Niagara Falls: Canadian side overflows with kitsch kitsch

Link to August 2 Pittsburgh Post Gazette article.

Excerpt: The Vegas of Canada is a perfect inversion of all common assumptions. Canadians have been famously defined as polite, unarmed Americans with health insurance. Yet in this one corner of the world, stereotype has been turned on its head. The Canadians bellow, their signs all but jump off the buildings, commerce reigns supreme, and a people ordinarily famed as the guardians of every leaf on every tree have left it to the Americans across the river to maintain a sedate park where it is the birds, not a recorded Dracula, that are heard during a walk.

City’s housing in rapid decline

Link to March 22 Buffalo News article.

Excerpt: One in five homes in Niagara Falls is now vacant, and those empty buildings have frayed neighborhoods and strained city resources.

Vacant and derelict houses also have put firefighters at risk and pulled them away from other emergencies.

Plans to raze Wintergarden meet opposition at hearing

Link to August 19 Buffalo News article.

Excerpt:

The Wintergarden, constructed in 1977 with federal funds, operated as a free public garden until 2003 when the city, unable to afford its operating and maintenance costs, sold it for $1 million to a group of investors that included Anderson.

Niagara Gazette, August 8, 2008. Last Call for Wintergarden.

Excerpt:

Built in 1977, the old Wintergarden served as a popular arboretum that residents and out-of-towners visited, hosted parties and even served as a backdrop for marriage ceremonies. Its glass frame is among the most recognizable in the city’s skyline, but has drawn criticism from tourism enthusiasts because it splits up Old Falls Street and has become an eyesore.

After purchasing it from the city for $1 million in 2003, Anderson gutted the building’s contents and turned it into Smokin Joe’s Family Fun Center. He closed last December and the building has been locked up since.

USA Niagara’s plans have the Wintergarden being razed to restore the Old Falls Street corridor, which is now split into the east and west pedestrian malls with the building in between.