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Saturday, 21st May 2005 by Alex Turnbull
Overlooking Niagara Falls (and complete with rotating dining room), here is the 520 foot (160m) Skylon Tower. Bet you get a great view of the falls when you’re up there!
Thanks to Chris Granger.
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
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You can even see the Maid of the Mist near the Horseshoe Falls.
if you go downstream from the falls a little there is a blurred out area. something top secret there?
The “blurred out area” is actually imagery from the original U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) government satellites. There are many areas of the United States that still have these old images in lieu of the high-resolution pictures we are accustomed to seeing today.
Both the Skylon Tower and Minolta Tower offer excellent views of the Niagara Falls from the Canadian side. Better yet is the up close and personal views available on Goat Island (free) and the Maid of the Mist (pay) tour, both available from the United States.
I have fond memories of the falls area during the Christmas holiday. The Rainbow Center Mall and adjacent park areas were nicely decorated and a nearby office building had an elaborate set-up where the windows on the front of the building would respond to music they had playing.
I moved away from the area in 1989 and things have changed there significantly since then. Casino resorts and large hotels now fill the landscape, while previous attractions (such as Skylon) have become less popular. What used to be a busy shopping facility and food court in the space below Skylon has been relegated to a large and mostly unused arcade.
At least I have an old Skylon Tower shot glass and lots of photographs.
Niagra Falls is the greatest resort town… Whenever I get the chance I go over to the clubs on the Canadian side, get wasted, and pick up some nice tourist girls
… I go to college near Rochester so its just an hour and a half drive or so.
Interestingly, the “blurred out area” is actually the location of the large hydro-electric facility that processes the majority of water flowing between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. There is an intake that diverts most of the water to the reservoir that feeds this facility, thus allowing the flow over Niagra Falls to be regulated and kept low enough to slow down further erosion of the falls.
The Skylon Tower may be the taller of the two, but the Minolta Tower has a hotel at its highest level!
That blurred out area has the intakes for the power plant, but the plant itself is a couple miles downstream from the falls, near Lewiston. The blurred out are is Occidental Chemical corporation. They make and store some NASTY caustic chemicals there. It’s interesting that that area is blurred out when everywhere around it is clear.
I have been in the restaurant at the top of the skylon tower. It revolves once every hour. It gives an amazing view of the falls at sunset and on clear days you can see all the way to Toronto. The lights that are shown on the falls at sunset are spectacular and the skylon tower provides a wonderful view of them.