BUFFALO, N.Y. — 10 Years ago this week in 2013:
Luna the polar bear was but a wee cub, making her initial appearance to an adoring public at the Buffalo Zoo, while ground was being broken on LECOM Harborcenter downtown as the first of the above ground boarding platforms for the Metro Rail was being removed in an initial step toward returning cars to Main Street.
Meanwhile, Buffalo's tallest building, the HSBC Tower, with the successive loss of its three largest tenants, was suddenly 90 percent vacant.
Several years later the building was purchased by developer Douglas Jemal who renamed it Seneca One and created a mixed use development of businesses and residences.
20 years ago this week in 2003:
Gas in Western New York was selling for $1.58 per gallon, and though it paled in comparison to the one in New Orleans, back then Buffalo used to actually hold a Mardi Gras parade.
After 32 months without one, a deal was reached between the city and its police department on a new labor contract. One of the biggest changes was the elimination of a requirement that two officers be assigned to every patrol car.
Online bookmakers were taking bets on when the US would attack Iraq, which some found to be "tacky."
You could still fly on the Concorde but for not much longer, as soon both British Airways and Air France would announce they would ground their fleet of supersonic passenger jets.
The re-booted version of Let's Make a Deal launched in prime time but was cancelled after just three episodes due to dismal ratings.
Fred Rogers, the creator and host of the longtime Program Mr. Roger's Neighborhood died at age 74.
30 Years ago this week in 1993:
Polish-American medical researcher Albert Sabin died at age 86. Sabin is the subject of this week's News 2 You Pop Quiz, regarding what his major contribution to 20th century medicine was. (The answer is at the end of the video above).
Meanwhile, two major national stories broke that week, and neither of them were good news.
The first was in New York City where terrorists identified by the FBI as Islamic extremists conducted the first attack on the World Trade Center, by setting off a truck bomb in a basement parking garage killing six people and injuring over one thousand more. The attack came more than 8 years prior to when another group of Islamic extremists used planes to bring the twin towers down completely, killing thousands of people on September 11, 2001.
Later that same week four ATF agents were killed when attempting to execute a warrant at a religious cult's compound in Waco, Texas.
Suddenly the names David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, heretofore unheard of by most, were thrust into the American lexicon over the course of a siege which would end in hellfire some 51 days after it began this week in 1993... when this was all News 2 You.
