I was in a choir out east, that performed wherever. We were asked to do a show at the Bandshell in Niagara Falls (that’s east of the highway – sort of looks like Las Vegas off the strip and downtown, compared to the Falls side; you know, like people actually live there?) So we did.

July evening. 33C. 90% humidity. No wind. Facing East, into the almost setting sun (because that way the audience can see), so surface temperature somewhat higher than ambient. Oh, did I mention full formal uniform, wool suit, tie, and hat? You could listen to the sun setting by noticing which voice was out of time, because the sun blinded their view of the conductor.

There was *lots* of water “backstage”, and nobody actually fainted. Great show, though.

What I found most intriguing when I was there was how rundown the American side was near the falls. The only nice hotel/eatery/anything is the Indian Casino and most of the houses look like their abandoned and condemned. (Late night wandering looking for a drug store)

I too remember the falls being turned off, it was the year after we moved from outside Buffalo to the NYC area. I think we made a special trip back to Western New York the next summer just to see the Falls off!

I’m sure if I dug around in my Dad’s old slides I’d find the photos we took then, maybe even some 8mm movie film.

Yep. In order to shore up the rocks and clean out some of the debris, they diverted all the water over the horseshoe falls. What you had were the Niagara Cliffs. I wonder how rare those photos are, come to think of it. I’ve mentioned them to people before and they don’t believe me.

The thing that really gets me, is that the water over the falls is restricted now, during the day, I think it’s only something like 33% of it’s natural flow (at night they get it down to 15% or so IIRC). The rest is diverted to 1) slow the erosion and 2) generate a lot of hydro power.