Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2001 | 10 a.m.
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario -- On a recent Friday at lunchtime, a Casino Niagara attendant counted three $100 bills into Coral Gimbill's hand and topped them with a $20 in front of a "Double Diamond" slot machine alive with bells and lights.
All around the Canadian casino, gamblers dropped tokens into rows of machines and hoped for a similar response. Attendants made rounds with money carts, making change and tending to winners.
It's the kind of free flow of tourist dollars officials on the American side of Niagara Falls have only dreamed of while stuck in the role of jealous younger sibling competing for the attention of visitors.
A belief long held by some in New York that only a casino can bring the kind of riches seen across the border is as close as it's ever been to being tested; an agreement by the state and Seneca Indian Nation would place a Las Vegas-style casino in the city's underutilized convention center as early as next year. Eventually, a larger space would be constructed with a hotel and entertainment venues.
Gimbill said she would be among the gamblers should the New York casino come to pass.
"That's closer to home," the Erie, Pa., resident said, echoing the remarks of several other Americans who had come to Canada just to try their luck.
But most everyone agreed a casino must be only one part of a larger plan to turn the city around, saying one attraction does not a tourist destination make.
Jane Denson of Cleveland pointed to a butterfly conservancy, floral clock and block upon block of shops and restaurants in Niagara Falls, Ontario, where success is spelled out in a skyline of new hotels and attractions. Since Casino Niagara opened five years ago, the city has attracted more than $1 billion in new projects and seen the number of tourists rise from under 8 million a year to nearly 12 million, Ontario officials said.
"There's just more to do here," said Denson at the start of a weekend getaway in Canada.
By comparison, in Niagara Falls, N.Y., a hot-air tourist balloon became the first new attraction in a decade when it made its inaugural flight recently. But floating above a failed shopping mall, it is a reminder of the dichotomy that defines this side of the Falls. At the American Falls' precipice, tourists from around the globe snap pictures and marvel at the power of the natural wonder. But should they wander to Main Street, they'd have trouble finding a place to have lunch amid boarded storefronts.
Some of the buildings have been vacant so long they've taken on a retro quality, such as the long-gone "French Millinery Shoppe," whose 1940s-era sign still hangs.
Niagara Falls was the No. 1 destination of honeymooners in the 1920s, Niagara Falls historian Paul Gromosiak said, and remains a popular choice today. In the 1960s, then-Mayor E. Dent Lackey dubbed Niagara Falls the "honeymoon capital of the world," a moniker that stuck.
But along with businesses and heavy industry, the city has lost nearly half its population since 1960. Between 1990 and 2000 alone, the population fell 10.1 percent, from 61,840 to 55,593, according to U.S. Census figures. Unemployment hovers at 9.2 percent, nearly twice the state and national average, state labor statistics show.
Talk of a turnaround is not new; there has never been a shortage of ambitious redevelopment plans. What has been lacking is notable progress.
Officials say that may finally be about to change with the entry of not only the state and Seneca Indian Nation, but also the federal government, into the picture.
"Everybody's on the same train. That's unusual," said Mayor Irene Elia, who quickly invited the help from Albany and Washington upon taking office less than two years ago.
The diminutive former nun declares she is on a mission to save the city and has built a reputation as a determined advocate.
The state has done more than broker the casino deal which, pending approval by the Senecas and federal government, would also place casinos in nearby Buffalo and on one of the Senecas' two western New York reservations. In January Gov. George Pataki included $5.1 million in the state's budget for the creation of an agency dedicated solely to developing Niagara Falls.
In giving USA Niagara Development the power to force property owners to use or lose prime real estate, Pataki is taking the same approach that transformed New York City's Times Square into a family-friendly draw where Disney has replaced X-rated businesses.
The federal government, meanwhile, is exploring how it can complement local and state efforts to improve the city's parkland and surrounding area.
The Niagara Falls Park Advisory panel, co-chaired by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rep. John LaFalce, D-N.Y., is trying to have the Falls designated a National Heritage Area. The status would enable the National Park Service to step in with assistance.
Mayor Elia is thrilled with the offers of help but there remain plenty of naysayers among Niagara Falls residents convinced the city will never change.
"I have no hope," was Jeffrey Scott Morrow's response when asked whether the outside attention might finally result in some progress.
Morrow owns one of Main Street's few businesses, The Book Corner. He has embraced a newspaper's description of the book store as "a beacon of light in the pall of blight."
"If the street grew, we would grow, obviously," Morrow said. But "I'm disillusioned. I'm at the point where I just care about what we do."
Elia understands.
"They've been beat up because the leaders have misled them," she explains.
Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corp., which oversees the states' new USA Niagara undertaking, also talks of "the disappointments we've had over the many decades of plans without following through."
One plan that was followed through -- an attempt at urban renewal in the 1960s that razed blocks of businesses with the promise of more and better attractions -- ultimately did more harm than good when the rebuilding fell flat.
In the 1980s, a prime parcel near the brink of the Falls went to Occidental Chemical for an office building and two parking ramps -- hardly the stuff of tourist snapshots. A shopping mall eventually was built at one of the ramps. That is now vacant but for an Off-Track Betting parlor.
Elsewhere, a Street Faire and Splash Park sit empty and crumbling.
But Gargano said he is confident a real turnaround is possible this time around. The redevelopment agency has set up shop in the middle of the city and has launched a website and media campaign with the goal of eliciting ideas from the private sector. The search is also under way for a development consultant to formulate a concept plan, Gargano said.
"Niagara Falls has always been able to draw visitors because of its extraordinary natural beauty and its reputation as an entertainment capital," Gargano said. "Presenting more opportunities for business and investments, I think that will greatly expand the economy there."
There is a sense of urgency. While Niagara Falls, N.Y., takes its first tentative steps toward rebuilding, Niagara Falls, Ontario, continues to move full-steam ahead.
In late October the Canadian city launched a $1 million tourism campaign funded mostly by the Ontario government. The 28-week blitz will use television, radio, print, direct mail and e-marketing to target travelers in the United States and Canada, officials said.
On the same day the province broke ground on an $800 million casino expected to open in spring of 2004. Plans for it include a 368-room Hyatt Hotel, upscale health spa and a 12,000-seat outdoor concert amphitheater, along with a major expansion of the nearby wildlife park, Marineland.
Under way in Niagara Falls, N.Y., meanwhile, is a $23 million renovation of a 280-foot observation tower overlooking the Falls, the transplanting of an aerospace museum downtown and the reconfiguring of the four-lane Robert Moses Parkway to correct what is widely held as a mistake in planning. Instead of simply directing people through the city and into Canada, the parkway, built in the 1950s along the Niagara River, will become a two-lane road, with the other lanes devoted to biking and hiking.
Construction of an underwater aquarium announced with much fanfare two years ago has limped along with funding difficulties.
At The Book Corner, Morrow continues to line up book signings and poetry readings in an upstairs gallery, and maintains his skeptical watch.
"We'd like people to fill all these seats," he says. "But I'm past the point of dreams."
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