Niagara Falls

The French first built at the mouth of the Niagara River with the permission of the Iroquois, and later raised Fort Niagara there to control the route between the Great Lakes; the British took the fort in 1759 and stayed until 1796. The Seneca Nation, one of the Iroquois nations, runs a casino downtown today. The falls drew visitors from early on — sightseeing boats have run below them since 1846 — and the villages of Manchester and Suspension Bridge grew up along the river.

Scientists and businessmen in the 19th century began harnessing the river for electricity, and cheap hydroelectric power drew manufacturers. The city of Niagara Falls was incorporated on 17 March 1892 from Manchester and Suspension Bridge, and for much of the 20th century petrochemical, abrasive and metallurgical plants were its main employers, drawing large numbers of immigrant workers. Meanwhile campaigners to free the falls from private development won the creation of the Niagara Reservation in 1885, now Niagara Falls State Park.

In 1956 part of the gorge wall collapsed onto the Schoellkopf Power Plant just downstream of the American Falls, and Robert Moses built a new plant in nearby Lewiston. After the 1960s industry declined. In 1978 toxic waste from a chemical landfill beneath the Love Canal neighbourhood led President Jimmy Carter to declare a state of emergency, the first for a disaster that was not natural, and most of the area was evacuated. The city's population has since fallen from over 102,000 in 1960 to less than half that, and it has tried repeatedly to reinvent itself around tourism.

Life here is shaped by the falls and by the border. The two cities called Niagara Falls face each other across the gorge, and the contrast is part of local conversation: the Canadian side is more commercialised, while on the American side the shore around the falls has been a public reservation since 1885. A statue of Nikola Tesla in the state park honours the role of the falls in the history of electric power.

The region's Haudenosaunee heritage is visible in the Seneca Nation's casino and hotel downtown, opened in 2002 in the former convention centre, and the city's place on the Underground Railroad is told at the heritage centre in the old customhouse by the station. Pine Avenue's Little Italy recalls the immigrant workers who came for the factory jobs.

Like much of Western New York, Niagara Falls is a working-class place that shares Buffalo's food traditions. Niagara University and SUNY Niagara, the county's two colleges, add students to the area.

About 48,700 people lived in the city at the 2020 census, less than half its 1960 peak of about 102,000, as manufacturing jobs disappeared. Tourism, driven by the falls, is now the main industry, alongside the Seneca casino and the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station. A 2012 state report described a city that had "struggled through decades of population losses, rising crime and repeated attempts to reinvent itself".

Residents live in neighbourhoods such as DeVeaux by the gorge, the North End along Highland Avenue, Hyde Park near the municipal golf course, Little Italy along Pine Avenue and LaSalle in the east, built up from the 1940s to the 1960s. Most of the Love Canal neighbourhood was evacuated in the 1980s.

The city has a strong-mayor government; the current mayor is Robert Restaino. Daily life is car-based and suburban in rhythm, with the downtown tourist district busiest in summer and quiet in the snowy winters.

Niagara Falls has its own style of pizza: baked in a square pan and cut into squares, with a thin crust that stays soft and a sauce seasoned with oregano and a faint sweetness. The stretch of Niagara Street between Portage Road and Hyde Park Boulevard is known for the pizzerias that make it, and the big national chains have little presence in the city.

The rest of the menu is shared with Buffalo, a short drive up the river, which invented chicken wings — fried and tossed in hot sauce, served with blue-cheese dip — and beef on weck, thin-sliced roast beef on a salty kummelweck roll with horseradish. Wings are standard in the city's bars, and frozen custard, ice cream and Italian water ice are summer favourites.

Pine Avenue's Little Italy has long been the place for Italian American cooking in large portions. Downtown, the Niagara Falls Culinary Institute occupies the former Rainbow Centre outlet mall, and its restaurant serves pizza, pasta, steaks and seafood.