Black Rock Passage

The summer of 2006 I came off of Grand Island in the Niagara River and traveled up the riverfront on Interstate 190. I saw the name Black Rock a few times and I noted a canal lock and a railroad bridge across the river – thus into and out of, Canada. These observations kindled some long dormant memories.

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On Sunday, 7^th of December 1941, we were on Grand Island; Mother had gotten out of the car to ring a friend’s doorbell; Dad turned on the radio; we learned of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Sixty-five years later that memory was vivid – nothing else about the day or the trip is remembered, just the radio frenzy and Dad’s very concerned reaction, which included, I learned a few years later, the draft.

Grand Island is the big Island in the river; Niagara Falls is just beyond, down river, to the left, where the river turns right; I-190 comes across the middle of Grand Island then up the east (right) bank of the river; Lake Erie is at the bottom; Lake Ontario at the top, Ontario, Canada to the left, New York, U.S.A. to the right.

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In 2006, as I drove up I-190 in a rented RV with a lot of baggage including one sick kid, those other observations brought out some other recollections.

Let it be known, I am a nostalgia freak. I think the emotion is healthy, even fun, even occasionally through the tears, and satisfies some real needs. I thrive on sentiment, and offer no apology for it. Many consider such expressions to reveal weakness; I disagree. I don’t let it consume me, although I will often devote considerable time and effort in indulging it.

So, the recollections and sentiments that I’ve indulged and researched since the summer of 2006 are given some expression here.

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"Well! We're in the United States."

I knew Mom was excited; I was. I was age seven. My ten month old brother wasn't excited. It was mid-October 1940.

I don't remember crossing the bridge, but the train had stopped. A uniformed immigration or customs officer went through and checked papers; I don't remember him checking ours, just seeing him; his black tie was loosened, his collar unbuttoned, his white shirt was wrinkled, his black suit with just a little darkened gold braid was baggy and rumpled. He seemed a little bored, a little resigned to the task, but basically of good humor. He checked everybody – documents, papers, identification – but it was friendly and relaxed. He challenged no one in our car.

It was dusk or just dark. I do remember seeing, out to the left, a small, two-story building, soot-grimed brick, with a big sign all the way across the front of it: BLACK ROCK. I've presumed all these years that it was an interlocking tower, a rail yard control center.

Black Rock, N.Y. showed up years later on my citizenship papers as my port of entry.

Black Rock is a neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. There was a day when Black Rock and Buffalo were neighboring villages at the east end of Lake Erie and the beginning of the Niagara River. In the 1820s they became intense rivals to be the terminus/beginning of the Erie Canal which was being built across New York State to connect the ocean-accessible Hudson River at Albany with the Great Lakes at the Lake Erie level, bypassing the Niagara escarpment and cataract.

Buffalo won.

Buffalo…, and Black Rock, became a massive rail hub through the late 1800s and the first third of the Twentieth Century, even up to the 1950s. As such, it has largely dwindled away by now.

But we traveled from Toronto – or Weston – Ontario to Rochester, New York, by rail that day in October 1940. We didn’t change our seat or our car to do it, either. We were comfortable; I suspect I slept through much of the eighty mile run from Black Rock to Rochester.

I don’t remember from that night but from many later visits in the next ten years, that the Rochester New York Central station, often referred to as the Bragdon station for its architect, was a beautiful structure. It was big, grand, elegant…, it was Big Rail. I can remember going down there to meet people coming in and seeing how close to the edge of the platform I dared stand as the big steamers came in, puffing and hissing until the final application of the brakes, sometimes a piercing squeal and then things seemed to settle down with the behemoth. But the people involved got very busy, assisting passengers down, running to meet friends, unloading and loading baggage, etc.

I don’t recall ever being able to stand as close throughout as I had started out; something always made me edge, or flat leap, back before it fully stopped. Really, the wheels were much taller than I was!

The Bragdon Terminal was more or less abandoned as a rail terminal and, when no other use could be found for it, in the early or mid-50s it was razed and replaced with parking lots.

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After many months of intermittently Googling, corresponding, and otherwise prying about I decided I’d explore the Black Rock area a bit myself, this past summer. I was traveling alone, and had spent much of the day in the Rochester Public Library.

I drove out of Rochester on State Highway 33, Buffalo Road. I am satisfied that I identified the approximate location of the Empire State Diner, where I was introduced to fried scallops, and where we would time our visits so we could look out the front, across the road, down(hill) across a farmers field and watch the NYC Empire State go by. It was between North Chili and Churchville; I couldn’t identify the exact spot, no foundation or parking area were apparent. Then I got out on the NYS Thruway to run into Buffalo.

My objective in Buffalo/Black Rock was to see if I could identify the building in the rail yards with the big BLACK ROCK sign across it. A correspondent in Black Rock/Riverside had suggested it might be the Grand Trunk/Wabash freight office building, the first building encountered by trains coming off the International Bridge…, on the left.

It was easily identified with the assist of Mapquest and Google Maps, but all I could find were those satellite pictures of the roof and, elsewhere, one forlorn picture of the southwest end of the building with the ivy growing all over it. It’s a fairly large building, two stories, old, dark red brick, etc. Interestingly, Mapquest shows the building sitting there with no outbuildings; Google shows it with two smaller buildings at the northeast end. The closer one (to the main building) is seen as a bright white rectangle, the other as a conventional peaked roof, tan colored (below). Only after being there and Googling further could I go back and recognize the detector array tower across the tracks both in the satellite pics and in a couple of the pictures I took. More on this to follow.

Click on all the pictures for enlargement.

After getting off of I-190 southbound somewhere north of Hertel Avenue I made my way south on Niagara Street and turned left on Bridge Street, next street after Amherst, a short block and a right on Dearborn, a very short block and a right on the dead end, Parish Street.

There she sat on the left, facing on to the tracks, the old Grand Trunk/Wabash freight shed, just as I had visualized. I didn’t have any pictures from that angle but it was clear. I hardly noticed the small tan frame building and the little, white, metal, pre-built to the left except that the manufactured building had a high chain link fence with barbed wire at the top around it. If they were really serious about security they would use razor wire. There were two or three cars parked behind these buildings and none across the street in the marked parking area.

I was just about out of the car with camera when a guy and a gal, both in ninja gear suits sans hat, and packing big iron came charging out, of the white building I think, and, as I rose wobbly to my feet, confronted me with something like, “What are you doing here?” Not really hostile, even a little courteous, but something short of: “Hi, I’m Sam, this is Betty, with whom do we have the pleasure…?”

A little nonplussed I spluttered something about wanting to take some pictures of the old Grand Trunk freight shed because I had come across that bridge sixty-seven years ago and I was trying….

“Well, you can’t take any pictures here!” He went on to explain that this was a border crossing check point and they didn’t need any compromise of their operation there, what with the terror threat and all. No pictures! The lady “agent” seemed to have some compassion for the old white-beard pleading to indulge some nostalgia. She implicitly shrugged her shoulders, turned and went back inside.

Visualize: there are no signs of identification or restriction about, there is no fencing except the perimeter fence about four feet from and wrapped tightly about the little white building – with no windows on three sides and just the one door. Just two or three civilian appearing automobiles and the one high barbed-wire topped fence. I had already decided not to climb that.

I spluttered a few more lame pleas and he said, nothing doing, go across the highways and the canal to Squaw Island and take some pictures of the bridge. And besides, that old building is abandoned, all locked up.

(In retrospect I knew it was used by the Customs. A web site listing old train stations in New York State provided the following description: 1765 Niagara St. Black Rock section of Buffalo. Used by Erie, GT, MC, NYC&HR and Wabash, currently Canadian National. Now used by US Customs. Most recent update: 1/24/2006.)

He turned and went inside, leaving me standing next to my immediately-to-be-moved automobile. I got in, backed across the little street, into the parking area on the other side and up toward the end of the dead end. I stepped out of the car and took three pictures of the building, including one that showed the four foot ceiling fluorescent lights in two rooms on the second floor. Afraid I might get nabbed for disobedience I got back in the car.

I rolled up to the other end of Parish St where it turns into East St. I stepped out and took a couple more pictures. These show the little buildings very clearly.

Right away I was a little sorry I hadn’t aggravated them enough to be apprehended. I fantasized making my one call to a newspaper news room to arrange a press conference. On the other hand I might have been designated an enemy terrorist suspect…! Chuck who…? Telephone call…?

The Grand Trunk freight shed and the two little buildings are toward the upper right corner; then the swing bridge over I-190 and the Black Rock Canal; then the parking strip where the BP SUV was parked; Squaw Island; Niagara River to the left.

Well, I went across the interstate highway and the canal on a big swing bridge that I had to wait for, and drove around Squaw Island and took a bunch of pictures. When I first got over there was a Border Patrol SUV sitting where he could see the bridge across the river. I wondered if there was someone there all day, every day; I did observe him later make the 3½ minute tour of Squaw Island every once in a while.

That's the Border Patrol SUV pulling out after I spoke with the Agent. We can see right down the long bridge to the Canadian side. Below: the bridge from the north side.

I pulled up beside the SUV and I told him of my being rebuffed over at the Grand Trunk freight shed; I importuned him with my background story and my plea that I just wanted some pictures to reconstruct that trip so many years ago. He was a young, pleasant appearing fellow but cut me short with an almost plaintive protest that he didn’t really, “want to hear all that.” Those were his exact words. He watched me pretty close on his little tours about the island park.

It was fun to watch the rapidly flowing large volume of water rushing to tumble over the cut-back in the great Niagara Escarpment a few miles down-river from where I stood. There was lots of small-boat traffic rushing here and about and I wondered idly if the CBP or the Coast Guard were able to keep track of those comings and goings to prevent somebody leaving the Canadian bank and, after running up and down, coming in to the U.S. bank with a load of crack or an illegal immigrant or a nuclear device or dirty bomb….

On my way back but still on the island I noticed that I could get positioned to take some pretty good oblique shots across the front of the freight shed, that outlined the little new buildings and the detector array tower fairly well. They have come out quite well.

It didn’t take very much Googling after I got home to find out, at least in part, what the operation in Black Rock is. The Customs and Border Protection Service (CBS) has positioned vehicle and cargo inspection systems for rail at 23 sites around the U.S., ten on the northern border and thirteen on the southern border.

These function by exposing the transiting rail car to a point source of gamma radiation from either 2.0 curies of Cesium-137 or 1.0 curie of Cobalt-60 which is read out on detectors arrayed on a tower across the track from the source. It’s all described in great detail in an 88 page U.S. Customs and Border Protection booklet titled Programmatic Environmental Assessment for Gamma Imaging Inspection Systems (GIIS). The system is called VACIS^® which translates to Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System.

The system installed at the old freight shed in Black Rock works pretty well judging by an article found in the press releases of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency. A 39 year-old El Salvadoran, who had been deported in 2003, was detected last July in a hopper car by the GIIS.

A picture in the CBP booklet, page 26, was my guide to identifying the same structures in my pictures of the old freight shed and the Google satellite views. The booklet is full of explanations and descriptions with photographs and diagrams of the several versions and types of installations for this very sophisticated and, I’m sure, expensive equipment.

The Detector Array Tower is the tower just above the point of the arrow. It is directly across from the tan shed which is hidden by the high fence. So, the shed is probably the control for the VACIS^® system. So far, nothing secret or highly sensitive.

Now, the white shed is another consideration. None of the illustrations in the GIIS booklet showed barb wire, nor did they show two little buildings. It may have some super-secret, highly sensitive, border control devices, systems, plans, programs; it may be an armory; it may be a lounge! I don’t know, and I don’t need to know, but I can’t help being a bit curious.

It’s reassuring to know that our borders are thus sealed up keeping us safe. But it has to be a tad expensive. Those Cesium-137/Cobalt-60 rigs have to cost more than a barn full of Rolls Royces, each. And I expect the agents are there three strong, 24/7, or more. Well, they did catch that repeat offender back in July.

With all these distractions I didn’t figure out that I could have got a good, full face photograph of the freight shed, with or without the sensitive little buildings, by going south a block and pulling in to a back street and driving right up to the other side of the tracks. Now that ninja fellow, or the nice lady, might be a real sharp-shooter but usually a 9mm or .45 semi-auto hand weapon isn’t all that accurate at that distance. I could have squeezed off an exposure or two before I would have had to beat my retreat.

Hey, it just occurred to me. If any of those nice guys (gender neutral) working there read this and is so disposed to do me a really big favor, he (gender neutral – traditional) could just step across those tracks and take a nice frontal view of ye olde freight shed it would be most appreciated. It would be best done in the forenoon to catch the sun in its face. The picture(s) can be sent to me via the link offered at the end of this article.

If it would be more circumspect to drive around one would simply get out and turn left on Niagara Street, go south under the rail bridge, turn left on Wayne Street then left on Dearborn, go to the end then drive or walk, curving left until in a good position to take the picture(s). I don’t care about the little buildings…, particularly.

I don’t think the freight shed was the building I saw that October night 67 years ago. It doesn’t look at all like my recollection. The only interlocking tower in the area was about a mile northward (left) up the tracks, Tower H. It was torn down in 1998. My correspondent in the area doesn’t think Tower H is likely what I recall because my train would more likely have turned right off the bridge in order to get to Buffalo’s main station downtown. But the mainline to Rochester could be reached either way because of big circle trackage around Buffalo. Also, there was an Immigration office just a few blocks from Tower H back in those days. Maybe my train didn’t have to go to Buffalo’s main station.

I haven’t been able to find a picture of Tower H. Railfan enthusiasts are far more interested in rolling stock than in infrastructure. If anyone out there knows where I could find a picture of New York Central’s Tower H in the Black Rock multi-line yards, please send me a link.

Well, I learned first hand about an interesting part of our geography, history, transportation and enforcement of federal rules and laws through my Googling and my visit to the eastern end of the International Rail Bridge across the south end of the Niagara river, just 80 miles from my home for ten of my youthful years. I didn’t satisfy myself as to the identity of the building I saw that night in October 1940.