Any 'Bedford Falls' Types of Towns Left? (New York, Buffalo: real estate, new home)

[Pidgett]

I'm Informed and others:

I have learned that the mythical Bedford Falls is supposed to be based on Seneca Falls. Several here on this thread have referenced reliable sources to this fact. However, why do George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) and his future wife, played by Donna Reed, sing "BUFFALO Gals (Won't You Come Out Tonight?)" Just curious!!

[homeward bound]

Three pretty simple reasons:

1) It was a once very popular, still very familiar song, especially to older generations. I knew an elderly Virginia dairy farmer who'd never seen this movie who'd sing this song to his cows when he was letting them out of the milking barn. He'd heard it from his dad, and so on.

2) When they're singing it, Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are traipsing down the sidewalk in goofy clothes, feeling giddy after the falling-in-the-pool-at-the-party incident. They obviously feel like they're promenading under that night's bright full moon, so "As I was walking down the street," "won't you come out tonight/ and dance by the light of the moon," etc., comes to mind/makes sense to them.

3) Buffalo was still quite the powerhouse in those days--a relatively big, still-booming city. (The song itself, by the way, refers to not-exactly-honorable "dance-hall" women, during Buffalo's wild port city days when it had a pretty big red-light district.)

Don't mean to pontificate, but did want to answer your question.

[RET-FDNY]

[quote=Dedalus;360455

Eventually, the activists won. They got rid of the incinerator. Along with about 50 blue collar jobs. Yay, team.[/QUOTE]

The same thing happened in Hudson, NY. They have a cement plant that is a big employer of the local people (You know, the ones who stuck by the city during the good times and the bad times,the ones who volunteer as firefighters, EMT's, the ones who clean the streets and sit on committees etc...)

Now there is a "new" crowd there that has done a lot to spruce up the main street (but thats about it). They vehemently opposed an extension of the "icky" (pardon my wording) cement plant. I couldn't believe the signs that were hanging in people's doorways. There had everything from skeletons, to radioactive symbols. You would think the world was ending, and of course all of the "I hate President Bush" rhetoric that goes along with that crowd was hanging everywhere.

Well guess what..... the activists won and the locals got screwed. They should have hung signs that say "Oh, excuse me, but we are here now and we don't want you in our way".

Funny thing, the plant is pretty remote from the down town area. It has rail access and a deep water port. I suppose that would make a nice tax revenue generating kayak launch!

Please excuse my sarcasm

[Dedalus]

Originally Posted by RET-FDNY

The same thing happened in Hudson, NY. They have a cement plant that is a big employer of the local people (You know, the ones who stuck by the city during the good times and the bad times,the ones who volunteer as firefighters, EMT's, the ones who clean the streets and sit on committees etc...)

Now there is a "new" crowd there that has done a lot to spruce up the main street (but thats about it). They vehemently opposed an extension of the "icky" (pardon my wording) cement plant. I couldn't believe the signs that were hanging in people's doorways. There had everything from skeletons, to radioactive symbols. You would think the world was ending, and of course all of the "I hate President Bush" rhetoric that goes along with that crowd was hanging everywhere.

Well guess what..... the activists won and the locals got screwed. They should have hung signs that say "Oh, excuse me, but we are here now and we don't want you in our way".

Funny thing, the plant is pretty remote from the down town area. It has rail access and a deep water port. I suppose that would make a nice tax revenue generating kayak launch!

Please excuse my sarcasm

Yes, "activists."

I used to be in business for myself. I will be again, God willing. But what dealt the real death blow to my company was the city closing down my anchor "put bread on the table, pay the rent" client. They put about 50 other people out of work, too. Why'd they do it? Toxic hazards, of course. Now, the residents of the neighborhood will live long enough to die of cocaine induced cardiac arrest. What a victory for public health.

There was one guy who ran his own department, a real craftsman. The company went down, he lost his job, he started having hard luck. He started drinking, got a DWI, his marriage broke up. They ruined him.

For what?

[gandalf222]

FWIW you might want to consider Camillus NY. Small Village with rural areas to the west as you exit town and on the east some nice and reasonable priced homes. The West Genesee School District is rated as one of the best in the area. I grew up there so I may be a bit "subjective" but it was for me an excellent place to grow up in. The City of Syracuse is easily reached in minutes to provide all the advantages of a mid sized city with cultural as well as shopping variety and a nationally well know Syracuse University there as well. Worth looking into if I might sugguest. Camillus itself is a small village, a "one Main Street" village located in a valley.

[johnny99]

People who are apathetic to polluting industries scare me. I guess the families who were poisoned at Love Canal were just dope smoking activists. The incinerator ash is just plain dangerous and it's being dumped in Senaca Falls. If you have children I would think very hard before moving there. It's a shame the area children have to subjected to this danger. Below is some info on how toxic this ash is and what happened when some locals decided to test it on their own, "A national controversy about ash toxicity erupted in 1995 when then-EPA Administrator Carol Browner allowed incinerator operators to mix bottom ash and fly ash together prior to toxicity testing. Fly ash raises the pH of the ash, reducing the reliability of the tests. But citizens who gathered samples of ash from incinerators which had passed the EPA’s tests found very high levels of toxic metals. The ash from Ogden Martin’s 990 ton-per-day MSW incinerator.., which went on line in November 1994, was classified as non-hazardous after it passed the TCLP [toxicity characteristic leaching procedure] test. Citizens living close to the landfill, where the ash is used as a daily cover, surreptitiously retrieved some of this ash and asked N.Y. State Wildlife Pathologist, Ward Stone, to test the ash for heavy metals, because the landfill abuts the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge in Seneca County, NY. Stone analyzed the ash for total heavy metal content. The ash was found to contain hazardous levels of lead, cadmium and mercury." http://www.bredl.org/pdf/wastegasification.pdf
http://onondagapollution.com/

[Dedalus]

Originally Posted by johnny99

The ash from Ogden Martin’s 990 ton-per-day MSW incinerator.., which went on line in November 1994, was classified as non-hazardous after it passed the TCLP [toxicity characteristic leaching procedure] test. Citizens living close to the landfill, where the ash is used as a daily cover, surreptitiously retrieved some of this ash and asked N.Y. State Wildlife Pathologist, Ward Stone, to test the ash for heavy metals, because the landfill abuts the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge in Seneca County, NY. Stone analyzed the ash for total heavy metal content. The ash was found to contain hazardous levels of lead, cadmium and mercury." http://www.bredl.org/pdf/wastegasification.pdf
http://onondagapollution.com/

That's total metals. That's different. You do raise a valid point about the fly ash, but the effect that the pH has on the TCLP test should be minimal if the test is done properly. It frequently isn't.

The metals are not going to fly out of the ash by magic. If you fear for your children's health, by what mechanism are they getting into the children? If they're throwing up dust from it while they landfill it, that's a possibility.

How much safety do people want?

[chrislee1973]

Wow. I didn't mean for this to turn into a heated discussion. Just wanted to know if there were any type of towns like Bedford Falls left.

[gandalf222]

I'm still looking for the link that took it from Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart to a tour of toxic dumps.

[Dedalus]

Originally Posted by chrislee1973

Wow. I didn't mean for this to turn into a heated discussion. Just wanted to know if there were any type of towns like Bedford Falls left.

Sorry. I'm partly responsible.

Oh, it's Karolyn Grimes who played ZuZu.