Positive Movement In Niagara Falls

There are signs of life in Niagara Falls after all. Page 3 of this week's edition of Business First has two articles about change in the Cataract City.

The first article is accompanied by a picture that shows workers standing on top of the old Wintergarden as they get ready to dismantle the glass and steel behemoth. While I am not a rabid preservationist by any stretch of the imagination, I sometimes become attached to certain buildings or ideas whose heydays are long gone. The Wintergarden is one of those buildings. I have several events in my life that have the Wintergarden as a apart of the memory bank. A couple of weddings where we made the limo trip to Niagara Falls to get pictures, and a remembrance of a few trips to Niagara Falls with my family when I was a kid that involved staying at the Holiday Inn and swimming in the inside pool in the winter with an inevitable trip the Wintergarden. Certainly, I am not saying it is a bad idea to take it down and make way for the new, just a sad idea to do so.

A few blocks over, Tuscarora businessman and developer Joseph Anderson is getting ready to open his new attraction Snow Park Niagara. Anderson has invested $5.2 million in the project that includes an NHL sized synthetic ice rink and a year round tubing hill. There is also a play area. I posted on this earlier and think it is a grand idea. I have long said that we should embrace our image as a snow capital and not shun it or run from it. There is definitely a market for year round winter sports, and all of the sundries that go along with it. I wish Anderson well.

I have always believed that Niagara Falls has potential to be a really fun place. The tightening of cross border regulations that are making it more difficult to get back and forth should have a positive effect on keeping people on our side of the Falls. Certainly, some well thought out investment plans could bring a lot of entertainment venues to Niagara Falls. Once the people are coming there are a whole host of opportunities. As long as the ideas aren't trying to compete with the economic powerhouse of the casino, but play off of the people it brings in, they should do OK. I am not a gambler, but my wife is. If we were going to the Falls for a quick getaway, there would need to be something for me to do as well. Certainly, if Mayor Dyster can reign in the oppressive culture of patronage and corruption that has hamstrung his city, there is enormous potential up there. One must just look at the continuously growing skyline across the gorge.