On sunny days, kaleidoscopic rainbows form a luminous halo over Niagara Falls. At night, nearby Luna Island once boasted shimmering moonlight rainbows. A rare phenomenon occurring when moonlight strikes the mist, these lunar bows disappeared centuries ago, a casualty of urban development and just about the time love built my rainbow.
Photograph of mural of Niagara Falls, 2010, image Courtesy of the Artist.
Pots of Gold
My rainbow in Niagara County is a different sort of arc. The child of divorced parents, I split my time between two homes, spending the bulk of it at my mom’s on Cayuga Island (see map 1). This suburban oasis was home to both sets of grandparents as well as several aunts and uncles. Located a few miles upstream from the falls, the island encompasses 200 acres of riverfront property, a few hundred houses and a large park. Once considered as a site for the 1901 Pan American Exposition, it was my magical playground.
My dad’s home was further north on Creek Road in Youngstown (see map 2). In this bucolic landscape, my brothers and I spent weekends exploring the woods behind the house or frolicking in Four Mile Creek. As I wandered the countryside, my imagination took flight, creating what became some of my fondest memories.
Most of my childhood was spent alternating between these two idyllic spots on either end of my personal rainbow.
Above: Map 1 - Cayuga Island off the mainland of Niagara Falls, in the Niagara River. 111 Council is where I grew up with my mom. Just across the “little river” is Love Canal. You will notice in the map that Love Canal does not appear to go all the way to the river but the blank land does. The toxins are still buried in that land but they renamed it when they built the LaSalle Expressway.
Cayuga Island - One End of My Rainbow
There is only one drawback to living on Cayuga Island. It is less than 100 feet from Love Canal. Remember in the late 1970s, when the toxic dump contaminated an entire neighborhood beneath it?
Yep, that Love Canal! A stone’s throw away, Cayuga Island was never evacuated or even tested for chemical contamination. A 30-foot “little river” divides the island from mainland Niagara Falls, right at the point where Love Canal converges with the Niagara River and the “little river.” (See map 1).
On warm summer nights, I sat in my best friend’s backyard, around a bonfire, gazing across the “little river” to Love Canal. Tall grassy mounds and a rusted chain-link fence lined the shore on the other side, dubious protection from a toxic dump.
Growing up, I always knew Love Canal represented something terrible, but it was not part of the typical discourse about living on Cayuga Island. Living there meant family gatherings, playing outside with friends, and looking out at the mighty Niagara River. Our picturesque, secluded neighborhood was a comfortable distance from the bustling mainland.
Rural Life - The Other End of My Rainbow
Danger was the farthest thing from my mind when I played in the woods behind my dad’s house.
But later in life, I discovered the frightening reality. Over half the world’s radium is stored at the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, just a mile from my dad’s house. My younger brothers, who lived there full time, attended the Lewiston-Porter Schools. The school property borders the radioactive waste site. Anecdotal and factual evidence confirm alarming rates of cancer among workers, school children, and residents. This gives me pause about the woods in which I played as a child.
Recently, I toured the site with my dad. When I was young, we drove past it all the time - 7,500 acres of land. How did we not know it existed? Today, the danger, camouflaged by lush woods, is surrounded by a porous chain-link fence. No signs, just an occasional gated entry. Nothing more.
Above: Map 2 - 3399 Creek Road, my dad’s old house and it’s location compared to the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, taken from google earth.
The Man with a dream who created a nightmare - William T. Love
How do the two ends of my rainbow connect?
In the late 1800s, William T. Love began construction of a shipping lane from the upper Niagara River to Lake Ontario, future home of "Model City," an urban utopian society with stunning parks and homes. The shipping lane began where Love Canal met the Niagara River, but when funding dried up, the project was abandoned.
Eventually, it became a dumping ground for the City of Niagara Falls and chemical companies like Hooker Chemical, resulting in the Love Canal disaster.
Eight hundred families were evacuated from that area in the late 1970s, and a portion of the canal was capped off. But the homes tainted by toxic chemicals were never removed. Instead, they were bulldozed, dumped into their basements, and left there.
Little of the area was fenced off. Eventually, residents were allowed to move back, despite the absence of scientific data regarding its safety. But the homes here were relatively inexpensive, good starter homes for many young families. I did not live in this area. But my home on Cayuga Island was just across the "little river," as close to Love Canal as the evacuated houses. No one talked about that.
Love's proposed utopian society, "Model City," was to be located on the grounds of what is now the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. By WWII, the land designated for Model City became the government's dumping ground for the Manhattan Project's radioactive waste. It occupies an area of the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works called Niagara Falls Storage Site (NFSS). None of the radioactive material has been removed.
Until the 1980s, it sat in open silos, exposed to the air. It was a repository for half the world's known radium and also housed a TNT plant and multiple other military facilities, including Nike Missile storage. This site borders many homes and working farms where fruits and vegetables are grown.
From 1967-70, Lewiston-Porter third-graders occupied a temporary school building, allowing for the expansion of the main structure. The interim facility lay literally on top of the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works. These third graders are now in their sixties, but few remain to tell their stories. For those who want answers, no formal documentation exists.
Above: Map 3 - You can see Love Canal and my Cayuga Island home at the Southern end of the map, right on the Niagara River. My dad’s home and the Lake Ontario Ordnance Works/Model City are at the Northern end of the map, and just off the map North of that is Lake Ontario. Love’s planned shipping lane is the rainbow.
It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s, that I learned that the woods behind my dad's house, where I played as a child, are only two miles from the Manhattan Project radioactive waste site. Just two miles!
Is it a coincidence that both of my childhood homes were adjacent to two of the most toxic areas of Niagara County? How many people are blissfully unaware of the danger lurking nearby? Unwittingly, they celebrate their luck at securing an affordable home in a nice neighborhood.
Is our ignorance to blame? Who should be held accountable?
The landscape of Niagara Falls has a long history of exploitation by humans who inhabited it. What if Love had gotten the funding he needed to build the canal and the utopian society?
This one small edit to history could have exponentially changed the health and well-being of generations to come. Rather than a reckless industrial boom, Love may have created an homage to the glory of nature and the goodness of humankind; and my rainbow might have been a very different place.