Published: September 26, 2009 11:26 pm      

GLYNN: Battle of the rinks

As many local residents know, when the Convention and Civic Center was converted to the new Seneca Niagara Casino, it meant major changes to the exterior, too.

For example, the E. Dent Lackey Plaza — named for a former mayor, although it was hard to prove because someone swiped the bronze marker years ago — was wiped out to make way for a parking lot.

While the plaza itself always was a little grimy, it included one attraction that should have been a favorite with visitors as well as local residents — an ice skating rink.

“It’s larger than the one in Rockefeller Center in Manhattan,” Mayor Lackey once boasted to a group of VIPs touring the South End.

As longtime residents recall, the rink was plagued with problems from the day it opened, whether the faulty piping system or a zamboni that was often down for repairs. There were other maintenance concerns as well.

So when Joseph (Smokin Joe) Anderson, the Tuscarora entrepreneur, built his Snow Park in downtown Niagara Falls, just a couple of blocks from the falls, it was initially welcomed as an ideal attraction to encourage tourists to stay longer.

Besides the 50-foot high, eight-lane snow tubing hill, there is a skating rink matching the dimensions of a National Hockey League playing surface.

Unfortunately, for the passersby, the rink is dwarfed by the big hill and, to compound matters, shrouded by the fence and boards around the ice. At a glance along Second Street, it’s hard to tell what’s inside.

Is it possible that Anderson might have unwittingly inspired the Winter Festival of Lights in Niagara Falls, Ont., to build an ice rink near the Journey Behind the Falls (the former Table Rock House) where skaters will be afforded an unmatched view of the Horseshoe Falls?

It will be called ‘The Rink by the Brink.’

A partner in that project is the Niagara Parks Commission, the agency responsible for much of the parkland bordering the river and the falls, from Fort Erie, Ont., to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.

The festival committee is expected to unveil all the details at a media briefing next month.

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ON THE ROAD: For the countless motorists who drive between upstate New York and central Pennsylvania, there’s good news from the state Department of Transportation.

That last leg of four-lane Route 15, from Presho, N.Y., to Lindley, N.Y., near the Pennsylvania state line, should be completed by 2012. The 5.5-mile project costs $80 million.

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SIGNS OF TIMES: In front of the vacant Crown Mart gas station on Cayuga Street, Lewiston, “Regular Unleaded, $2.99.”

• The “Welcome to Niagara Falls” message on the billboard on Whirlpool Street, greeting people entering the U.S., bears the signature of (former) mayor Vincenzo Anello. (It’s obvious the white-out they used didn’t work.)

• A sign extending across the front of the building is for The Sunlight Chinese Restaurant (former site of the Harmony Lounge), 320 Niagara St. Although that Sunlight was never in business, the only sign in the window is still in place several years after the property was sold: “Yes, We’re Open!”

Contact reporter Don Glynn at 282-2311, ext. 2246.

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suggested head:

Skating rink to be built close to falls

or

Ice rink planned close to the falls