Tightrope walk, gay weddings, casinos? Niagara Falls open to anything for economy’s sake

From the Associated Pres (via Canada.com):

In recent years, Niagara Falls has thrown open its doors to casino gambling, gay weddings and a tightrope walk that, until laws were relaxed, would have meant arrest.

It even briefly considered taking in toxic wastewater from hydraulic fracturing…

With its spectacular natural wonder — the famous waterfall that cascades over a cliff — tourism was the city’s main draw until the early 1900s, when the growth of numerous chemical plants fueled the rise of a hydropower-fueled industrial base. But industry started to lose steam in the late 1950s and ’60s, and a long, slow decline set in as the region’s manufacturing withered away.

Meanwhile, across the border in Niagara Falls, Ontario, the focus on tourism never waned, as the Canadian city put up hotels, restaurants, museums and other attractions, even as its New York counterpart was dealing with the 1970s toxic Love Canal contamination that caused the abandonment of an entire neighbourhood.

Now that the U.S. city’s old strategy of industry over tourism has been abandoned, a new economic plan appears to have emerged:

Try anything.

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