Buffalo, NY - The controversy over whether we salvage a significant part of local
history ñ or bury it ñ will come to a crossroads within the next six weeks.
If you were educated in Western New York, it's likely you remember bits and pieces
of the old songs you learned about the Erie Canal in grammar school. You might even
remember some of the facts you learned about the canal itself - how it extended 363
miles from Buffalo to Albany, how it was dug from rock and dirt by pure muscle-power,
and how horses and mules towed barges and canal boats from one city to the next.
|
Newly arriving immigrants in New York
City flocked to the project, attracted by the pay of $.80 a day, the promise of a
roof over their heads, a shot of whiskey and three square meals.
|
The Erie Canal has many romantic notions tied to it, but its true value was not in
the folklore of how it was built and operated, but in the economic and social impact
it had on the cities between and including Buffalo and Albany. In fact -- on all
of the northern tier of the United States.
'Clinton's Ditch'
The concept of the canal originated with Gouvernor Morris, a member of the First
Continental Congress, but local support came from then governor of New York, DeWitt
Clinton. The idea was to provide an easy and fast mode of transportation from the
east to the west, based on the canals already built and being built in Europe. Construction
costs in 1812 were estimated at $5 million to $6 million, an exorbitant amount for
the times.
It also seemed unlikely that the task could ever be completed, given the wilderness,
hills and valleys, rock formations and differences in elevation that lay between
the cities of Buffalo and Albany. Not only would the canal require blasting through
a stretch of bedrock between Lockport and Pendleton, it also required the construction
of 83 locks and 18 aqueducts.
Clinton, however, garnered support for the project with the promise that construction
funds would be recouped through tolls. The interest of New England's farmers who
wanted to move west to the easily plowed land of the Indiana and Illinois territories,
and of eastern merchants who were ready to transport their goods west, helped Clinton
get the canal project approved in the New York senate - by one vote.
Seven years of grunt work pay off
The work, which began in July of 1817, called for a huge number of workers, since
the majority of the clearing and digging, was accomplished by sheer muscle-power.
Newly arriving immigrants in New York City flocked to the project, attracted by the
pay of $.80 a day, the promise of a roof over their heads, a shot of whiskey and
three square meals.
The canal, which was started in Rome, eventually made its way east through Utica,
Amsterdam, Schnectady and Troy to Albany; and west through Syracuse, Lyons, Rochester
and Lockport, to Buffalo. Branch canals such as the Genesee and Black River Canals,
were built to connect other areas of the state to the main canal.
|
"If this site were listed
on the National Register and appropriately restored, it could bring Buffalo an economic
boost way and beyond what is currently planned."
- Tim Tielman
|
Before the canal was even completed, it began to generate substantial income for
the state. In April of 1824, Clinton's political enemies, who were trying to strip
him of his last vestige of public office - that of canal commissioner -- were severely
deflated. Financial reports showed that 1,822 boats were operating on a 45-mile stretch
of the canal, bringing in $21,000 in tolls in only six months. By the end of the
summer, the combined operating sections had collected $300,000.
Canal critical to Buffalo's growth
Making Buffalo the western terminus of the Erie Canal linked the city to the eastern
seaboard and made it the principal point for shipping in the north. It was after
the Canal opened in 1825 that the city grew out and around the waterfront. As this
growth occurred, private slips and canals were added off the main canal, until tourists
began to compare Buffalo to Venice.
Countless people made their living either directly or indirectly because of the Canal.
The Irish, who had built "Clinton's Ditch" continued to supply much of
the labor for the maintenance of it. Shipbuilding provided work for Irish, Canadian
and American artisans, and the city's Fifth Ward developed a large German community.
The canal was such a success for Buffalo that it was the favored investment for local
capitalists right up to the 1850s, and in 1854 a state referendum regarding allocating
state funds to enlarge the canal passed in Buffalo 10,239 votes to three.
Railroads arrive on the scene
Eventually the railroads began to provide a much quicker mode of transportation for
both freight and passengers than the canal boats, which traveled at a speed of about
two and a half miles an hour with the current, and one and a half miles an hour against
the current.
Although innovative businessmen tried to find ways to modernize the canal boats with
steam engines and mechanized towlines, they were basically unsuccessful. The canal
itself was only four- to seven-feet deep, with a width of 28 feet at the bottom,
and 40 feet at the top. This made it difficult to adapt the flat-bottomed boats to
engines.
The railroads also garnered great political power, lobbying at one time to drain
the canal so they could lay track on its bed. For some time, heavy freight that did
not have to be delivered to its destination quickly was still carried on the Erie
and it continued to generate revenues. By the time all the tolls were abolished in
1882, the canal had cleared $42 million.
In 1903 parts of the Erie and its two main branches, the Champlain Canal and the
Oswego Canal connecting the Erie to Lake Ontario, were widened and deepened and the
canal became known as the New York State Barge Canal System.
This new system, which accommodated steam, diesel and tugs, shortened the Erie Canal
so that Tonawanda became the western terminus for the system, instead of Buffalo.
When a bill to build a new lock to preserve the canal between Buffalo and Tonawanda
failed in 1917, the canal bed was abandoned and most of it was filled in. Today the
Niagara Thruway roughly follows along the path of the Canal to its former terminus
at Little Buffalo Creek, where the few remaining remnants of Buffalo's end of the
storied Erie Canal lie buried under a thin layer of fill.
Buffalo terminus comes under controversy
It is the area of the Buffalo terminus, known as the Canal District in its heyday
and as "Little Italy" at the beginning of the 20th century, which sits
at the foot of Main Street just south of Memorial Auditorium, that's the subject
of controversy today. The Preservation Coalition of Erie County wants to save the
remains of this nationally renowned neighborhood that was once part of the Canal
District, as well as the Commercial Slip itself. Central to this idea is to reuse
the canal and streets for the same purposes for which it was built - as a harbor
for boats and to give street access to housing, shops and businesses.
"This site has the potential to be a national historic attraction," says
Tim Tielman, executive director of the Preservation Coalition. "Nowhere else
on the Niagara Frontier does the tangible and visual infrastructure exist that so
clearly demonstrates how the convergence of water and rail commerce created the great
economic boon Buffalo enjoyed in the 19th century."
For preservationists like Tielman, and historians like Monroe Fordham, former chair
and professor emeritus of history at State University College at Buffalo the value
of the site lies in exposing and preserving the actual infrastructure of the time,
rather than replacing it with replicas or destroying it altogether.
Dolores Hayden, author of "Urban Landscape History," finds additional value
in the social heritage represented by such sites. Hayden writes: "Like a worker's
dwelling, which may suggest how millions of people were sheltered, something as basic
as a railroad or streetcar system reveals the quality of everyday life in the urban
landscape, while marking the terrain."
In Hayden's view, the work done by individuals such as those who constructed and
maintained the Erie Canal, represents the class, ethnic and gender history of our
area. It was people such as these who provided the labor that created significant
changes in the local environment, and it was the same group who then suffered a disproportionate
share of the negative impacts caused by those changes.
Opportunity knocks
As our city prepares to revitalize its waterfront, this generation of Buffalonians
has the opportunity to preserve this piece of history. Currently, the Empire State
Development Corporation (ESD) plans to excavate the site to build three steel-lined
boat basins and a new Naval Museum.
"If this site were listed on the National Register and appropriately restored,
it could bring Buffalo an economic boost way and beyond what is currently planned,"
Tielman said. "There is a booming heritage tourism industry nationwide, that
will far exceed the impact of the local tourism attracted by the ESD plan."
The Preservation Coalition is currently working to garner support for its proposal
to save and restore the site. A public hearing on the issue will be scheduled in
May, the subject of a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) due
May 10. For further information on the Canal District, or to assist in preserving
the site, contact the Preservation Coalition at 885-3897 or e-mail: PresworksBflo@aol.com.