makes Masiello & Griffin look like genius’! It would be funny if it weren’t so depressing. Can’t Brian Higgins find anyone else to hang out with ?
Exactly how did you expect people to know if there wasn’t a press conference?
Although I don’t see them being able to open the Hatch year round, except maybe for special occasions, this should enable them to open sooner and close later if they want.
How’s that for a dash of positive amongst the cynics?
Tim Tielman…….doesn’t know about anything except running off at the mouth. He is probably getting ready to run for a position in politics once more, like an Erie County Legislator. Spare us his big mouth, he is nothing but trouble, always has been.
If Steel sees this, he’ll remind you that if it wasn’t for Tielman, Lake Erie wouldn’t even still be here. Most WNYers are greedy self-centered scum who’d be happy to see the lake demolished to make room for a giant Dunkin Donuts or Benderson strip mall.
Why does everyone bash Tielman all the time? He knows more local history than all of us combined. And,…he loves this area.
As usual, Starbuck is misinformed. It’s Tim Horton’s, not Dunkin Donuts. I also heard that they are going to use the debris from the Aud demo to fill in the Erie Marina. That will act as the base for the new Bass Pro. That way it won’t be near the Central Wharf.
Kitty said:As much as I love this city, it becomes more difficult to stay here every day.
How do you think it feels for those of us who would like to come back?
All the city and county pols playing bullshit dick-cheese games, as WNY continues to circle the bowl.
It was a little silly. However, as a hockey player, I welcome the chance to shinny on the Marina. Game on with Byron!!!!
Hey now, why the hating on Tim Teilman? He is one of the most thoughtful cats around when it comes to the many plaguing issues we have in WNY, and unlike a lot of blovaters on the net (not you, BP– I put you in the same category as Tim) and in the Letters to the Editor columns in in the press he actually works on finding solutions to these problems. It is an unfortunate reality that the democratic process seldom selects the most intelligent candidates for leadership roles. The best elected officials surround themselves with smart people, the worst flatter themselves by thinking that this is what they are doing. Byron Brown is no smarter than he needs to be, g-d knows, but if he is listening to Tim Tielman he is at least smart enough to know that creative solutions are called for in our city. Now if Collins will start listening to Teilman, and Kevin Gaughan, maybe we’ll start getting somewhere.
I will put up the first dollar in a collection to buy our esteemed representative a new suit. He wears that gray pinstipe everywhere and, in the face of what must have been a rather nasty wind chill his solutions was…put on a hat.
On to more pressing matters…this might have seemed a touch less silly had the press conference come DURING the pond hockey tournament, not a day after when the place was so freakin’ empty. You know, maybe get a bunch of the players to help move the barracade, rather than the two pols. From Ch. 4’s coverage, the mayor looked terrified that he might get something on his topcoat.
Nice that the place will be open for those (rare?)days when the temperature and the winds allow but, on a scale of significant waterfront developments, this one is awfully minor.
Bill A are you serious? Constantly resorting to litigation is not a creative solution for moving the city forward… I don’t care how smart the man is, how “thoughtful” he is, how much he has done for the city, or how much he knows about Buffalo’s history. He is a hypocrite with an agenda, who will misrepresent and distort facts to further agenda… it time for you and his followers to look at the world with an independent eye.
I don’t doubt that Tielman has done some good things, but it hasn’t been all good and the hero worship thrown his way by some people is way over the top. This was an example of that – the mayor’s assumption that he’ll be an expert about winter uses of the marina. As BP asked, what qualifications does Tielman have about that? Nobody’s answered so far.
The last “creative solution” from Tielman that I recall seeing discussed was that crazy one to convert of half the abandoned Skyway into a public park in the sky that people would climb up on. That idea alone should tell us whatever expertise he has about historic architecture, that doesn’t extend to common sense about what normal people want (not to mention financial realities).
Bill, Tielman bashing is now sort of a knee-jerk thing. I like the comment above by someone who “doesn’t care how much he’s done for the city.”
I’ve been on tours and events he’s organized as well as worked with him on preservation efforts. I don’t get all the hating either. But I think at this point you’d may as well suggest stop making fun of MKG. T-bashing is now de rigueur throughout the WNY blogosphere.
Hey, nice comment spellcheck function!
Eliz,
My criticism is not a knee jerk reaction… let me clarify what I mean when I say I dont care how much he has done for the city. First I dont believe that he has done “so much for the city” yet every time some says something negative about him someone will opine that he has. BUT to whatever extent he has, that does not provide him with a shield from criticism. His stance on MANY issues and his downright obstructionism on others has harmed our community. It has led and will continue to lead to poor urban planning decisions, and alternatives that are the second best (or worse) when it comes to community development. Further, the cost that his litigious threats and acts build into projects can act as barriers to entry to those who wish to invest here. When you describe people with valid criticisms, who care just as much, if not more for our community than he does as simply partaking in “T-bashing”, you are the one that is manifesting a knee-jerk reaction, because you are refusing to listen and consider their arguments.
I have listened to Mr. Tielman and his arguments, my criticisms of them are not a knee-jerk reactions but rather given after considering them and independently examining the facts surrounding them… can you say the same?
Looks like another slow news day in the b-low.
That looks prety pathetic.
Although I understand the concept of dripping “good news” little by little
T-bone, Well, yes, I can. He makes statements and takes stands that we may or may not agree with. But on many of these issues, he is just one of many, many individuals and groups who hold that particular stand. I believe he is vilified as a symbol, more than for anything that he has personally made happen.
The only things that I know for sure that he has absolutely had a controlling role in is the preservation of 844-8 Main Street (2003), the excavation of the canal terminus (rather than covering it up-this was some years ago too) and the organization of a bunch of educational tours and other events. He’s an advocate and an activist, but I believe many people here and elsewhere ludicrously overestimate his power, using him as the whipping boy for activism in which many, many others than he play important roles. The rhetoric surrounding him has become far too overheated. I don’t always agree with him myself, but I respect his motivations and his devotion to the city.
Tielman puts himself front and center. That’s admirable some ways, in his self-interest in others, but makes him a magnet for criticism and a proxy symbol for complaints against generic anti-development attitudes. That shouldn’t be surprising. Motivations and devotion aren’t the issue. I don’t question motivations or devotion of, for example, Phil Rumore or James Williams – but I think both have do harmful things in pursuit of what they each think is right.
He has expertise in preservation and does a lot of activism and helped push some some law suits if I’m not mistaken. None of that means his ideas and judgment are great. When people say that or disagree with what he pushes, it’s not always bashing or hating. It can be just putting his ideas in their proper place with everyone else’s instead of high up on a pedestal as some (Byron, Queenseyes, etc.) put him on. It might seem hating by comparison, but most of comments above aren’t hating – except maybe what FoxyLady wrote.
His Skyway Park idea is out of touch with common sense. That “award-winning master plan” for the canal slip village with little shops sounds to me like a flop, and I think he pushed for that. Also unimpressive is his gross overselling of benefits of converting parking meters to bike stands (BRO today, coincidentally).
Preservation advocacy is different. I’m not sure the canal excavation will be a big deal as claimed, but I’ll credit him for making a difference he felt was important to preserve that. He’s a good advocate for preservation. I won’t agree with saving everything he wants to save, but he sounds like an expert about it. Beyond that, I’m not impressed in the least with project type ideas I’ve heard from him. Most sound awful to me.
As it turns out, shinny on the lake is NOT ALLOWED. So, on the heels of the successful pond hockey tournament, Brown and Higgins trot themselves out to “open” up the Marina. But, no hockey.
I say give them 10 and a game misconduct.