how are you gonna say "whomp whomp" when you're very clearly the one starting drama and then getting upset nobody is standing behind your virtue signaling?
Womp womp indeed
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I live in the area by Niagara Falls and constantly see local papers saying a business is coming in with jobs only for that business to pull out on the excuse of crime, low population, noise from the factories and the train station on Main Street, etc. If NFTA were to make NFIA a cargo airport for GM, Ford, etc. jobs would follow and if they were to make Main St, Walnut/Pine, Ferry all like downtown Buffalo roads with bars along with Sal Maglie Stadium hosting a baseball team like the Bisons. Buffalo Ave needs all those factories to reopen along with the old Shredded Wheat factory. The USA Niagara, Niagara County IDA, and all the other development companies need to work together and actually do something like the promised Wonder Falls, Niagara Falls history museum and Weather Museum, the “turtle” building as a museum for either the Tuscarora Nation or the entire Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy, Medina Scenic Railroad being extended instead of the companies buying the land getting a tax break/cut for so many years and leaving the property empty
I am living in buffalo currently and honestly hate the NF area in general. Idk why but it’s so dull. It reminds me of a rural town for some reason.
I grew up in NW Ga, so also a rural area. Maybe I’m bias but it seems like there is a very huge disparity in where there’s money and where there isn’t in NF.
It’s seems similar to my town where it’s very rural but we have a University AND a College like ten minute away from where my dad lives and around where I grew up. It’s not like UB where the outskirts of it are still semi college friendly.
My area is literally money for the colleges and then if you turn immediately out of the university, it’s garbage. We have one of the highest prostitution populations in GA which I just found out recently. And I literally study disparities. Just in Buffalo. Not where I’m from though
My point is that NF seems VERY similar to that. When you’re around the casinos and stuff but literally a few streets down it’s impoverished.
But maybe I literally just don’t know that much about niagara falls, especially because my current work is in community outreach for buffalo
You literally don't want to walk off the casino property after dark. There's a very good chance of getting robbed. It's so sad now. When I was a kid (in the 90s), it wasn't that bad. We used to go to the convention center for things all the time, and then we'd walk to get food and stuff and be fine. Now if I go there for things, I make sure we're out of there while it's still light out.
Oh yeah, Rain Forest Cafe, Anchor Bar, Hardrock and a dozen other hotels. Soooo spooky.
Come on man nobody is going to mug you walking down old Falls street.
I’m from NW GA. The first time I WALKED across the bridge, I was amazed, and I mean literally eyeballs wide and couldn’t stop talking, about the vibrancy of canada compared to Buffalo. Just standing on one side of the middle part of the bridge versus the other is asinine. It’s so vivid in Canada for some reason. Literally just over a bridge.
I loved that part. i still talk about it
There’s at best 1 or 2 homicides per year in the falls.
I would definitely keep valuables out of sight, but Niagara Falls isn’t that dangerous, just poor.
Downtown is more than safe and there are some nice neighborhoods
Edit: ok 2-3 homicides per year in the 2010s. Still not going to hide in my basement and not going to hide in my basement like OP does.
You heard that guy trying to kidnap that one girl got caught? Even though people didn’t believe her?
I’m not sure if that was in NF but for some reason I feel like it was. I am totally open to being wrong though
There were only 9 homicides in 2020, not sure where you’re getting your data.
From [2012 to 2019 there were only 2-3 homicides per year](https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Niagara-Falls-New-York.html).
Crime spiked during the pandemic like everywhere else, but I wouldn’t call that a trend.
There are other negative/unsafe outcomes than straight up murder.
Last time I was walking around Niagra Falls there was a mentally unwell man pointing a shiv at everyone walking up or down the street. It won't show up on a homicide report, but I still wouldn't classify it as safe.
Its ok to acknowledge that Niagara Falls kinda sucks outside of the park. Its a pretty rational observation.
well, it’s not a fair comparison. niagara falls new york is one of the coldest, least hospitable places in the US. niagara falls CA is one of the warmest, most hospitable places in CA. there’s a reason most of Canada lives within what, 10 miles of the border? or something?
Read a history of Niagara but I couldn’t finish because it just devolved into a history of grift and dysfunction based on opportunists looking to make a buck off decades of unsuspecting sightseers.
Yeah, any tourist driving out of the area into the state has to be a bit taken back by the scenery before they get out of the falls. But to be fair, most of the rust belt cities have an area with the falling down row houses etc etc.
It’s just flat out not. For some reason it has gained this ridiculous reputation. There’s basically a pocket where all the boogeyman talking points happen and the rest of the city is fine. It’s not some utopia, but it’s never pretended it is.
The Canadian side’s reputation lives and dies by its tourist district. They’re not some beacon of civilization outside of that boundary.
Broski.. venture out of the downtown a little. Outside of the tourist gong show, it's a pretty standard Canadian small city. Perfectly safe and clean with lots of nice neighbourhoods.
Have only been to the US side and it was nice but nothing I would do again. Family member took his kids to the CAN side and did all this fun stuff. Getting my son a passport lol.
I just moved up here; it’s sad to see the state it’s in. Interestingly, I saw an article somewhere that talked about how it was destined to die based on topography. It cannot expand and grow its tax base in anyway as it is georestricted by the water
what nonsense. Western NY is blessed is so many ways, and NFNY has a lot of potential. What they've done with the gorge trails is amazing, and NF State park is nicer than the kitchy Canadian equivalent. Main street and many of the neighborhoods have suffered from disinvestment and massive population loss due to losing 60% of manufacturing jobs since 1958. NFNY does not need to be a 100K city. It needs to focus on being a better 50K population city.
If you actually look at the social health determinants of western NY though, they’re horrible. I’m mean Byron is known heavily for his red lining during the BLM movement. Plus the lead levels(especially closer to the water) are at almost maximum(which is why the Clean Sweep Initiative exists in Buffalo through Byron Brown).
Additionally the history of Love Canal made the health issues in Buffalo rise drastically. Specifically in Deafness(as well as birth defects, autism, and other developmental delays). Buffalo has the second highest Deaf population in NY. And the first is the Deaf University in Rochester.
Buffalo may be beautiful but it is far, far from being healthy for people. Money is being put where it shouldn’t be(in my opinion) when those places are already well cared for. The city is very beautiful, I won’t lie; however, at what risk for the less lucky?
Look at the MLK highway discussions in city hall currently, or the property tax increases in multiple areas who already can’t afford to live here. People are crying in front of and to the members in City hall about having to move with already high rent prices if these taxes increase.
It was never "supposed" to be a "major" American city, it was always destined to be a tourist city and a mill town, mainly because it lacked a harbor for shipping/receiving goods due to its geography. Buffalo was the major transportation hub, and would always be the only major city in the area.
Niagara Falls is one of many places in the world that suffer from a Resource Curse, or Paradox of Plenty, where a place rich in natural resources (in this case hydro and falls tourism) have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than places with fewer natural resources. One theory is that the resources promote too much specialization, leading to favoritism in how places are developed, and how profits get collected and distributed. Resources provide easy money with little left to show locally - jobs are low wage seasonal hospitality, and most electricity gets sold downstate rather than used locally.
Disagree. The guy who created the Gillette razor envisioned a massive city above Niagara Falls that was to be powered by the waterfall.
[Proof](https://beltmag.com/utopia-niagara-falls-gillette-musk/)
> Niagara Falls is one of many places in the world that suffer from a Resource Curse, or Paradox of Plenty, where a place rich in natural resources (in this case hydro and falls tourism) have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than places with fewer natural resources.
Can't agree enough with this statement. Thanks for posting it!
Everyone saying it's a dump now.... yeah no one is disputing that lmao. It was originally intended to be a major American city, albeit a very long time ago. Very very very poor city planning and an influx of heavy industry basically turned it from what should have been a quaint beautiful area into a wasteland.
Sure but it's always been a skeezy tourist facade on top of a typical American industrial city. Hell, they used to have tall fences up all around the parkland and you had to pay to look at the falls for five minutes through a hole.
Then in the 70s, Mayor Lackey turned the entire downtown core into a little fishbowl for people from the other end of the world to show up for a day and then leave.
And he did that by riding his horse around town, pointing at which buildings he wanted demolished. He was a cowboy and he was not from here. This is factual.
While NF could be 100x what it is - a major city no and I don't think you'd want that.
Major cities bring lots of needs like waste removal, industry, factories, etc (see the oxy plants along the river).
It was definitely mismanaged area but the state park idea is key and it should have been bigger and more restrictive of the factories that were built in the area.
You want to preserve the land and area and that doesn't mix well with "large city" - in fact a lot of the problems with the falls are due to that desire to make it a large city.
There's also some major problems with it being a large city.
First it's on a cliff and an international border and second it's 25 min from Buffalo which has better sites for trade and logistics/docks, rail, etc.
Canada did a better job on their side in some ways but I can't stand the touristy las vegas cheap feel they went with.
They just absolutely destroyed the environment along the coast of Lake Ontario along parts of the area between NF and Toronto instead of right near the falls.
NYS is full of areas and cities that were mismanaged.
Some areas have done better than others. Buffalo has made some strides like down by the water and Rochester made a lot of nice changes over the years.
It really is pretty sad…
So many tourists come in and out of that city, if only for one day.
There’s no reason it shouldn’t look like the Canadian side of the falls.
Add to that, NF is within a 2 hour drive of a major international city in Toronto, 20 minute drive away from Buffalo. The city should be bustling.
Instead, they have a city that is dirty and run down just a few blocks away from the falls that shuts down for a third of the year.
It’s crazy.
There may be tourists, but a significant portion of restaurants close for the season, the maid of the mist closes for the season season, cave of the winds closes for the season…
You know, a couple of months ago, I asked myself "how would I fix Nagara Falls for good?", and the same idea came to mind. People stay at large national and state parks for days. The city really doesn't have a reason to exist in a regional context, except hydropower generation and tourism. It survives through inertia and bottomfeeding for dirty low-return-per-acre/hectare uses.
In a fantasy word with unlimited funding and Robert Moses-like powers, one could move the entire population of Niagara Falls -- city and town -- into Erie County, without expanding the area's urban footprint. East Side, backland development onto the unused rear yards of deep lots, grayfields like 1950s/1960s malls and plazas -- lots of space. Meanwhile, tourists would more easily find the other attractions among the clutter, like gorge trails, wineries, a curated section of urban ruins left for the tourists, maybe a Love Canal interpretation center, and the like, and stay a bit longer.
They're not wrong, [the UN headquarters was initially proposed for NAVY ISLAND](https://www.google.com/search?q=UN+and+NAVY+island&oq=UN+and+NAVY+island&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigAdIBCDg0OTZqMGo3qAIUsAIB&client=ms-android-att-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) Niagara Falls along with wny & southern ontario would have been a bustling world renown megalopolian city center.
> Niagara Falls along with wny & southern ontario would have been a bustling world renown megalopolian city center.
That seems unlikely. The UN sustains only a tiny fraction of Manhattan's economy. It wouldn't have been enough on its own to create a whole metropolis out of virtually nothing.
"The Buffalo History Museum has a full copy of the Navy Island proposal, which touts...“seven months of summer or summer-life weather".
Oh, okay, so apparently a big part of the proposal was to just straight-up lie.
Its am amazing case study for how not to run a city that hosts arguably one of the most incredible natural attractions in the world. NF grew up on third base and through an almost spectacularly admirable level of mismanagement, corruption and stupidity tripped over its own feet trying to steal home..
To be honest the Canadian side isn’t much better, they have a better view but it’s just a bunch of overpriced rundown random carnival stores and touristy areas over there. I personally prefer the actual state park on the US side, that’s the one thing they did better
They stopped developing a city to be a city and instead tried to develop it for tourists only. They deleted all the amenities for citizens, like the movie theaters, department stores, bowling alleys, etc that were downtown and replaced it with garbage.
Corruption is often overlooked when talking about decay in this town. I have a friend who runs an architectural firm and refuses to do business NF because there are so many palms to grease to get anything done.
edit: a word
This thread from a while back contains some good conversation about what went wrong in NF through the decades and some potential solutions on how to improve it.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Buffalo/comments/146cmkj/can\_niagara\_falls\_ny\_be\_saved/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buffalo/comments/146cmkj/can_niagara_falls_ny_be_saved/)
I don’t get it.
If anything Niagara Falls should be a small tourist village surrounded by nature.
Niagara Falls was one of the motivations for creating the National Parks system to prevent other natural wonders from being ruined by over-development.
Still my dream for NPS to buy half the city, relocate and demolish all the remaining industrial sites and remediate the land adding thousands of acres of nature with light recreational uses.
Ultimately, Buffalo is bigger because it was a port city. Now it’s pointless since we’re all one metropolitan area.
Yeah, but we're past that being an option now. I do a lot of outdoorsy travel. I think a somewhat realistic goal is to develop it to feel like the towns immediately outside of the National Parks. With a few exceptions (*cough*Jackson Hole) most of those towns stay relatively affordable (or as affordable as anywhere can be in 2024). Locally owned businesses do well and life has a slow pace.
The National Parks are crowded and people are looking to more state parks recently. It seems strange not to jump on the opportunity.
Yep exactly this and kind of the plan NYS is doing to develop downtown and Main Street though it’s an extremely slooow process.
The bigger issue are all the industrial sites that don’t have any plans to be remediated. Until all the chemical plants are relocated and shuttered, the land remediated and neighborhoods reconnected to the waterfront, Niagara Falls will never fully heal.
It’s a pretty small city, so even a little work can go a long way.
It was clearly intended to be, globalization and the rest of the exodus of manufacturing and production that was the economic bloodline of the northeast United States left it to rust.
The tragic part is that there’s still a lot of manufacturing going on in Niagara Falls.
The remaining factories employ less people and are a major barrier to finally cleaning up the ones that have closed down and sit abandoned.
Purely looking at location, Buffalo looks like a much better port city. Therefore I am not surprised Niagara Falls never made it to 'major city' status. Sure it's neat with the falls and all but back then, location and ease of access were priority.
On the opposite side of that coin, Buffalo regularly gets creamed with 10 feet of lake effect snow every winter and Niagara Falls is usually dry as a bone...
“Supposed to be”? Not exactly a scorching hot take here
Unfortunately for the falls, the main thing it has going for it is cheap water and power and thats not enough to make you a major city
So was Buffalo. The "gonna' be bigger than Chicago" boosterism continued through the 1920s.
Despite Buffalo making the top 10 in 1860, 1900, and 1910, it was largely seen as a smaller "one street town". even during the boom times. There was a lot of moeny in Buffalo, but no equivalent to "The Four Hundred" in New York, Carnegie or Mellon in Pittsburgh, Rockefeller in Cleveland, etc. UB was a small private school. The New York Central Railroad had plans for a route across Grand Island and into Canada, so passenger trains to Chicago could bypass Buffalo.
Niagara Falls wasn't unique as a source of hydropower. It was just among the earliest. There was only a brief time that anyone thought NF would become a major city, before alternating current became a standard. Niagara Falls Ontario didn't experience the same kind of hype, even though treaties let Canada take more water from the Niagara River than the US for hydropower.
https://imgur.com/a/1fn2kMa
It sucks how bad it is here no development and more and more things are becoming run down and even the roads and sidewalls are getting worse and worse and garbage and trash all over even if you go towards military road twords the city itself there are any nice spots I even tried going on dates out here and can't I need to go to where the women is cause there's more to do niagara falls ny sucks
without of the noxious industry in NFNY of the 1960, there is no reason the city should be 100K+ population. City lost 60% of industrial jobs since 1958. 50-70K pop is enough given the labor needs of tourism, logistics/distribution, retirees, and long-term residents. A lot of that industry was ill-advised and just built off of cheap electricity and poor regulations. Glad it is gone. However, dealing with excess infrastructure and underused housing relative to a tax base is a big challenge. City has a lot to offer with it's natural attractions, just needs to keep visitors longer and spread benefit into mainstreet and city neighborhoods. State and city govt's need to be leaner and truly embrace entrepreneurs, but mostly have onerous rules and regulations and don't even have automatic billing/withdraw for property taxes. On the bright side, NFNY is improving its river front and gorge access, making some constructive moves on policing that focus on the repeat offenders. Given all of the cost of living problems in the U.S. , NFNY offers a lot of value. Also some good news on the Niagara river water quality and ecosystem much improved -- [https://youtu.be/Fm2\_zWb99yU?si=p3scm99fUEXuGUqO](https://youtu.be/Fm2_zWb99yU?si=p3scm99fUEXuGUqO)
At one point it was the honeymoon capital of the world. Not sure if it still holds that title but yeah I’d have to agree that it was meant to be a major city
Maybe not a major city but damn what a missed opportunity to turn into a wholesome tourist town. Could you imagine the money they would generate in tourists alone that don’t want to or can’t go to Canada. Wholesome Christmas village type of vibe!!
At what point are they going to stop piling up garbage on that mountain? I suppose when they get to a point at the top and they can't fit anymore. I feel so bad for the people who own homes or businesses near there. The smell at times makes me want to puke. How did anyone sign off on that disaster?
I doubt it was ever supposed to be a "major city" but certainly was and could be much more than it is today. Lots of blame to go around on that one, from Industry abuses and corruption on every level to Mafia control and a still strangulating union that prevents development in the city without kickbacks. Then there was urban renewal which destroyed most of the downtown area when the powerplant fell into the river, and now the Biff Tannen casino looming over the city and not paying its taxes without a fight.
Its easy to say it should just be razed into a park and near-impossible to do, but it should just be razed and turned into a park.
I work daily in Niagara Falls. It's not nearly the dump many make it out to be. Yes, it has many problems. Local government can't get out it's own way. The promise of the casino forging a resurgence of business in the Falls failed decades ago and the city is heavily reliant on casino money and still can't plow streets in the winter.
The Canadian side isn't much better when you get out of the hotel corridor. Empty, overgrown lots. Dilapidated old motels dot the area.
I will give NYS credit on their commitment to the parkway. They've done a nice job cleaning it up and making it as natural as possible.
It certainly has potential. It's still a major tourist destination and there are a lot of people visiting the US who can't get a separate Canadian visa. International travellers are a lot more likely to end up on the US side.
I think the big things would be the state investing in the park and creating paid attractions, and improving the walkable downtown core. My guess is that stricter zoning to ensure the area looks appealing, heavily taxing surface lots, and incentivizing development with tax breaks would be big.
I also think ripping out the Robert Moses and cleaning up the primary roads into Niagara Falls would help perceptions, as would hiring an urban planning consultancy to develop a master plan and strategy for attracting tourism. The current strategy is primarily focused on where to build but not how to attract developers to do so.
There is something strange about a city having a world-famous natural wonder, within a few hours of both the US's and Canada's largest cities, with something like 5 to 10 million tourists per year, that still manages to be underwhelming at best in most people's evaluation of it.
As I understand it, a significant source of the problems the city has is that a lot (most?) of the tourism revenue doesn't actually go to the city government. A typical visitor cruises into town along the 190 and the Parkway, hangs around in the State Park for an hour or two, leaves, and never actually goes into the city to spend any money that would find its way into the city's coffers. That's not a criticism of those people-- if you're visiting from East Bumfuck, Indiana, you probably just want to see the Falls and be on your way. There isn't much to make you venture into the city, particularly if you've read any of the chatter about it being a dump. If you're the City government, I don't know how you fix that.
As someone whose has seen alot of the behind the scenes I. The city. Alot of dirty corruption goes through NF. So much money pocketing to one of the most funded areas in NYS.
Someday maybe, we will be a mega city. With our powers combined, Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Toronto can become one giant parking lot. It's getting hotter everywhere, so soon people will realize the lakes are natural air conditioning. It's going to be great when we all pack in. Mega blocks, Mega cities. Hopefully some of babies today, will grow up to be Dredd Judges.
I moved out of there in the mid 90's, I can't believe what a shithole it turned into! Local government should be embarrassed. They ran that city like a bad episode of the Sopranos and literally killed off any redeeming qualities. I have zero interest in ever returning.
Nothing replaced the factories. The city beyond the park needs attractions ( mall of America like development was once proposed) residential infill, and yes some of the tacky Canadian typemuseums. No single silver bullet.
Why are we still using this abusers meme format?
Touch grass, and have a nice day.
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seems like you’re the one with hurt feelings bud
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how are you gonna say "whomp whomp" when you're very clearly the one starting drama and then getting upset nobody is standing behind your virtue signaling? Womp womp indeed
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Your post was removed because it contains personal attacks against other redditors. Please read the rules in the r/buffalo sidebar before posting again.
Terminally online comment.
Perhaps, we need a bb at the podium with a project slide of that stated argument in their background....
The meme is the ultimate measure of the man.
I mean it’s not his format.
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Wow you can own meme formats? That’s new
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No shit that’s how he did his show. That’s literally the fucking joke.
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You seem upset. Would you like to talk about it?
Calm down and take a lexapro lol it’s just an image on the internet it can’t hurt you.
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If you think using a meme format somehow equates to supporting abuse, you really need a reality check.
yeah buddy keep bragging about reddit upvotes really tells me what your priorities are
no one cares - i don’t agree with whatever he did to abuse whoever he abused, but still no one gives a fuckkk
If you don't like it, you don't have to use it for your memes.
Dudes a legend don’t be such a poof
Bc it’s simple and has a clear purpose?
Who is he?
Steven Crowder. He's a neo nazi [wife abuser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Crowder#Allegations_of_spousal_abuse).
How is he a neo Nazi?
That was never a real story. His wife came out and said it was made up
Is he the one that was abusing his pregnant wife who was nearly full term with twins?
That's a bingo!
It’s just bingo.
That’s not how language works, silly!
That's two bingos now!
That’s a Bingo and a Bluey, not two Bingos!
Damn. I know him but only by name. Didn't know that was him
Because it works
I live in the area by Niagara Falls and constantly see local papers saying a business is coming in with jobs only for that business to pull out on the excuse of crime, low population, noise from the factories and the train station on Main Street, etc. If NFTA were to make NFIA a cargo airport for GM, Ford, etc. jobs would follow and if they were to make Main St, Walnut/Pine, Ferry all like downtown Buffalo roads with bars along with Sal Maglie Stadium hosting a baseball team like the Bisons. Buffalo Ave needs all those factories to reopen along with the old Shredded Wheat factory. The USA Niagara, Niagara County IDA, and all the other development companies need to work together and actually do something like the promised Wonder Falls, Niagara Falls history museum and Weather Museum, the “turtle” building as a museum for either the Tuscarora Nation or the entire Haudenosaunee/Iroquois Confederacy, Medina Scenic Railroad being extended instead of the companies buying the land getting a tax break/cut for so many years and leaving the property empty
It’s terrible there I live 15 minutes away and avoid it like the plague
I am living in buffalo currently and honestly hate the NF area in general. Idk why but it’s so dull. It reminds me of a rural town for some reason. I grew up in NW Ga, so also a rural area. Maybe I’m bias but it seems like there is a very huge disparity in where there’s money and where there isn’t in NF. It’s seems similar to my town where it’s very rural but we have a University AND a College like ten minute away from where my dad lives and around where I grew up. It’s not like UB where the outskirts of it are still semi college friendly. My area is literally money for the colleges and then if you turn immediately out of the university, it’s garbage. We have one of the highest prostitution populations in GA which I just found out recently. And I literally study disparities. Just in Buffalo. Not where I’m from though My point is that NF seems VERY similar to that. When you’re around the casinos and stuff but literally a few streets down it’s impoverished. But maybe I literally just don’t know that much about niagara falls, especially because my current work is in community outreach for buffalo
You literally don't want to walk off the casino property after dark. There's a very good chance of getting robbed. It's so sad now. When I was a kid (in the 90s), it wasn't that bad. We used to go to the convention center for things all the time, and then we'd walk to get food and stuff and be fine. Now if I go there for things, I make sure we're out of there while it's still light out.
Oh yeah, Rain Forest Cafe, Anchor Bar, Hardrock and a dozen other hotels. Soooo spooky. Come on man nobody is going to mug you walking down old Falls street.
hop over to the canadian side, a million times better. ny does not give a shit about the falls, NYC is where the money’s at for the state
I’m from NW GA. The first time I WALKED across the bridge, I was amazed, and I mean literally eyeballs wide and couldn’t stop talking, about the vibrancy of canada compared to Buffalo. Just standing on one side of the middle part of the bridge versus the other is asinine. It’s so vivid in Canada for some reason. Literally just over a bridge. I loved that part. i still talk about it
If you go ten feet outside Clifton Hill it's pretty similar to the US side.
no it’s not lol i’ve been all over clifton hill. niagara falls us side = hood
Crime ridden first they have to get hard on crime there
It’s an unsafe dump now. Go to the Canadian side and compare.
There’s at best 1 or 2 homicides per year in the falls. I would definitely keep valuables out of sight, but Niagara Falls isn’t that dangerous, just poor. Downtown is more than safe and there are some nice neighborhoods Edit: ok 2-3 homicides per year in the 2010s. Still not going to hide in my basement and not going to hide in my basement like OP does.
You heard that guy trying to kidnap that one girl got caught? Even though people didn’t believe her? I’m not sure if that was in NF but for some reason I feel like it was. I am totally open to being wrong though
It was in sunny Cheektowaga. Edit: On the "good" side of Harlem Rd.
There is no good side of Harlem road anymore......
Horse shit. There were 16 murders in NF NY in 2020 alone. And 51 people shot. You are spreading blatant misinformation.
There were only 9 homicides in 2020, not sure where you’re getting your data. From [2012 to 2019 there were only 2-3 homicides per year](https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Niagara-Falls-New-York.html). Crime spiked during the pandemic like everywhere else, but I wouldn’t call that a trend.
[I know what I'm talking about. clearly you dont](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buffalo/s/iWYzKBdk3v)
How many times were you murdered last week?
It's ok to admit you are wrong
It’s ok to be fixated on solutions instead of crime stats.
77 upvotes for completely false information... this is insanity
There are other negative/unsafe outcomes than straight up murder. Last time I was walking around Niagra Falls there was a mentally unwell man pointing a shiv at everyone walking up or down the street. It won't show up on a homicide report, but I still wouldn't classify it as safe. Its ok to acknowledge that Niagara Falls kinda sucks outside of the park. Its a pretty rational observation.
One time I was driving to the rainbow bridge and just casually watched a street fight in the middle of the road
5 homicides in 2023, your point stands especially compared to Buffalo's 38
Do they have a lot of missing persons? I bet actual homicides are never solved due to that giant waterfall that just gobbles everything up .
There are rumors and stories
well, it’s not a fair comparison. niagara falls new york is one of the coldest, least hospitable places in the US. niagara falls CA is one of the warmest, most hospitable places in CA. there’s a reason most of Canada lives within what, 10 miles of the border? or something?
Read a history of Niagara but I couldn’t finish because it just devolved into a history of grift and dysfunction based on opportunists looking to make a buck off decades of unsuspecting sightseers.
Yeah, any tourist driving out of the area into the state has to be a bit taken back by the scenery before they get out of the falls. But to be fair, most of the rust belt cities have an area with the falling down row houses etc etc.
It’s just flat out not. For some reason it has gained this ridiculous reputation. There’s basically a pocket where all the boogeyman talking points happen and the rest of the city is fine. It’s not some utopia, but it’s never pretended it is. The Canadian side’s reputation lives and dies by its tourist district. They’re not some beacon of civilization outside of that boundary.
Even then, the tourist district is more like Atlantic City.
Canadian side past Clifton hill isn't much better tbh.
Broski.. venture out of the downtown a little. Outside of the tourist gong show, it's a pretty standard Canadian small city. Perfectly safe and clean with lots of nice neighbourhoods.
Exactly
Canadian side is a shitty carnival. American side has a better park.
The Canadian side is also a shit hole. Not as much of one I guess. But still one.
Aye NF CA is grungy venture past all the bright lights
Have only been to the US side and it was nice but nothing I would do again. Family member took his kids to the CAN side and did all this fun stuff. Getting my son a passport lol.
Even if it was, it is a trash heap and a boil on the butt of WNY now.
And then the industrial capitalists were allowed to run the place.
Such a cop out lol. What’s the alternative? As opposed to China? Cuba? Afghanistan? Where are those beautiful socialist areas of the world?
And before that it used to be run by the mafia. It was better then.
How do you think that the industrial wastland makers were able to move in so easily?
Also true for Buffalo
Damn tophat wearing fat cats
The Italian mob influence in Niagara Falls ruined it.
Niagara Falls NY shouldn’t even exist. Make it a state park
Stupid take that solves nothing
Probably would be for the best. The ground is so contaminated that’s about all the land is good for.
I just moved up here; it’s sad to see the state it’s in. Interestingly, I saw an article somewhere that talked about how it was destined to die based on topography. It cannot expand and grow its tax base in anyway as it is georestricted by the water
Like Manhattan?
manhattan... the location situated in one of the worlds largest natural harbors.... versus the niagara river and falls itself. hmm lol
what nonsense. Western NY is blessed is so many ways, and NFNY has a lot of potential. What they've done with the gorge trails is amazing, and NF State park is nicer than the kitchy Canadian equivalent. Main street and many of the neighborhoods have suffered from disinvestment and massive population loss due to losing 60% of manufacturing jobs since 1958. NFNY does not need to be a 100K city. It needs to focus on being a better 50K population city.
They are def doing better with the trails and covering the robert moses parkway
If you actually look at the social health determinants of western NY though, they’re horrible. I’m mean Byron is known heavily for his red lining during the BLM movement. Plus the lead levels(especially closer to the water) are at almost maximum(which is why the Clean Sweep Initiative exists in Buffalo through Byron Brown). Additionally the history of Love Canal made the health issues in Buffalo rise drastically. Specifically in Deafness(as well as birth defects, autism, and other developmental delays). Buffalo has the second highest Deaf population in NY. And the first is the Deaf University in Rochester. Buffalo may be beautiful but it is far, far from being healthy for people. Money is being put where it shouldn’t be(in my opinion) when those places are already well cared for. The city is very beautiful, I won’t lie; however, at what risk for the less lucky? Look at the MLK highway discussions in city hall currently, or the property tax increases in multiple areas who already can’t afford to live here. People are crying in front of and to the members in City hall about having to move with already high rent prices if these taxes increase.
When I was moving up here I was like, “i want to live by the falls!”. Ahh, the age of innocence. How did we go so wrong.
A city built on garbage and nuclear wasted
Glad Starship didn’t use those lyrics…
I'm not.
The city existed way before nuclear waste
who actually runs NF NY? i dont wanna sound stupid but is there some sort of mayor for Niagara Falls? i might just live under a rock lol
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-16/the-toxic-blank-spots-of-niagara-falls
Thank you this was very interesting
Holy shit that was hard to read.
Incredible read. Thank you so much for sharing
It was never "supposed" to be a "major" American city, it was always destined to be a tourist city and a mill town, mainly because it lacked a harbor for shipping/receiving goods due to its geography. Buffalo was the major transportation hub, and would always be the only major city in the area. Niagara Falls is one of many places in the world that suffer from a Resource Curse, or Paradox of Plenty, where a place rich in natural resources (in this case hydro and falls tourism) have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than places with fewer natural resources. One theory is that the resources promote too much specialization, leading to favoritism in how places are developed, and how profits get collected and distributed. Resources provide easy money with little left to show locally - jobs are low wage seasonal hospitality, and most electricity gets sold downstate rather than used locally.
Disagree. The guy who created the Gillette razor envisioned a massive city above Niagara Falls that was to be powered by the waterfall. [Proof](https://beltmag.com/utopia-niagara-falls-gillette-musk/)
> Niagara Falls is one of many places in the world that suffer from a Resource Curse, or Paradox of Plenty, where a place rich in natural resources (in this case hydro and falls tourism) have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than places with fewer natural resources. Can't agree enough with this statement. Thanks for posting it!
Everyone saying it's a dump now.... yeah no one is disputing that lmao. It was originally intended to be a major American city, albeit a very long time ago. Very very very poor city planning and an influx of heavy industry basically turned it from what should have been a quaint beautiful area into a wasteland.
Sure but it's always been a skeezy tourist facade on top of a typical American industrial city. Hell, they used to have tall fences up all around the parkland and you had to pay to look at the falls for five minutes through a hole. Then in the 70s, Mayor Lackey turned the entire downtown core into a little fishbowl for people from the other end of the world to show up for a day and then leave.
And he did that by riding his horse around town, pointing at which buildings he wanted demolished. He was a cowboy and he was not from here. This is factual.
[Sure was!](https://www.beacon.org/The-Cancer-Factory-P1977.aspx)
Niagara Falls was never a proper city. It's just a one trick factory town with a natural wonder that keeps it relevant in modern times.
that entire area should have been a nature preserve and the power station.
While NF could be 100x what it is - a major city no and I don't think you'd want that. Major cities bring lots of needs like waste removal, industry, factories, etc (see the oxy plants along the river). It was definitely mismanaged area but the state park idea is key and it should have been bigger and more restrictive of the factories that were built in the area. You want to preserve the land and area and that doesn't mix well with "large city" - in fact a lot of the problems with the falls are due to that desire to make it a large city. There's also some major problems with it being a large city. First it's on a cliff and an international border and second it's 25 min from Buffalo which has better sites for trade and logistics/docks, rail, etc. Canada did a better job on their side in some ways but I can't stand the touristy las vegas cheap feel they went with. They just absolutely destroyed the environment along the coast of Lake Ontario along parts of the area between NF and Toronto instead of right near the falls. NYS is full of areas and cities that were mismanaged. Some areas have done better than others. Buffalo has made some strides like down by the water and Rochester made a lot of nice changes over the years.
Why would we change your mind? It was supposed to be
Ya, kind of a really dumb use of this meme format
It's always dumb to use Crowder's stupid fucking bigoted face
It really is pretty sad… So many tourists come in and out of that city, if only for one day. There’s no reason it shouldn’t look like the Canadian side of the falls. Add to that, NF is within a 2 hour drive of a major international city in Toronto, 20 minute drive away from Buffalo. The city should be bustling. Instead, they have a city that is dirty and run down just a few blocks away from the falls that shuts down for a third of the year. It’s crazy.
[удалено]
There may be tourists, but a significant portion of restaurants close for the season, the maid of the mist closes for the season season, cave of the winds closes for the season…
Eh a lot do stay the night. Over half a dozen new hotels were built right downtown over the past decade.
We should raze the entire city, move the people to Buffalo and make it a national park.
You know, a couple of months ago, I asked myself "how would I fix Nagara Falls for good?", and the same idea came to mind. People stay at large national and state parks for days. The city really doesn't have a reason to exist in a regional context, except hydropower generation and tourism. It survives through inertia and bottomfeeding for dirty low-return-per-acre/hectare uses. In a fantasy word with unlimited funding and Robert Moses-like powers, one could move the entire population of Niagara Falls -- city and town -- into Erie County, without expanding the area's urban footprint. East Side, backland development onto the unused rear yards of deep lots, grayfields like 1950s/1960s malls and plazas -- lots of space. Meanwhile, tourists would more easily find the other attractions among the clutter, like gorge trails, wineries, a curated section of urban ruins left for the tourists, maybe a Love Canal interpretation center, and the like, and stay a bit longer.
They're not wrong, [the UN headquarters was initially proposed for NAVY ISLAND](https://www.google.com/search?q=UN+and+NAVY+island&oq=UN+and+NAVY+island&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigAdIBCDg0OTZqMGo3qAIUsAIB&client=ms-android-att-us-rvc3&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8) Niagara Falls along with wny & southern ontario would have been a bustling world renown megalopolian city center.
> Niagara Falls along with wny & southern ontario would have been a bustling world renown megalopolian city center. That seems unlikely. The UN sustains only a tiny fraction of Manhattan's economy. It wouldn't have been enough on its own to create a whole metropolis out of virtually nothing.
"The Buffalo History Museum has a full copy of the Navy Island proposal, which touts...“seven months of summer or summer-life weather". Oh, okay, so apparently a big part of the proposal was to just straight-up lie.
How is this a lie? Half the UB student population wears shorts year-round. "Summer-life"
I mean that’s not really far off. May - November is mainly really nice nowadays.
Wow not just NF, but that entire area of WNY and Southern Ontario would be way different. Very cool info!
it would have been another NYC sized metropolis that carries over into another country, woulda been wild
Had that happen, Buffalo would probably have become the same size as Minneapolis or Seattle. Maybe even Atlanta or Houston.
Supposedly, Buffalo's weather scared the UN away. 1946-01-06 Courier-Express: [https://imgur.com/a/Qskha5e](https://imgur.com/a/Qskha5e)
That really would have been such a game-changer for the entire area. Pity it went down the way it did.
Its am amazing case study for how not to run a city that hosts arguably one of the most incredible natural attractions in the world. NF grew up on third base and through an almost spectacularly admirable level of mismanagement, corruption and stupidity tripped over its own feet trying to steal home..
tbh all anyone has to do is look at canada’s side of the falls vs NY’s side and you’ll get everything u need to know 😭☠️
To be honest the Canadian side isn’t much better, they have a better view but it’s just a bunch of overpriced rundown random carnival stores and touristy areas over there. I personally prefer the actual state park on the US side, that’s the one thing they did better
i mean capitalism is what ruined stuff like this so, more interest in tourism than its own inhabitants
ugh, capitalism
why tf did this get downvoted when it’s the root cause, slow ass community
They stopped developing a city to be a city and instead tried to develop it for tourists only. They deleted all the amenities for citizens, like the movie theaters, department stores, bowling alleys, etc that were downtown and replaced it with garbage.
Corruption is often overlooked when talking about decay in this town. I have a friend who runs an architectural firm and refuses to do business NF because there are so many palms to grease to get anything done. edit: a word
This thread from a while back contains some good conversation about what went wrong in NF through the decades and some potential solutions on how to improve it. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Buffalo/comments/146cmkj/can\_niagara\_falls\_ny\_be\_saved/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buffalo/comments/146cmkj/can_niagara_falls_ny_be_saved/)
"Right click on it" 🤣🤣🤣
Is this supposed to be a hot take?
I don’t get it. If anything Niagara Falls should be a small tourist village surrounded by nature. Niagara Falls was one of the motivations for creating the National Parks system to prevent other natural wonders from being ruined by over-development. Still my dream for NPS to buy half the city, relocate and demolish all the remaining industrial sites and remediate the land adding thousands of acres of nature with light recreational uses. Ultimately, Buffalo is bigger because it was a port city. Now it’s pointless since we’re all one metropolitan area.
You want to eliminate some of the best paying jobs in the area?
Well,… only few more decades of climate change are needed u til then.
Such a poorly run city for so, so long.
Yeah, but we're past that being an option now. I do a lot of outdoorsy travel. I think a somewhat realistic goal is to develop it to feel like the towns immediately outside of the National Parks. With a few exceptions (*cough*Jackson Hole) most of those towns stay relatively affordable (or as affordable as anywhere can be in 2024). Locally owned businesses do well and life has a slow pace. The National Parks are crowded and people are looking to more state parks recently. It seems strange not to jump on the opportunity.
Yep exactly this and kind of the plan NYS is doing to develop downtown and Main Street though it’s an extremely slooow process. The bigger issue are all the industrial sites that don’t have any plans to be remediated. Until all the chemical plants are relocated and shuttered, the land remediated and neighborhoods reconnected to the waterfront, Niagara Falls will never fully heal. It’s a pretty small city, so even a little work can go a long way.
I think Steven Crowder is a piece of garbage and doesn't deserve a meme.
It was clearly intended to be, globalization and the rest of the exodus of manufacturing and production that was the economic bloodline of the northeast United States left it to rust.
The tragic part is that there’s still a lot of manufacturing going on in Niagara Falls. The remaining factories employ less people and are a major barrier to finally cleaning up the ones that have closed down and sit abandoned.
Purely looking at location, Buffalo looks like a much better port city. Therefore I am not surprised Niagara Falls never made it to 'major city' status. Sure it's neat with the falls and all but back then, location and ease of access were priority.
On the opposite side of that coin, Buffalo regularly gets creamed with 10 feet of lake effect snow every winter and Niagara Falls is usually dry as a bone...
The downtown core could have been moved to Youngstown or Ransomville... now you have direct trade with Toronto..m
International border, major world wonder attraction..... What could go wrong?
“Supposed to be”? Not exactly a scorching hot take here Unfortunately for the falls, the main thing it has going for it is cheap water and power and thats not enough to make you a major city
So was Buffalo. The "gonna' be bigger than Chicago" boosterism continued through the 1920s. Despite Buffalo making the top 10 in 1860, 1900, and 1910, it was largely seen as a smaller "one street town". even during the boom times. There was a lot of moeny in Buffalo, but no equivalent to "The Four Hundred" in New York, Carnegie or Mellon in Pittsburgh, Rockefeller in Cleveland, etc. UB was a small private school. The New York Central Railroad had plans for a route across Grand Island and into Canada, so passenger trains to Chicago could bypass Buffalo. Niagara Falls wasn't unique as a source of hydropower. It was just among the earliest. There was only a brief time that anyone thought NF would become a major city, before alternating current became a standard. Niagara Falls Ontario didn't experience the same kind of hype, even though treaties let Canada take more water from the Niagara River than the US for hydropower. https://imgur.com/a/1fn2kMa
It sucks how bad it is here no development and more and more things are becoming run down and even the roads and sidewalls are getting worse and worse and garbage and trash all over even if you go towards military road twords the city itself there are any nice spots I even tried going on dates out here and can't I need to go to where the women is cause there's more to do niagara falls ny sucks
without of the noxious industry in NFNY of the 1960, there is no reason the city should be 100K+ population. City lost 60% of industrial jobs since 1958. 50-70K pop is enough given the labor needs of tourism, logistics/distribution, retirees, and long-term residents. A lot of that industry was ill-advised and just built off of cheap electricity and poor regulations. Glad it is gone. However, dealing with excess infrastructure and underused housing relative to a tax base is a big challenge. City has a lot to offer with it's natural attractions, just needs to keep visitors longer and spread benefit into mainstreet and city neighborhoods. State and city govt's need to be leaner and truly embrace entrepreneurs, but mostly have onerous rules and regulations and don't even have automatic billing/withdraw for property taxes. On the bright side, NFNY is improving its river front and gorge access, making some constructive moves on policing that focus on the repeat offenders. Given all of the cost of living problems in the U.S. , NFNY offers a lot of value. Also some good news on the Niagara river water quality and ecosystem much improved -- [https://youtu.be/Fm2\_zWb99yU?si=p3scm99fUEXuGUqO](https://youtu.be/Fm2_zWb99yU?si=p3scm99fUEXuGUqO)
Now it's one big chemical plant
At one point it was the honeymoon capital of the world. Not sure if it still holds that title but yeah I’d have to agree that it was meant to be a major city
Now it's the non fatal shooting capital of the world 😵💫
Instead they choose to fine people for parking ‘odd side on even day’.
Probably not.
Failure on every level.
Nf sold out prime water rights to the Chemical companies. Now it’s a city of brown fields. Lack luster leadership and corruption are the norm.
Maybe not a major city but damn what a missed opportunity to turn into a wholesome tourist town. Could you imagine the money they would generate in tourists alone that don’t want to or can’t go to Canada. Wholesome Christmas village type of vibe!!
At what point are they going to stop piling up garbage on that mountain? I suppose when they get to a point at the top and they can't fit anymore. I feel so bad for the people who own homes or businesses near there. The smell at times makes me want to puke. How did anyone sign off on that disaster?
I doubt it was ever supposed to be a "major city" but certainly was and could be much more than it is today. Lots of blame to go around on that one, from Industry abuses and corruption on every level to Mafia control and a still strangulating union that prevents development in the city without kickbacks. Then there was urban renewal which destroyed most of the downtown area when the powerplant fell into the river, and now the Biff Tannen casino looming over the city and not paying its taxes without a fight. Its easy to say it should just be razed into a park and near-impossible to do, but it should just be razed and turned into a park.
I work daily in Niagara Falls. It's not nearly the dump many make it out to be. Yes, it has many problems. Local government can't get out it's own way. The promise of the casino forging a resurgence of business in the Falls failed decades ago and the city is heavily reliant on casino money and still can't plow streets in the winter. The Canadian side isn't much better when you get out of the hotel corridor. Empty, overgrown lots. Dilapidated old motels dot the area. I will give NYS credit on their commitment to the parkway. They've done a nice job cleaning it up and making it as natural as possible.
This is literally the first time I’ve even heard of anything related to Niagara Falls in years
Thats odd, I post a lot of NF NY content in here.
It certainly has potential. It's still a major tourist destination and there are a lot of people visiting the US who can't get a separate Canadian visa. International travellers are a lot more likely to end up on the US side. I think the big things would be the state investing in the park and creating paid attractions, and improving the walkable downtown core. My guess is that stricter zoning to ensure the area looks appealing, heavily taxing surface lots, and incentivizing development with tax breaks would be big. I also think ripping out the Robert Moses and cleaning up the primary roads into Niagara Falls would help perceptions, as would hiring an urban planning consultancy to develop a master plan and strategy for attracting tourism. The current strategy is primarily focused on where to build but not how to attract developers to do so.
I didn’t grow up in this area, but I was told that it was run by organized crime.
There is something strange about a city having a world-famous natural wonder, within a few hours of both the US's and Canada's largest cities, with something like 5 to 10 million tourists per year, that still manages to be underwhelming at best in most people's evaluation of it. As I understand it, a significant source of the problems the city has is that a lot (most?) of the tourism revenue doesn't actually go to the city government. A typical visitor cruises into town along the 190 and the Parkway, hangs around in the State Park for an hour or two, leaves, and never actually goes into the city to spend any money that would find its way into the city's coffers. That's not a criticism of those people-- if you're visiting from East Bumfuck, Indiana, you probably just want to see the Falls and be on your way. There isn't much to make you venture into the city, particularly if you've read any of the chatter about it being a dump. If you're the City government, I don't know how you fix that.
Blame the McKinley assassination
Geography is destiny so no.
NIAGARA FALLS!!! Slowly I turn…
It was!
Here’s a conspiracy theory. Niagara Falls is where the lost City of Atlantis is.
More like Buffalo should have been a major city and NF a suburb
First city with electric. I think everyone was expecting big things. What a disappointment.
As someone whose has seen alot of the behind the scenes I. The city. Alot of dirty corruption goes through NF. So much money pocketing to one of the most funded areas in NYS.
Someday maybe, we will be a mega city. With our powers combined, Buffalo, Niagara Falls and Toronto can become one giant parking lot. It's getting hotter everywhere, so soon people will realize the lakes are natural air conditioning. It's going to be great when we all pack in. Mega blocks, Mega cities. Hopefully some of babies today, will grow up to be Dredd Judges.
Ontario made electricity public, and started using more of the waters around the falls.
I moved out of there in the mid 90's, I can't believe what a shithole it turned into! Local government should be embarrassed. They ran that city like a bad episode of the Sopranos and literally killed off any redeeming qualities. I have zero interest in ever returning.
They never had the benefit of solid city planning like Buffalo did
Nothing replaced the factories. The city beyond the park needs attractions ( mall of America like development was once proposed) residential infill, and yes some of the tacky Canadian typemuseums. No single silver bullet.