Have the politics finally lined up for a (U.S.) Niagara Falls revival?

Sarah Laskow

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y.—Four decades ago, Niagara Falls, Ontario, decided to invest in tourism, and Niagara Falls, N.Y., with its powerful industries (hydropower, chemical production) scoffed.

Now, on the New York side of the Niagara River, the road to the Rainbow Bridge passes closed-down storefronts and the parking deck of the shuttered mall. There’s not much reason to stop here. The Seneca Niagara Casino, a glassy tower of blue and green, beckons 18-year-olds with a bleak message—you, too, can gamble! But the other Niagara Falls has a casino, too, and across the river, a Ferris wheel beckons.

Cross the bridge into Canada and turn toward the falls. On the right is Clifton Hill, where visiting children beg to be taken. With its Margaritaville, mini-golf and movie theaters, its arcade, haunted house and hot dogs, it looks like the loudest, best carnival you’ve ever been to, only brighter and better, as if it dropped straight of a Baz Luhrmann movie. Nothing on this side of the river feels quite real. The welcome center resembles a castle. The Niagara River’s turquoise water makes the falls themselves seem like a giant mini-golf-course water trap. Like any good water feature, they can be turned off in an emergency.

But during tourist season, which, according to a U.S.-Canada treaty, begins April 1, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., a minimum of 100,000 cubic feet of water plunge over the edge each second. And on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon, even in early April, hundreds of people—couples from Europe, families from South Asia, a wrestling team of young Canadian men—have come to the Canadian side of the river to peer over snow-covered banks into the chasm below.

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/06/8546232/have-politics-finally-lined-us-niagara-falls-revival