The other Niagara Falls
Renee of womanist musings, guest-blogging at Feministe:
When you think of the Niagara region immediately the mind turns to the majestic falls. Some who have spent more than an afternoon here will think of places like the Welland Canal, The Skylon Tower, Fallsview Casino, Clifton Hill, and maybe even the dearth of reasonably priced hotels, and restaurants. The aforementioned sites are the Niagara region you are supposed to think about. It is what you will find printed in all of those handy little pamphlets, that the tour guides like to give out. Yes the safe family destination, where everything is bright and sunny.What you will not hear about are the women that have been killed here since 1996. What if I were to whisper these names in your ear?
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I can't say that I'm surprised.
I grew up in Buffalo (if you don't know, it's about a 20-minute drive from Buffalo to the falls), and Niagara Falls was considered sort of a sketchy part of town. I'm not excusing these murders, of course, and I don't think they "had it coming" or that these women are at fault for their own deaths because of their line of work or location. I'm just not all that shocked. Once you get away from the waterfall, the Hard Rock Cafe and the casino, there's little magic or beauty. There's an outlet mall (that was crappy and not magical last time I was there, but I moved away in 2002, so it could have improved), but other than that, there's a lot of crime. And dirty motels.
And no, we never heard about these murders on the news. We heard about the Bike Path Killer and Barnett Slepian, but these were overlooked. Probably in favor of a play-by-play of the Bills' latest devastating loss, told by a man with a devastating mustache (don't question the Buffalo 'stache).
As an interesting (?) side note, the part of Buffalo I lived in was named the safest town in America several years in a row. I was in the same school district (but not the same school) as Slepian's kids.
And let's not forget Love Canal!
Of course, I just realized she might be talking about the Canadian side...I don't remember the names of landmarks on either side so I can't be certain.
Yeah Niagara falls is realllly sketchy. And I have been to that outlet mall and it is really crappy. Niagara falls isn't really the best vacation spot, especially for a 10 hour drive.
Since I grew up there, I didn't realize that people deliberately came to the area for vacations for a long time. When I found that out, the first time I heard about people honeymooning there, I was like, "why? there's nothing to do but look at falling water!"
I'm from Welland and in the paper it said the murderer of the two just got out the other day. He only spent two years in jail. Good to know you can kill someone in Canada and only go away for two years then you can move on with the rest of your life - what a joke. He probably was living the high life like Paul Bernardo, with a computer with the internet and a tv in his cell.