Niagara Falls, already Number One in so many categories – is now poised to take the top spot in a competition to see which American city has squandered the most valuable real estate for use as surface parking lots, which often sit empty for large parts of the year. StreetsblogRead More

By Jordan Canahai An established writer, producer, and director as well as founder and President of the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival, few individuals have worked as hard to expand the film industry of Western New York as Bill Cowell. The Niagara Falls native’s passion for the arts can be tracedRead More

What were they thinking? Back in 2002, when the state of New York, under the leadership of then Gov. George Pataki, handed 50 prime acres of downtown Niagara Falls real estate to the Seneca Nation of Indians to settle the Grand Island land claim and allow the Seneca to openRead More

Stupidity and corruption of the part of city officials in Niagara Falls isn’t a recent development. It is a tradition that goes back to even before the founding of this great metropolis, on March 17, 1897. In fact, things started going downhill as early as 1885, with the creation ofRead More

The Hamister Hotel deal is exactly the sort of fiasco that makes Niagara Falls such a special place. Choose a politically connected “developer” who apparently doesn’t have any money, hand him a parcel of prime real estate for pennies on the dollar, along with tax breaks and other incentives, thenRead More

At the behest of the Niagara Falls City Council, the New York State Legislature created the city Water Board back in 2002. Locally, the primary cheerleader for spinning off the city’s water and wastewater treatment services was Paul Dyster, then a freshman Council member and now mayor of the city.Read More

By Emma Gibbs As another tourist season approaches, the New York State Parks Office is trying to fine tune a sale pitch explaining to some eight million annual visitors why the American side viewing area of the Horseshoe Falls is off limits. Terrapin Point, located at the western end ofRead More

Later this month, and for the second time during his five years in office, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will make a decision that has enormous implications for the future of Western New York’s water resources. The Governor will either deny or support the application of the small city of Waukesha, Wisconsin,Read More

In addition to calling for the termination of Niagara Falls Water Board Executive Director Paul Drof, city Councilman Ken Tompkins has introduced a resolution with Councilman Ezra Scott asking that all five members of the Water Board by approved by the mayor and the Council, so as to regain cityRead More

By Emma Gibbs Nowhere in either his proposed or adopted 2016 Budgets did Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster have the courage to introduce the plan he now wants to ask the City Council to approve sometime in April. You read it here first. Niagara Falls’ Chief Executive has plans toRead More

In perhaps his finest hour in his first year as a Niagara Falls city councilman, Kenneth Tompkins announced Wednesday night there will be a Memorial Day Parade this year only hours after the Veterans Memorial Commission had announced the parade had been suspended due to lack of funding.  And theRead More

Following our publication of the picture of “Peg, the witch,” last week, a purportedly ghostly presence which appeared against the backdrop of a black couch in a North Tonawanda home, we have been haunted by readers who claim they have seen ghostly visitors in their own homes. A few claimRead More