By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Planners hope Buffalo's waterfront soon will boast an historic canal site, a Bass Pro mega sports complex and a casino. But the Western New York Sustainable Energy Association wants to put a new spin on plans to energize the waterfront -- a solar carousel.
The century old carousel is one of the biggest and most magnificent ever created by the Herschell Carousel Factory in Tonawanda -- 60 feet wide, with more than 60 figures to take your breath away. Now, the museum and the association think it's time to dust it off, re-power it with solar technology, and make the carousel a center piece of Buffalo's new waterfront. Frank Fantauzzi is an associate architect with UB, who is helping design the project. He says the idea is to revisit Buffalo's once proud heritage as an energy innovator.
"In a way, it brings together two Buffalos -- the robust and prosperous Buffalo of the early 20th century and and the Buffalo that is now trying to reinvent itself," Fantauzzi said.
The plan calls for the carousel, which was donated by the museum, to be powered with solar panels. It would be housed inside a glass cylinder building somewhere on the waterfront as an attraction. A learning center would help educate the public about solar technology. And an adjacent playground would re-enforce those lessons for kids with more solar-powered fun.
"A child using a teeter-totter, for example, would see lights go on, making a direct connection in their minds between the movement of the teeter-totter and the lights going on," Fantauzzi said.
But organizers admit the project is missing one important element to really get it moving -- a location. Fantauzzi says they're asking the city to allow a virtually free, long term, lease on some of the most hotly competed for prime waterfront property.
He says, ideally, they'd like the carousel located near the mouth of the inner harbor, close to other planned waterfront attractions.