As I took a drive down Niagara Street the last day of March I had this saying in my head. I drove all the way to North Tonawanda thinking of the environmental devastation that has occurred along the river. I think about what it must have looked like before, before it became an industrial waste toilet. I thought about how the native people must have admired it's awesome power. I wonder if any of them ever got sucked over the falls while they were in a canoe, or ever used it to kill themselves? Could they even use a canoe on the Niagara?
My pictures are incomplete. Since I was driving by myself, I wasn't able to take many photos. Along the Niagara you can find the GM Powertrain plant, landfills, and numerous other monstrosities with the occasional glimpse of beauty, especially in Lewiston.
Most of the industry is long gone. The question is though, what have they left behind?
I parked my car here on Niagara and Albany. There was a path that leads to some train tracks...
Choo choo!
Check out this satelite image of the bridge
This mural on the side of an abandoned Agway building says it all
This is one of the most economically devastated areas in the country...but we all know that.
Porn along the way
These next two buildings are cool
At this point things got real ugly. I need to take the trip again with someone else to get more of the nastier pics.
My voyage ended here at the River Walk in N. Tonawanda. There were lots of people out that day. The air was incredibly nasty, and I wondered why people go there for fun. In Western New York, like many areas of the world, we do not have the right to breath clean air.
uncutsaniflush,
I hope that you or anyone else for that matter do not take my pictures and words as an attack on the area in which we live. It is good to remember like you do the individual lives that were behind the industry. Those people made Buffalo one of the top cities of the U.S. Unfortunately, I often dwell upon the individual lives that have been touched by cancer and disease in the area due to the processing of toxic metals and uranium ore. I get kind of angry at the owners of industry which refused to take precautions with workers health and who shamefully dumped toxic and often radioactive materials into our environment. Many of those shameful people have abandoned these buildings as the cost of properly cleaning them up is too much. These people, along with their money are gone...leaving behind contaminants that are here to stay.
I'm sure there probably is much you can show me...got a bike?
There is a solemn beauty in decaying industrial areas. I look at them and think of the hopes and dreams of the people who built the buildings and of the people who worked in them trying to build a life for themselves and their families and friends.
we live two blocks from Niagara on Birds so we are fairly familiar with the area.
Good photos. I think b/w suits such scenes.