Comments made in October of 2016 upon receiving the Bruce Kershner Conservation Award from the Sierra Club, Niagara Group "for his work on the restoration of the magnificent Niagara Gorge and the removal of the Robert Moses Parkway."
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Hello Folks~
In 2004, at an awards event sponsored by Friends of the Buffalo Niagara Rivers, I was presented with an unexpected gift, encased in a shoe-box covered with multi-colored tinfoil. Inside were two chunks of the Robert Moses Parkway. These chunks might have been pried from the edge of a pothole, and were given in good humor. Hopes were high. The box now rests on a shelf in my home, where I walk past it twice a day.
Five years before that,The Niagara Heritage Partnership had proposed the total removal of the Niagara gorge parkway--and The Sierra Club, Niagara Group, with an eloquent resolution, was the first organization to sign on in support. The organizational list would grow to over 100. Bruce Kershner was one of the early signers of the petition for total removal that 4000+ individuals would sign in the years that followed.
Bruce was a friend, but that didn't make me unusual, because he had many friends. I tagged along with others on a half dozen or so field trips on the Frontier to hear Bruce lecture on the old trees of our region--and we were good enough friends that one day he and I hiked the gorge rim, from the Geological Museum to the escarpment. Bruce pointed out the locations of old-growth cedars, hundreds of years old, whose vitality he believed would be enhanced, protected, by parkway removal and the natural restoration of the rim.
And we flash forward to this evening: Bruce is no longer with us. The parkway miles that will remain will be carrying traffic adjacent to the locations of those old-growth cedars--and awards are being given in his name for the parkway section that will actually be removed. I wonder what Bruce would have said about all of that. At the very least, he might have noted the ironic character of events as they have turned out.
So I accept with gratitude this participation recognition on behalf of the Niagara Heritage Partnership, for whom I acted as the primary spokesperson, though we lost in our quest for total removal. This recognition footnotes our place in the history of this effort, my friendship with Bruce Kershner forever, and will be a part of the record from now on, waiting for perhaps another half century to be discovered by some enthusiastic person writing a dissertation that will document how such decisions are made, how the vision of the Partnership was bypassed--and all of this in a new age when hope might spring renewed for the remainder of parkway removal and the natural restoration that will finish the job.
Thank you,
Bob Baxter
15 October 2016
www.niagaraheritage.org
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hello Folks~
In 2004, at an awards event sponsored by Friends of the Buffalo Niagara Rivers, I was presented with an unexpected gift, encased in a shoe-box covered with multi-colored tinfoil. Inside were two chunks of the Robert Moses Parkway. These chunks might have been pried from the edge of a pothole, and were given in good humor. Hopes were high. The box now rests on a shelf in my home, where I walk past it twice a day.
Five years before that,The Niagara Heritage Partnership had proposed the total removal of the Niagara gorge parkway--and The Sierra Club, Niagara Group, with an eloquent resolution, was the first organization to sign on in support. The organizational list would grow to over 100. Bruce Kershner was one of the early signers of the petition for total removal that 4000+ individuals would sign in the years that followed.
Bruce was a friend, but that didn't make me unusual, because he had many friends. I tagged along with others on a half dozen or so field trips on the Frontier to hear Bruce lecture on the old trees of our region--and we were good enough friends that one day he and I hiked the gorge rim, from the Geological Museum to the escarpment. Bruce pointed out the locations of old-growth cedars, hundreds of years old, whose vitality he believed would be enhanced, protected, by parkway removal and the natural restoration of the rim.
And we flash forward to this evening: Bruce is no longer with us. The parkway miles that will remain will be carrying traffic adjacent to the locations of those old-growth cedars--and awards are being given in his name for the parkway section that will actually be removed. I wonder what Bruce would have said about all of that. At the very least, he might have noted the ironic character of events as they have turned out.
So I accept with gratitude this participation recognition on behalf of the Niagara Heritage Partnership, for whom I acted as the primary spokesperson, though we lost in our quest for total removal. This recognition footnotes our place in the history of this effort, my friendship with Bruce Kershner forever, and will be a part of the record from now on, waiting for perhaps another half century to be discovered by some enthusiastic person writing a dissertation that will document how such decisions are made, how the vision of the Partnership was bypassed--and all of this in a new age when hope might spring renewed for the remainder of parkway removal and the natural restoration that will finish the job.
Thank you,
Bob Baxter
15 October 2016
www.niagaraheritage.org
