Quote:
Originally Posted by brickell
Huge? New? Are there any on the American side? I honestly have no idea, that's why I asked.
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There is only one very large newer hotel on the U.S. side, though the two best hotels are both renovations of older buildings.
I stayed at the Giacomo Plaza, a boutique hotel near the Falls (one of the two renovated office buildings), and it was quite nice. I was there for business, but it seemed like most folks there were falls tourists.
I drove around the city a bit, and it didn't seem that bad. Certainly nothing like traditional Rust Belt places like Gary, East St. Louis, Flint, etc.
It looked like typical somewhat worse-for-wear Great Lakes working class small town, same as most places from Wisconsin to Western NY. There's a pretty island park that is really world-class.
Downtown, actually seemed to be on the upswing. The main commercial street (maybe it was called Main Street?) had a number of new restaurants/bars, and obvious renovation activity for new restaurants. I ate at some panini place and all the other patrons seemed to be Europeans or Indians (maybe the tourist visas don't allow you to cross into Canada?).
The park area (closest to the Falls) is very nice. Seems much nicer (at least from a naturalistic perspective) than the Canadian side.
The downtown section that needs major improvement is the portion between the Main Street strip, the casino area, and the Falls themselves. There's a few blocks between these attractions, with tons of parking lots and the like. This was kind of a dead zone, which was weird, because there were obviously many tourists walking around, but not really anything on those blocks for the tourists. Just scruffy parking lots.
For some reason, there were many Indian food vendors on these parking lots (again, is this because tourists can't access Canada, or is there a special draw among South Asian tourists to Niagara Falls?)