At some point years back, we wrote an editorial wondering why signage directing visitors to the downtown Niagara Falls Aerospace Museum was still up when the facility had closed its doors two or three years earlier.
It was another lost attraction without anything taking its place. The landscape improved downtown in the years after but it was a sad time back in 2008 when the museum had to leave its site at the former Carborundum Center building on 4th Street after it was purchased by Seneca Gaming for use as an office building.
It took a while to find another landing spot, but the aerospace museum eventually set down at the former Niagara Falls International Airport terminal building in 2013.
On the surface, it seems like a fitting spot for a facility dedicated to our area’s ties to the aerospace industry. Many of its aircraft on display come from the Bell and Curtiss-Wright aerospace companies based in Western New York, along with artifacts associated with Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart, and the NASA Apollo missions to the moon.
Unfortunately, it’s in a tough spot to draw tourists, somewhat off the beaten track for visitors who zero in on downtown Niagara Falls and the state park. It’s even too far out of the way for the Discover Niagara Shuttle, which stops at dozens of sites in the area.
The former terminal itself also isn’t ideal, says the aerospace museum’s executive director, Lindsay Lauren Visser. Both its condition, which was constructed in the 1950s, and the fact that it was never intended to house a museum work against the facility’s future.
With all that in mind, aerospace officials are bidding on a 3.1-acre site located on the Hydraulic Canal site between First, Second, Niagara, and Main streets in downtown Niagara Falls. If selected, it would construct a new museum meant to have a broader appeal and be a greater community resource both inside and outside Niagara County.
“We’ve got this great vision for the aerospace museum,” said Executive Director Lindsay Lauren Visser. “It would benefit from all the tourism and would ensure the museum’s long-term stability.”
They have the support of state Assemblyman Angelo Morinello, who says it can help anchor further development and draw visitors from the state park.
“Niagara Falls already has natural wonders,” Morinello wrote in a letter last week. “What it needs is a deeper story, one that connects the roar of the water to the roar of jet engines and rocket launches. The Niagara Aerospace Museum tells that story, honoring the community of workers and engineers who built machines that broke barriers, protected the nation, and carried humanity beyond the earth. It is both our local and national legacy.”
We couldn’t agree more. As Morinello said, downtown Niagara Falls needs attractions as badly as the aerospace museum needs a venue change.
A new, updated facility downtown would be a great thing for local tourism.
Visser said museum officials are working with Hadley Exhibits to come up with the potential displays. Somethings she described as more immersive, entertaining, educational, and STEM-focused to help encourage a career in aerospace.
We’re still awaiting word on the bid for the former Hydraulic Canal parcel downtown and we know there are others with interest. Whatever happens, we hope this gets the ball rolling on the Niagara Falls Aerospace Museum’s return to where it should have been all along, downtown Niagara Falls.