Old Falls Street – Niagara Falls, New York
Old Falls Street had a need to bring some added vitality to their downtown area near the Niagara Falls State Park. Several hotels, a conference center, and a visitor center are located there. The Quality Inn (240 1st St) had a quarter-acre lot of approximately 365 feet by 100 feet. Boundaries include the Bollywood Lounge & Legend Bar and Grill connected to the hotel with an entrance at one end of the space, the hotel along the wall of a long side, and streets along the remaining two edges. This dedicated three-block historic cobblestone street connects the entrance of Niagara Falls State Park with the Niagara Falls Convention Center.
During the warmer seasons, this public space transforms into a free, family-friendly urban backyard playground. The interventions selected to fill the space represent a veritable encyclopedia of low-cost interventions to activate public spaces:
- Interactive Features:
- Classic Lawn Games: Multiple outdoor activities available for open play, including several sets of cornhole boards, life-sized Connect Four setups, and giant outdoor chess or checkers sets.
- Tabletop Activities: Free public-use equipment including durable outdoor ping-pong tables and foosball tables situated along the paved walkways.
- Public Seating: Clusters of bright blue, red, and wood-toned Adirondack lounge chairs alongside shady patio umbrellas for tourists to rest between viewing the waterfalls.
- Planters
- Movable chairs and tables
- Adirondack chairs
- Movie Screenings
These all had varying degrees of success and durability. The foosball table looks worse for wear. A cover to go over it during bad weather might help it last longer. The chalk boards also need to be periodically cleaned, as the messages sometimes are quite negative.
Overall this placemaking effort is a welcome addition attracting people and generating activity, even on a less busy late Thursday afternoon. What will be interesting to see is whether or how Niagara Falls iterates this design to more permanent programming for this important site.
This wayfinding sign highlights activities happening on Old Falls Street. One side features special events and the other side features movie and concerts. The use of vibrant colors evokes a summer feeling and a kid-and-family-friendly vibe.
Jumbo Jenga blocks on this low slung platform provide an opportunity for people to get face-to-face and eye level with their balancing blocks.
Movable furniture like this lets people customize their space. Most people before sitting down will slightly move a chair.
A unique feature here was a Lego wall on 4×4 beams. As we learnt during our visit to Legoworld in Florida, they are surprisingly weather and also sun resistant. People showed some real creativity in the designs and messages they left behind.
Slightly less engaging are these pictures of boats. They channel the water proximate setting but do not accomplish much from a selfie backdrop perspective. What they do well is screen the building behind and also semi-enclose the space.
This jumbo Checkers board gives another opportunity for some outdoor fun and recreation. Here you can see people took the checkers and made a tower. Very creative.
Hop scotch is a favorite game. The overly close proximity of so many activities with so few users, at least at the time we visited, does lend towards clutter and chaos.
Jumbo Connect Four is a fun game too. One wonders, however, whether two identical game boards are needed side by side, or if one could be placed out only as usage demands.
This chalcboard wall “My Favorite Thing About Niagara Falls” gets some falls-related responses, though plenty of other comments that have nothing to do with the falls at all.
An outdoor pingpong table and foosball table provide additional activities. The location closest to the inside space might be because they need someone who can store the paddles and balls for these games when not in use.
Finally, cornhole finishes off the exhaustive list of play and recreation activities.
One final photograph shows all of the elements together.