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  #61  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2008, 2:52 AM
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Great pics. Something that stood out for me with these is that a lot of the buildings have signs. Some of those buildings reminded me of Waco, Texas, the brick ones. But I noticed the downtown looks to be occupied pretty well. A lot of small Texas cities and towns have great old buildings, but a good number of them are vacant. So no signs. So seeing a downtown of similar size and character with a lot of signs is kind of strange.

This building looks like a castle and a country home got together for a fling.
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  #62  
Old Posted Feb 23, 2008, 7:04 PM
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NF on both sides of the border is in shambles with no sigh of hope in the future.
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  #63  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 12:11 AM
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^ Yet somehow Niagara Falls Ontario still manages to be a growing city.
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  #64  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 12:53 AM
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Great pictures! I'd always heard about downtown NF being in a bad way, but have never seen it myself.

As for my take on downtown abandonment: the mall may play a factor, but I'd imagine the primary reason is simply one of location. The Clifton Hill area a couple km to the south is just simply too strong of a retail draw in a city the size of NF. This is coupled with the fact that the city's transportation grid seems geared towards getting people towards that area and the border crossings. If downtown had been located across from the falls instead of downriver I'd imagine things would be a bit different.
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  #65  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 10:14 AM
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I drove through this area be accident a number of years ago. Prior to that I didn't even know NF had a "traditional downtown".
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  #66  
Old Posted Feb 24, 2008, 10:23 AM
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cool thread flar! very intresting pics
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  #67  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2008, 12:16 AM
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A shocking expose!
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  #68  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2008, 11:37 AM
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This building appeared in the 1953 movie, Niagara.

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  #69  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2008, 3:27 PM
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i couldn't have located downtown niagara falls if you'd paid me. learn something new everyday. cool tour.
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  #70  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2008, 6:36 PM
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How sad !! And it is so true that this decayed part of the city is just few street corners from the fake tourists area.
Think of it : the real town core is dying and the fake city is flourishing. What does it say of Niagara Falls ?
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  #71  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2008, 6:47 PM
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Atrocious... but someday I believe it can be saved. Thanks for the tour.
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  #72  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2008, 6:58 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DC83 View Post
I found an old post by Kitchissippi in the Niagara Falls Development Thread.
He points out how using an old rail line through Niagara Falls could potentially reconnect Downtown to the Strip.
It could be a great revival for Downtown NF!


http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...113507&page=16
The old rail line was purchased by the city from CP for a people mover to circulate tourists. Then there was no funding for it so now its just an abandoned strip of grass and gravel. It had trains running on it not that long ago. I remember being on Clifton Hill one night around midnight and seeing a huge CP intermodal train rumble through. The best part was the shocked look on the faces of tourists.

As a former res of NFNY we used to love coming across the border to go to the city cafe to drink as 19 year olds. A buddy of mine even pissed off the Rainbow Bridge. Yeah...good times. NFNY and NFON--brothers 4 life!
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  #73  
Old Posted Feb 27, 2008, 9:19 PM
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NFON's downtown is merely a victim of a bad geographic location. It's stuck in a weird corner (hemmed in by the gorge and rail tracks) away from the actual Falls and not central to the entire city as a whole. And like so many smaller cities, the residential fabric is low density and most residents drive their own cars, therefore they shop at stripmalls/places more convenient for their cars.

I dunno, maybe a full-fledged red-light district might be the only thing that can save the downtown...linked by a cutsey trolley on that abandoned rail bed which connects to Clifton Hill/Fallsview; would make it work well.
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  #74  
Old Posted Feb 29, 2008, 12:20 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Downtown Bolivar View Post
The old rail line was purchased by the city from CP for a people mover to circulate tourists. Then there was no funding for it so now its just an abandoned strip of grass and gravel. It had trains running on it not that long ago. I remember being on Clifton Hill one night around midnight and seeing a huge CP intermodal train rumble through. The best part was the shocked look on the faces of tourists.

As a former res of NFNY we used to love coming across the border to go to the city cafe to drink as 19 year olds. A buddy of mine even pissed off the Rainbow Bridge. Yeah...good times. NFNY and NFON--brothers 4 life!
Wow. That sux. Thanks for the info tho.

I can seriously see this "people mover" idea coming back to life especially with development happening closer to downtown (Great Wolf Lodge). It'd be great for patrons of the GWL to be able to jump on a small-scale LRT train from their lodge to maybe Downtown and over to the Strip and Falls. Give tourists options besides dirving or taking cabs... it's always nice to explore a city while taking public transit or walking. You don't get the full effect of being a tourist if you're driving everywhere!
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  #75  
Old Posted Feb 29, 2008, 4:23 PM
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bet that area was booming in the 70's
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  #76  
Old Posted Feb 29, 2008, 4:52 PM
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  #77  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2008, 9:09 PM
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Thanks everyone!

Little known places like this are like hidden treasure to me.
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  #78  
Old Posted Mar 2, 2008, 6:05 AM
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Although I didn't grow up here! I can tell you that living here now, this place is "not" in a total decline at all. As a matter of fact if you eliminated the falls the downtown and the tourist area, the dreaded suburban lifestyle is the exact same, and is growing at the same rate as many other smaller North American cities. I live in a subdivision near the Mall, and it in the last couple of years it has added a Future Shop, a Winners, Linens and Things, Petcetera "some" new stores inside, and is adding a huge addition the the mall which will soon add a Mandarin, Michaels, JYSK, Additon Elle and AppleJacks restaraunt plus other stores. In the mall parking lot will be a large Canadian Tire, across the street will soon be a Sobey's, Rona Building Center and talk of a Walmart Supercenter across from the QEW.

Two years ago in the same area they built the Macbain Community center with a YMCA, a Library, skateboard park and a nice outdoor park with a soon to be added splash park. NF is in the process of building a 2000 seat 4 pad arena complex closer to the downtown which we replace the other decaying arenas in the city and will help to spur the area with development. Decaying buildings will be torn down in that area soon and will be replaced with more greenery as well as a new road off of Thorold Stone Road to access the new arena.

Lundy's Lane although still a bit seedy has actually seen quite a few of it's stores either re-done or rebuilt over the last couple of years as well. A new Shoppers Drug Mart is the latest new store coming to replace the old one down the road.

The Downtown is a mess and unless you are going to the Great Wolf Lodge or out to N.O.T.L nobody that lives here ever bothers to go to that part of the city, everywhere I have ever traveled has slums and this is ours. However Arron Lightman came along with big plans of a 100 million dollars worth of retail redevelopment but the city could not commit 35 million in parks and road repairs without proof that Mr. Lightman would truly come through with the investors...it is a dead deal now! Now a group of artists are starting to filter into the area hoping to revive the DT with affordable galleries for young starving but eager artists, fingers are crossed.

More to do with the tourist side of the city is a 52 story Hilton under construction, soon to be started is a 30 story Marriott, a 30 story Hampton Inn, a 26 story Westin a huge expansion to the Fallsview Plaza, the Brock Plaza becoming a Crowne Plaza, a new Convention Center and a 300 million dollar expansion to the Greg Norman designed Grand Niagara Golf Resort including a Hilton Hotel, and far to many other things to list.

I know some people hate this city and think it is just a big seedy cash grab, but it's actually quite a normal city to live in if you take away the tourist district and the area surrounding the Downtown. With all that said good pictures of a slummy area!!
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  #79  
Old Posted Mar 2, 2008, 8:37 AM
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Fascinating tour, flar, and great pics of course.

I visited Niagara Falls (the tourist side) in 1995. I was quite shocked actually - I went to see a wonder of nature and ended up in some kind of Las Vegas...
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  #80  
Old Posted Mar 2, 2008, 8:43 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by antinimby View Post
now that is a building!
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