City June 29, 2012 3:01 AM

Upstate New York cities: Back in business

queenseyes 33

Buffalo's waterfront is making waves in The Economist. So is The Larkin District. While we've seen a recent upswing in a number of the city's districts, it's refreshing to catch the eye of those in the national media who understand the importance of initiatives that are not only underway, but coming down the pike. When you throw together the above-mentioned success stories, along with the news of auto traffic coming back to Main Street and a "$300m ten-storey Gates Vascular Institute/Clinical and Translational Research Centre" (as The Economist points out), things are indeed changing for the second biggest city in New York state.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Higher education is also a big employer in Buffalo; the University at Buffalo is the second-biggest employer. It has been moving its medical centre downtown, and changing a whole neighbourhood as it does so. Howard Zemsky, a local businessman, has had a similar impact. A decade ago he began to redevelop one of the city's oldest industrial areas, known as the Hydraulics district. Today, around 30 dilapidated or abandoned sites have been transformed into an office and residential space called the Larkin District. Even an old petrol station has been converted into a retro restaurant...

View image

Comments

33 Comments Leave a comment

Travelrrr

June 29, 2012 7:53 AM

It's interesting how Rochester's Greater Rochester Enterprise is cited (for luring white collar jobs), while Buffalo's growth seems to come from grassroots, ground-up efforts: Larkin, PPG, etc. (UB and the waterfront development excluded.) It's quite indicative of how different the two cities are, and how different the paths by which the two cities are rebounding.

[ Reply ]

Score: 2 ( 4 votes )

Up and coming

June 29, 2012 10:02 AM

The Larkin has been a success because of First Niagara, so I wouldn't be too quick to toss it under the grassroots category.

[ Reply ]

Score: 1 ( 13 votes )

JSmith

June 29, 2012 10:14 AM

Not entirely. The Larkin at Exchange building was fully occupied before First Niagara moved its HQ there, and there were many other renovations in the neighborhood starting up before that as well.

Not to say that First Niagara's presence has not been a great boon to the area (they donated towards the Seneca Street improvements), but I don't think they would ever have been there if the groundwork had not been done by CityView and other developers doing smaller individual projects.

[ Reply ]

replied to Up and coming

Score: 5 ( 7 votes )

BuffaloRox

June 29, 2012 10:32 AM

I disagree. CitiView certainly has made it easy for First Niagara to expand in the Larkin District. However, the explosive growth of First Niagara, first in the LCo Building and then in the adjacent multistory brick building, has been the catalyst for growth in the Larkin District. First Niagara's growth in the LCo Building has displaced former tenants (e.g. Young + Wright) who have then gone into smaller surrounding properties.

[ Reply ]

replied to JSmith

Score: 0 ( 4 votes )

Up and coming

June 29, 2012 10:32 AM

"Not entirely. The Larkin at Exchange building was fully occupied before First Niagara moved its HQ there"

......and do you know who was occupying that space, before they moved their headquarter there? Answer, the First Niagara Call Center.

[ Reply ]

replied to JSmith

Score: 0 ( 6 votes )

Rand503

June 29, 2012 3:35 PM

Finally, a jouralist who isn't lazy and actually did research to write up a story.

[ Reply ]

Score: 2 ( 4 votes )

EricOak

June 29, 2012 5:07 PM

It seems that some comments that were here earlier have been deleted.

[ Reply ]

Score: 1 ( 3 votes )

queenie

June 30, 2012 8:46 PM

Which ones? And about what?

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: 0 ( 2 votes )

queenie

June 30, 2012 8:48 PM

Which ones? And about what?

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: 0 ( 2 votes )

LouisTully

July 1, 2012 12:57 AM

It's not just on this article. I think it's less 1984 and more technical issues. They've been talking about switching platforms for a while so perhaps it's related to that.

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: 0 ( 2 votes )

whatever

June 29, 2012 6:30 PM

Nice publicity for both cities.

If I were Rochester, I'd sure be asking Cuomo why Buffalo is more deserving of the "$1B" (no matter what that turns out to consist of), when Roch has a slightly higher poverty rate than we do.

I didn't notice anything in that article about what Trav referred to of Buffalo having more grass roots luring of businesses compared to Roch for our - umm - growth. Did I overlook that, or was it said somewhere else? I'm not even necessarily arguing it, but curious if it's based on anything tangible of comparing here and there.

Speaking of the Larkin, funny its 'Free surface parking for tenants and employees' seems always immune from being called out as sprawl in the city like happens for some other businesses … and nobody complains what property tax $ per sq ft is paid for its parking, nobody's saying it's sad, tragic, budget busting, bankrupting, ...
lol, another one of these http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2x7YkgSxro

[ Reply ]

Score: 5 ( 7 votes )

paulsobo

June 30, 2012 2:32 PM

Rochester doesnt want to keep its poor. Buffalo does. Though thats more an opinion. For most of our modern history, Rochester has been wealthier, more class differentiated and more networked in business/professional ... more transient. Rochester has had a predominant company, a predominant personality of its wealthiest setting tone for the conduct of the city. Buffalo never had that. If it did then it lost it decades before Rochester.

You dont run into Rochester natives with romantic childhood stories and "if only I could have stayed" stories.

Buffalonians more tied to their city.

The GRE in Rochester is led by key businesses, key wealth and key professionals. They network business in with colleges like its a business case study.

In Buffalo, we had a control board because Buffalo couldnt find any of key businesses, key wealth and key professionals to step forward. We cant get UB and Buffalo State to talk to each other. We cant get politics out of ECC. We cant get minority and union politics out of city and county management.

But where business and professional relationships/networks take the lead (this if you dont have anything to offer your out)...in Buffalo personal (family, friends, neighborhood, etc) relationships all take the lead.

For cities, so close together and appear similar at the surface, they have very different histories, personalities and cultures.

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 4 votes )

PaulBuffalo

June 30, 2012 3:15 PM

ChristieLou, when will your novel, Savage Rochester, be available on Amazon? These excerpts are riveting... really riveting.

[ Reply ]

replied to paulsobo

Score: 0 ( 4 votes )

EricOak

July 1, 2012 10:59 AM

I rarely say this to anyone, but you don't know what you're talking about here. Rochester was never a major city, and it had only a handful of old wealthy families compared to Buffalo, which was a major city and had far more wealth at its peak than Rochester. As for class, for better or worse, Buffalo was always known as a WASP stronghold and a city where "society" was taken seriously. Not so, Rochester, which has always had a more insular, more middle class and suburban ethos. I like Rochester, but the idea of Rochester as being a more tony city is a delusion. What you need is a lesson in Buffalo society history.

[ Reply ]

replied to paulsobo

Score: 1 ( 5 votes )

ladyinwhite

July 1, 2012 1:00 PM

You are correct to a point. But as Buffalo went into steep decline Rochester managed to stay ahead being a desirable white collar city with the likes of the Eastman School, RIT, Xerox, Kodak, Genesee Beer and B and L. For many of the past decades Rochester far far surpased Buffalo as a very Tony and trendy little city while Buffalo rusted away.

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: 0 ( 4 votes )

paulsobo

July 1, 2012 2:01 PM

Whose Karl Malone?

By the time of the late 1950s, the Martin Family and the Larkin business were gone, Art Nuveau Hotel Buffalo, German American Insurance Building, Larkin Admin building, Erie Savings Bank all gone. Pierce Arrow gone. Curtis and Wright which became General Dynamics...were gone. The port was being bypassed by the Welland Canal and the railroads were being bypassed by the expressways.

So yes...if your speaking about pre-WWII Buffalo then we were a major city among the major cities...and Rochester though wealthy was considered a small city (a big canal town made into a city by a grouping of other towns...where suburban sprawl fit nicely).

Your both telling an accurate picture...your just speaking to different periods in time.

But I thank both EricOAk and LadyinWhite, its wonderful that each of you have such a passion and understanding for our city.

[ Reply ]

replied to ladyinwhite

Score: -2 ( 4 votes )

EricOak

July 1, 2012 3:28 PM

But Rochester is not a wealthy city.. It has the highest rate of poverty in New York State. Its crime rates are sobering. The wealth inside the city proper, the private city club life, and the spectrum of urban cultural life do not surpass those of Buffalo and never did. Rochester has qualities, it had a few large middle management companies (mostly shrinking) that boosted some of its suburbs and a few institutions, but as far as a cosmopolitan and tony urban center, I don't know anyone who would seriously call Rochester a place to envy. Certainly not compared to Buffalo, wthere there are still deep coffers of old money, a visible society culture, a restive art, literary and music pulse, and a resurgence of faith in the urban core and its future. To say that Buffalo simply rusted while Rochester thrived is turning blind eyes to a hundred years of complex history, from the World's fair in Buffalo to the avant garde cultural brew of Buffalo in the 60s and 70s, to the admiration of places like the National Trust, the New York Times and the Economist.

[ Reply ]

replied to ladyinwhite

Score: 1 ( 11 votes )

queenie

July 1, 2012 10:59 PM

you are one deluded a-hole, Mr. Oakland Place

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: -6 ( 8 votes )

Buffalo All Star

July 1, 2012 5:02 PM

"Tony and trendy"..I have never been uncomfortable reading an online blog post...until now!

[ Reply ]

replied to ladyinwhite

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

Dan

July 1, 2012 4:35 PM

> I like Rochester, but the idea of Rochester as being a more tony city is a delusion.

However, Rochester -- Monroe County and the surrounding area -- is far more white collar and middle class than the Buffalo area. The Rochester metro doesn't really have the equivalent of a Cheektowaga, Depew, Lackawanna, or Niagara Falls, to name a few blue collar 'burbs. Rochester's western suburbs, what they consider to be the "wrong side" of town, are largely middle class by Buffalo standards; like Tonawanda without the landfills.

Buffalo does have the old money, the Blue Book/society influences, the stronger high culture scene, but it's not as across-the-board middle class as the Rochester region. Buffalo has always had a disproportionately large working class for a city its size.

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: 2 ( 4 votes )

EricOak

July 1, 2012 5:34 PM

I think that's overstating the difference. Buffalo has a more typical spectrum of classes, more of a range like Boston and Chicago, which have huge working class populations. Rochester is a more provincial place with a largely suburban ethos, and that's not sophisticated. Middle class is not what I'd call an engine of culture in America, and that's why Rochester never became a city with personality. There is simply more cultural pedigree in Buffalo than Rochester, a decent city with some beautiful buildings and a moderately good museum. It remains the poorest city in New York.

[ Reply ]

replied to Dan

Score: 0 ( 4 votes )

queenie

July 1, 2012 10:50 PM

Unbelievable that anyone could write like this in 2012. Utterly stupid pretentiousness, and ultimately, a very ugliness. Your imagined world is gone, Mr. EricOak.

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: -4 ( 10 votes )

sonyactivision

July 3, 2012 12:29 AM

I'd add that Rochester is sooo recherche, but cosidering the milieu here, make that 'rachacha'.

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: -1 ( 1 votes )

whatever

July 3, 2012 1:05 PM

No, Eric, this looks untrue about Rochester says the Census, even though 2 of your comments in this thread have claimed it.
EricOak>"It remains the poorest city in New York."

The city persons-beow-poverty % in Syracuse is even higher than both Roc & Buf.
Syracuse 31.1%, Rochester 30.4%, Buffalo 29.6%

Even beyond its inaccuracy, isn't that a lame label to keep saying as if it's meaningful, in that all three of those percents are so close among these cities in Upstate NY?
Is it really significant that Roc has a 0.8% higher poverty rate than Buffalo, or that Syracuse's rate is 0.7% higher than in Roc?
Those are all within +/-1% which probably is within what's likely the measure's margin of error.

And as others and I have mentioned about this - comparing like that only within where city limit lines were drawn 100+ years ago really weakens how meaningful such a comparison can be. More regionally, the poverty percents among the three counties are even closer - all within 0.4% of each other.
Onondaga (Syr) 13.6%, Monroe (Roc) 13.7%, Erie (Buf) 14.0%

But even that way, Rochester's county's rate isn't the highest so your claim would be wrong again. For that, Erie has slightly highest poverty rate compared to the other two (with rates in all 3 counties very close to the national average), even while Syr and Roc each have a higher rate than Buffalo within city boundaries.
Clearly all three areas are very similar for poverty rate, both for city and county ways of looking at it.

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

EricOak

July 3, 2012 4:01 PM

I agree completely; it's just as misleading as the chorus about Buffalo being the 3rd poorest city in the country, when almost all older northern cities have alarmingly high rates of inner city poverty. It's like comparing who has the worst case of pneumonia. Yet no one seems to raise his hand when that fact is trumpeted. But thanks for making this point. I was emphatic about Rochester poverty only to correct Paulsobo's inflated sense of Rochester as a prosperous, sophisticated city. Having lived there, I can only say it is no such thing.

Finally, I am not concerned about the shopping mall suburbs of Rochester or Buffalo, as they don't affect the quality of urban life in the areas.

[ Reply ]

replied to whatever

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

whatever

July 6, 2012 12:41 AM

You're welcome. And yes, I agree the 3rd-poorest chorus is almost always singing in a very dumb way - trotted out to argue for pretty much anything.

On a related note, the BN editorial board even wrote Thursday that Buffalo is a poor city when arguing why they feel the Buffalo Bills should more often give away their product for free on television.
Ironic that said by a media business who's planning soon to start charging monthly fees to look at its web site.
Evidentially they don't feel the city's amount of poorness, such as it is, is any reason for themselves to not start charging to see their product… but for a sports business it should be, or so Margaret argues.

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

queenie

July 1, 2012 9:08 PM

Oh, my! You silly, silly queen. Dear "tony" EricOak of "tony" Buffalo (AS COMPARED WITH ROCHESTER! Ha! Ha!). As they say now, "give me a break." Among your most ridiculous comments-- and there have been many.

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: -4 ( 6 votes )

grad94

July 1, 2012 10:17 PM

that's correct. rochester was never included in the social register. until around 1980, buffalo was.

http://books.google.com/books/about/Social_register.html?id=GgwjAQAAIAAJ

[ Reply ]

replied to EricOak

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

paulsobo

June 30, 2012 4:18 PM

I dont see where I said Rochester was savage.

The two cities appear on the surface to be the same but they are actually very different. Not better, not savage...just different.

But I dont expect a niaive jewish liberal who thinks all brutish goyem in the world should be the same and should be an individual...well except for the themselves.

[ Reply ]

Score: -3 ( 7 votes )

YesSir

July 1, 2012 12:48 PM

Now that's the Christy Lou that the Karl Malone likes to see back at work

[ Reply ]

replied to paulsobo

Score: -1 ( 1 votes )

Crisa

June 30, 2012 9:22 PM

I sent two comments to this article and they were accepted but are not coming up... What is B Ris's IP? 178.255.831 is rejected as a no no...

[ Reply ]

Score: -1 ( 1 votes )

Go Bills

July 5, 2012 8:38 AM

The national attention is great and its great that things are moving in the right direction. As a born and educated buffalonian who had to move after college for a career, buffalo being back in business is a strech. I think there is a good number of other transplants that would love to return to buffalo. Jobs just aren't there yet in the way they should be to really utilize the educated students the region pumps out.

[ Reply ]

Score: -1 ( 1 votes )

598eer6525

August 8, 2012 10:26 PM

October 19 this year , Hubei Province the Yunxi guy Hu Quanling four working after graduating from college ,cheap jerseys nfl, is preparing to online rental , suddenly the police to the police station . He knew , Shandong Weihai police wanted online on the grounds that in connection with enrollment fraud , and is the mastermind behind the fraud amounting to nearly one million . Hu Quanling subsequently transferred to the the Weihai Police . December 7th was acquitted . Before or after him in custody for 49 days .

September 15 this year , Hu Quanling in Wuhan, a training agency to find a counseling pupils mathematics . October 19 at 3 pm , he the Wuhan baibuting an Internet cafe Internet , and intend to rent-seeking on the Internet a house . Before the Internet , as required to produce identity cards, and more than 1 hours , three police officers surrounded him . Hu Quanling followed by Lake police station after the police arrived at the riverbank area and was told : Shandong Weihai Public Security Bureau identified him in connection with the enrollment fraud, he is wanted for a long time online .

Huquan Ling introduced the experience of working in June 2008 graduated from the Huazhong Agricultural University , Shanghai , Nanjing , and provide the appropriate witness . The police believed he was involved in the case is unlikely, he took pictures using the phone , passed Weihai police can Weihai police have been not reply . Weihai, Wan Tsui Public Security Bureau sent two police until November 4 , on the matter for further investigation.

day, the two Ming Weihai police arraigned Huquan Ling , Hu Quanling recognized police hands, according to the registration , the registration according to an ID card is just what you had lost - it was in May 2007 is on junior Hu Quanling to Wuchang in the South , a logistics company to do part-time work before he was secured ID cards . Hu Quanling find the person in charge of more than a month after the beg for salary and ID cards , the other contact is always on .

12 7 pm , two police investigators came to the detention center, told Hu Quanling : According to the case for further investigation , he was acquitted , be released . Consolidation

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

Upstate New York cities: Back in business

Categories:

Comments

Leave a comment

Related Stories

Service Learning: 100% Urban Dedication

Extreme Community Viewing Event: ReUse, PUSH, AmericCorps

Buffalo ReUse ReGifting Party

Recent Comments

Buffalo Rising Media