Construction has begun to remove a one-mile stretch of the Robert Moses Parkway (the road hugging the river embankment at right) to give people better access to the upper Niagara Gorge riverfront. Rainbow Bridge, just upriver from the falls, can be seen.
Aerial view by Mary Farrar, Niagara Falls Public Library.

The powerful current of the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, carved the 6.8 mile long Niagara Gorge. The falls themselves"?uHorseshoe, American and Bridal Veil"?ucombine to create the highest flow rate of any waterfall in the world.

The rise of mills and factories along the river after the Civil War threatened the beauty of the gorge and the Niagara's flow. Early environmentalists in the 1860s, led by Frederick Law Olmsted, founded the "Free Niagara' movement. Through their efforts, an appropriations bill was signed into law in 1885, creating the Niagara Reservation. This designation and funding allowed for the creation of Niagara Falls State Park, the first state park in the U.S.

Olmsted believed parks should be places of natural beauty where "the masses could be renewed," a philosophy he applied throughout his landscape design for Niagara Falls State Park. There was a network of footpaths through wooded areas and along the banks of the Niagara River. While the park has retained Olmsted's vision by maintaining native vegetation, some of the vistas and public access to the river have been lost. The reason is the Robert Moses Parkway, which runs along the U.S. side of the river. Access to the upper river and its rapids is not pedestrian friendly. It requires crossing a road and climbing down embankments to get close to the river.

Now, construction has begun to remove a one-mile stretch of the parkway to give people better access to the riverfront. The construction is part of a $40-million series of projects aimed at improving the visitor experience at Niagara. Two of those projects involve giving people better views of the river upstream from the falls and its rapids. This focus on improving pedestrian access to the river is a return to Olmsted's vision for Niagara, an environment where you come to the water's edge. The plan is removing some of the obstacles to the river, including lowering the grade 15 feet in some spots. Some say the new plan is rectifying "mistakes" or "interruptions" to the river made by Robert Moses. New sidewalks, crosswalks and paths are part of the plans.

Construction should be complete by fall 2015, and landscaping done by spring 2016.