The Niagara Falls Solution

I live in Niagara Falls, USA. The reason for this post is that I can see the future of Niagara Falls very clearly but the city seems to be just floundering along without ever getting around to it's future.

What really started Niagara Falls was the so-called Portage. The Portage was simply a trail on land that led from the navigable water above the falls to the navigable water below the falls. Ships obviously could not go over the falls. So, ships would be unloaded and the goods carried by wagons to the other end of the Portage and reloaded onto another ship to continue the journey.

This era has left us with a Portage Rd. on both sides of the border in Niagara Falls. What brought the days of the Portage to an end was the construction of the Erie Canal. The canal ran from the Hudson River to Buffalo and made the Portage unnecessary.

But in this technology, the digging of canals, Niagara Falls found it's next main basis for existence. A canal was dug from a point above the American Falls to a point above the gorge near where the Gorge Discovery Center (formerly the Schoellkopf Geological Museum) is now. This canal was not built for navigation but to harness water power on a large scale.

A wide variety of mills had wheel pits dug down to the level of the lower river and allowed water from the canal to drop down the pits and turn large wheels with the kinetic energy thus produced. In other words, the same technology that had come along and had put Niagara's first main operation out of business gave us our second main operation, water power.

Today, however, Niagara Falls finds that this operation is no longer providing the city with a living. The low-cost electricity that attracted so many industries that made use of electrolysis is no longer a factor. The tax base of the city is unable to support ambitious development plans.

From a visual perspective, the Canadians own the falls and so most tourists go to that side. I have talked and written to several people in foreign countries who have been to Niagara Falls and were not even aware that there was a city named Niagara Falls or anything to do on the American side.

My belief is that the same forces that have eliminated Niagara Falls' second main focus of operation is also providing our third. This is, of course, exactly what happened when canals came along here and eliminated the Portage but introduced large-scale water power. This second great changing force in the area is globalization. The manufacturing that was previously done here can now be done much more cost-effectively in other countries. We cannot reasonably expect these industries to stay here.

But globalization has greatly increased international tourism. The same force that ended large-scale manufacturing here is also offering our next basis of operation. Yes, I know that the vast majority of tourists to the area go to the Canadian side. But that is only because the American side has not yet really grasped this third wave.

What the American side of Niagara Falls has is the best thing of all. Have you ever noticed the tower by the American Falls? Most people in the city do not seem to pay too much attention to it. Of course, it is not actually within the city limits of Niagara Falls but on the state-owned Niagara reservation. For our purpose, that does not matter.

Has it ever occurred to you that this tower is actually on of the most-photographed buildings in the world? That tower is inevitably in the majority of photos taken of the falls from the Canadian side. Who can imagine the millions upon millions of images of that tower that are scattered around the world?

What I want to ask is why on earth is a struggling city like Niagara Falls, NY not making the most out of this tower? This tower is in a class with Big Ben, The Empire State Building, The Eiffel Tower, The Pyramids and so on. We have just not gotten around to recognizing this.

All truly great monuments that people will cross the world to see have some primal meaning or resonance. Big Ben stands for time, it's resonance is that it is built not far from the Prime Meridian. The Pyramids stand for eternity because they are from far across time. The Eiffel Tower just stands for the soaring human spirit as well as the age of industrialization when people started making all manner of things out of metals. Las Vegas stands for striking it rich, it's resonance is the west where there used to be gold rushes. The Empire State Building stands for capitalism, it is built not far from Wall St. The Great Wall of China stands for civilization, it is a wall to keep out the uncivilized barbarians.

All great monuments must have this primal meaning and resonance whether people are actually aware of it or not. However, there is no set rules for what a great monument must be. When people travel, they rely on the locals to "tell" them what is really important in their area. A monument can be little more than a pile of rocks. But if the locals really consider it as important, you can be sure that people will find out about it and many will go to see it.

What about water? Except for oxygen, it is the most important thing to us. We are absolutely dependent on a supply of fresh water. Today, water is becoming more important simply because of it's scarcity. The world has essentially a fixed supply of fresh water (not salt water) yet it has an exploding population. Every day, there is less fresh water per person in the world than the day before.

Despite the importance of water to human beings and to all life, as far as I know there is no significant monument in the world to celebrate it. In the past, it may have been too abundant relative to population to worry much about but that is not so any longer. Don't you think the world should have a fine monument to celebrate this chemical that is so vital to life?

But where would be the best place in the world to have such a monument to celebrate water? I do not mean the oceans or navigation on water but fresh water itself. I can think of no better place than the city that stands for water, Niagara Falls. The Great lakes are the largest reserve of fresh water in the world and Niagara Falls is the focal point of the Great Lakes.

Instead of building a monument to water, what about one that we already have. Our tower by the American Falls is already one of the most photographed buildings in the world. It is built alongside the falls in such a way that the shaft of the tower, colored blue and representing water, supports the deck, representing civilization. This acknowledges the fact that civilization has always been supported by and dependent on water. There are even patterns on the blue shaft of the tower that seem to be representing waves.

Not only does Niagara Falls have this tower, it also has the Robert Moses Power Plant. This plant is just about the best example of a hydroelectric generating plant in the world. It is newer and more efficient than either the Adam Beck plants on the Canadian side or Boulder Dam. This will also be a focal point of our focus on celebrating water and will represent to the world the use of water to generate power.

Niagara Falls also has a state-of-the-art drinking water purification plant on Buffalo Ave. This will be another focal point. Bus tours should leave the falls area at regular intervals to bring tourists to be guided through these two plants. They should go back home with a new appreciation of water. Another thing that tops off our emphasis on water is the aquarium not far from the tower.

The Portage and the large-scale manufacturing are gone. This focus on water and the tower by the falls is the only practical thing that I can think of to bring about Niagara Falls' next wave of greatness. This tower is not something that we have to build, it is something that is already there. It already has millions of dollars of free publicity in the way of photographs taken from the falls from the Canadian side. If the people of the area really adored this tower, this would already be our bread and butter.

It is vital for Niagara Falls, NY not to put emphasis on the falls themselves. Remember that, from a visual perspective, the Canadians own the falls. They can inevitably be seen much better from the Canadian side.

But when those millions of tourists look at the falls, they are seeing our tower. We must shift the emphasis from the falls to the tower. The tower is more important than the falls. The falls just happens to be where the tower is located.

Great monuments that people cross the world to see tend to have another thing in common. The fact that they are easily rendered in graphical form. Like Big Ben, The Eiffel Tower, The Empire State Building, The Pyramids and, The CN Tower, our tower is easily rendered on a t-shirt, a photo or, a souvenir.

Do not ask people if they are coming to see the falls, ask then if they are coming to see the Niagara Tower, as I think we should call it. The more people that come to the Canadian side, the more people will see the tower. Let all official photos of Niagara Falls personnel be taken with the tower in the background. Let's make it to be an honor to have one's photograph taken with the tower in the background.

The tower should appear on signs in the city, on menus in restaurants and in business names. Where is The Niagara Tower Motel? The Niagara Tower Restaurant? The Niagara Tower Taxi Service? The Niagara Tower Souvenir Shop?

There should be models of the tower throughout the city. There should be photographs of it on the walls of important places. What about souvenir clocks with a replica of the tower as the base of the clock?

Since it is the mission of Niagara Falls to make the world appreciate it's water, fountains should be common across the city and the area. Remember, water is our future just as it has been our past. I can say with certainty that if this plan does not work for Niagara Falls, it is because we did not handle it right.

As if this was not enough going for Niagara Falls already, what about aluminum? How many people in Niagara Falls know or care that this is where aluminum became a cheap and easily available metal.

A man named Charles Hall came to Niagara Falls with the intention of providing the world with inexpensive aluminum. He was attracted, of course, by the cheap electricity available here. The process that he developed, The Hall Process, used electrolysis to refine aluminum from it's ore.

Aluminum is actually very abundant, clay contains large amounts of aluminum, but it was difficult and expensive to get at until The Hall Process was developed and used at Niagara Falls. Aluminum cannot be smelted like most other common metals. In fact, Napoleon once had a set of knives and forks made of aluminum. He would use this aluminum set, instead of a gold set, on really important occasions.

Are you now thinking what I'm thinking about aluminum? What would the past hundred years have been like without aircraft? Airplanes as we know them are absolutely dependent on a reasonably inexpensive supply of aluminum for construction.

What other material can large airplanes be made of? Steel is strong but it is heavy and it rusts. I really cannot picture steel airplanes. Plastics are a possibility but the development of plastics that could practically be used in aircraft construction has happened relatively recently.

Aircraft has been dependent on aluminum, almost as much as civilization has been dependent on water. This is really starting to look like a very good picture for Niagara Falls. This the place to celebrate flight and aluminum as well as water.

That is not all there could be here. The cheap electricity for electrolysis led Edward Dean Acheson to Niagara Falls too. This became a manufacturing center for carborundum, silicon carbide. Carborundum was the hardest abraisive except diamond dust, which was prohibitively expensive for large-scale use.

Along the way to perfecting his carborundum-making technique, Acheson accidentally discovered how to refine graphite here. Where would the world be without pencils, of which the "lead" is actually graphite. The world should know that all of this is thanks to Niagara Falls, NY.