Another long Fourth of July weekend has come and gone, and many in the tourism industry here are left feeling that the sun-drenched holiday missed yet another opportunity to capitalize on as many as 100,000 who passed through town, for the most part briefly, on their way to the state park, the casino or Canada.
At the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp. facility in the former Artisan's Alley at the corner of Rainbow Boulevard and First Street, sales of sightseeing tours were halted by the city after it was discovered that none of the salespeople had the required licenses.
On Main Street between Chilton and Cedar, the "Positively Main Street Art/Music/Food Festival" drew a smattering of curiosity-seekers, mostly from the surrounding neighborhood. The wide thoroughfare seemed ill-suited for a street fair, there was little respite from the blazing sun, and more than a few hungry attendees searched in vain around dinnertime for a sausage-and-peppers sandwich, long a mainstay of the Niagara Falls street-fair scene.
At the same time, a throng of confused tourists could be found on the city's East Mall attempting to gain entrance to the closed Smokin' Joe's Family Fun Center in the former Wintergarden, the shuttered and unfortunately named Conference Center Niagara Falls, or anywhere else they might be able to get out of the sun for a moment and have a cold glass of lemonade.
"What the state is doing in downtown Niagara Falls is an utter disgrace," state Sen. George Maziarz said. "They get a million dollars a year out of the city's casino revenue, and on the biggest weekend of the tourist season there is absolutely nothing for tourists to do downtown."
On Third Street, where the state and the city have spent millions attempting to build an "entertainment district" similar to the Elmwood Strip in Buffalo, the weekend passed much like any other. Downtown regulars discussed how much livelier the block used to be, before the state had taken an interest in it. It was a strange paradox, they all agreed.
One of the few downtown locations where any action could be found was One Niagara, the former Aqua Falls building just off the Rainbow Bridge at the state park entrance. The place was mobbed and the parking lot was full. Vendors did a brisk business in everything from Niagara Falls T-shirts to Chinese food. You could hardly turn around.
The vibe at One Niagara is reminiscent of Seattle's Pike Place Market, where locals and visitors can mingle, lunch or just relax amid a bustling carnival-like atmosphere that's fun and entertaining just for itself.
Owner Frank Parlato, who frequently advertises in this newspaper, says that between his parking lot, the food court and the souvenir stands, he's got more than 200 people working at the building full time. He has been a frequent and sometimes bitter critic of the way both the city and the state have seemingly gone out of their way to ensure failure for seasonal businesses downtown.
"The state ripped the heart out of the tourist district, both with the state park and by giving the casino concession to the Senecas," Parlato said. "The casino and the park are like black holes that suck the tourist and his money in, while the city and private business get left with the crumbs." Parlato's ongoing war with City Hall, therefore, is even more frustrating.
"The city wants to tell me where I can park cars on my own property," he said. "Meanwhile, they run a filthy and dangerous parking ramp across the street, which ought to be condemned, and have more patronage employees working there than I've got at my lot, which has been full since Memorial Day."
Some city officials share Parlato's frustration. Vince Catanzaro, a member of the city's Tourism Advisory Board who has been in business downtown since 1949, is one.
"Look, we've got the same number of people on Niagara Street as they do across the river on Clifton Hill," he said. "The problem is that ours are driving by in cars and theirs are on foot. We've got to focus on the tourism business as it exists, not the way this guy or that guy thinks it should be."
Efforts by the state to promote the Niagara Wine Trail, the Lockport Locks and other regional attractions to tourists coming to visit Niagara Falls are doomed from the start.
"Every study they've done for the past 50 years shows that the vast majority of tourists who come here want to see the falls, and spend a day, or maybe two, here," he said. "They don't have time to be driving all the way out to Lockport; a lot of the time they've driven hundreds of miles just to get here."
Catanzaro said that, while he's been a downtown fixture since before they were born, state Rep. Francine Del Monte, state Sen. Antoine Thompson and Mayor Paul Dyster have shown no interest in what he, the Tourism Advisory Board or others involved in the tourism business here have to say.
"Just look at the signs. If you come downtown on the Robert Moses, you're taken right into the state park. You don't even see the city," he said. "And for those coming in on Route 62, there isn't one sign downtown to tell them where anything is."
Most tourists, he said, turn on Main Street, where they're directed to the falls by a small sign, and end up in the state park or, worse, on the Rainbow Bridge headed to Canada.
"Look at Third Street, it's a disaster," he said. "The state spent millions on that and there's not one sign on Main Street to even tell you it's there."
Months ago, Catanzaro went public with his concerns, and both the City Council and the Tourism Advisory Board passed resolutions recommending two signs on Main Street, at the intersections of Pine Avenue and Walnut Avenue. All told, the signs would have cost around $8,000 to put up and would direct out-of-towners toward Third Street, Little Italy and nearby malls, along with the falls and the bridge.
"It would be such a simple thing, and it would definitely benefit businesses throughout the city," he said. "Mayor Dyster assured us he would approve it, but he's done nothing at all."
Why not?
"He told me he didn't want to get egg on his face doing the wrong thing."
Catanzaro said that city signage directing travelers into the city rather than into the state park could generate as much as $1.8 million in parking revenue alone during the course of a 100-day tourist season.
"That could have happened this year, but we've got a mayor who seems too scared to do anything at all," he said.
Likewise, Del Monte has been notable only for her apparent indifference to the needs of the tourism industry in the falls, he added.
"The only times I've ever heard from her is when I've said something in the paper," he said. "She'll call, say she's looking into it, and then we never hear from her again."
If there is a solution to the state and local governments' utter failure to effect any meaningful change in downtown Niagara Falls, it quite likely will result from people who actually depend on the tourism district for their livelihoods, rather than on politicians whose actual agendas are often quite different than their election-year rhetoric.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 8 2008 |