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National
Buffalo Art Voice: Greed of the Seneca Nation


"Barry Snyder and his Seneca gambling operation made two huge PR moves in Buffalo last week, both of them designed to shore up the Seneca Gaming Corporation�s claim that a Buffalo casino is a done deal and that all opposition is, therefore, pointless.

One of the moves, aided and abetted by Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, was based on in-your-face bullying; the other, aided and abetted by the Buffalo News, on not-very-subtle extortion.

Drive south out of downtown Buffalo along the I-190. Near the Louisiana Street exit, you will see on the right the mutilated cadaver of the H-O Oats grain elevator, which is being knocked down by a huge wrecking crane wielding a 1,500-pound, U-shaped chunk of cast iron.

If you are driving northward along that same section of I-190, all you will see right now is the elevator with its familiar block letters saying �H-O OAT��the silo with the final �S� is gone�and the tall crane rising above and beyond it. That is because all the destroyed silos are on the north side of the elevator. In a week or so, the letters you see from the northbound lanes of the I-190 will be gone and everyone will be able to see wrecked silos from either direction, and a few weeks further on you�ll see nothing at all, unless the Senecas decide for some reason to abandon the destruction project.

Only a few workers are on the site. A medium-sized bulldozer moves rubble near where Fulton Street reaches the Michigan Avenue side. A Seneca police car sits just inside where Fulton Street is blocked off on the Marvin Street side. Every time I�ve gone there there have been more signs saying NO TRESPASSING PROPERTY OF THE SENECA NATION OF INDIANS VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED"

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Greed (The Buffalo Art Voice 6/8)