"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)