BUFFALO, NY - The biggest philanthropic gift in the City of Buffalo's history was granted recently by the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation on the late Bills' founder's 100th birthday.
"I have never ever lost my voice, Ralph did this to me. He is saying Mary, it speaks for itself, it doesn't need words" said Mary Wilson, Ralph's widow, at the announcement ceremony as she struggled through a case of laryngitis. The grant is $100 million to create a trail system and re-imagine the park.
Mayor Byron Brown announced, "The City of Buffalo will rename LaSalle Park as Ralph C Wilson Jr Centennial Park. "
And with that name, what's old is new again.
The City of Buffalo started acquiring the land for LaSalle Park in 1909, but it wasn't until 1932 that we actually had a park in place, when Buffalo was celebrating its centennial, and at that time it was called Centennial Park.
And that land, was not what you would consider parkland at the time.
In fact, Cynthia Van Ness of the Buffalo History Museum says its last use before the park was as a dump. "It wasn't an Olmstead Park, and when he was here designing Buffalo's park system, there were rail lines paralleling the water's edge where LaSalle Park is today, there were house lots, there was the Erie Canal, nearby industry and very small shanties that people lived in, probably under desperate circumstances."
What we do know is that the Erie canal, which ran alongside and was filled in, was replaced by I-190, and the park has had decades of dreams, plans and promises, but now with a huge grant, and a new name, Centennial Park will be pulled from the Unknown Stories of WNY and given a new future.