Category: City of Niagara Falls

Klondike Hotel by Glenn Bridenbaker

                                            Warning: nudity, drug, and alcohol use

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The Klondike Hotel, 1974.
Image courtesy of the Niagara Falls Public Library, Petrie Collection

                               

The small railway hotel and tavern near the Rainbow Bridge of Niagara Falls, Ontario at Bridge St. and Erie St. was named seven times during its 125-year history.

For decades, the hotel was known for basic rooms, meals, stabling horses, and postal delivery.

Since its inception, the building had been called the Suspension Bridge (1853), the Waverly (1880s-90s), the Arlington (mid-1890s), the New Arlington (mid-1930s) the Erie Hotel and the Avon House (1950s), and, finally, the hotel was named the Klondike Hotel in 1960.

On the rough side of town, it became well known that, for regular, law-abiding folk, just going there was risky.       

Over the years, there were constant law enforcement interventions about alcohol, drug, health, solicitation, strip club, and vice regulations.

There were continuous police citations for a myriad of recidivist by-law and civil infractions and criminal code violations.

Lawlessness prevailed, and the characters around the scene acted with impunity;

The Klondike had become a well-known bane to the civilized community.

One day, while I was researching the interesting landowner lineage of the plot at Sam’s Montrose Hotel/Motel at Montrose and Lyons Creek roads in Niagara Falls (my research paper found at Niagara Falls Museum in the Thompson/Thomson files collection),

I was in a public telephone booth calling the hotel for deed information, and I became a part of a peculiar telephone call misconnection.  

I was confusedly speaking with a confused woman who was also telephoning Sam’s Montrose. I asked her name. She said her name was Cinnamon. Dare I say that I don’t know how she spelled her name.

Curious, I asked her where she was calling from. She replied, “the Klondike.” She added that she was working there. Intrigued, I felt a song coming on. I asked if I could meet her at the Klondike to talk person-to-person for ten to fifteen minutes, so I could take some notes. Honestly, that was my aim.

I went down to the Klondike to chat with this muse. As I walked through the door, facing me — three feet in front of me, on a raised runway stage — there was a full-frontal nude exotic dancer called Bambi.  She was gyrating to Stevie Wonder’s major hit “Sir Duke.” As I stood before her, she opened her arms wide and shimmied. I heard the blasting lyrics, “You can feel it all over, you can feel it all over, you can feel it all over.” Believe me, I could feel it all over. The small lobby’s barroom was overcrowded, and marijuana and drunkenness were apparent. Bedlam reigned everywhere.

I briefly spoke with Cinnamon; she was so completely unimpressive that I took no notes. There was no song arising from this occasion. I quickly left, sensing the high tension in the thick, smoky air.

Everything about the Klondike festered until the hotel met its final fate.

Thank goodness no one was injured, but the building sustained a dynamite explosion in 1978.

One wonders why, over time, the police investigator

Never caught the perpetrator. 

Rumors were that police facilitated the deed. The person(s) involved — never found.                                                      

Finally, in 1980, the officially condemned, unsafe building was demolished to the ground.                                                                                                       

The land where The Klondike once stood is presently part of the Niagara Falls Ontario Bus Terminal site.

Today, word on the street is that, in the shadow of the Klondike area’s history, it’s not a neighborhood to walk through in the dim light of night.       

Source: The author, 2026

Author’s note:

The poem “Klondike Hotel,” a Niagara Falls atypical rhyming piece is one of five   ̶   what I call ‘rambling poems’   ̶    comprising the unpublished work Rambling Reminiscences.

Glenn Bridenbaker:
Happily married to beautiful and wise muse wife Cheryl since 1967. Two brilliant sons, a gorgeous daughter. Two glorious granddaughters, an excellent grandson. Ontario residences: Toronto, Manitoulin Island, Wikwemikong Unceded Indigenous Reserve, Niagara Falls, and Ridgeway. Bibliophile. Musician. Nonprofessional writer. Amateur oil and watercolor painting. Novice Oriental Brush Painting. Art collector. Musical instruments and recorded music collector. Numismatist and philatelist. Dog and cat owner. Home vegetable, flower, and landscape gardener. Birdwatcher. Astronomy and space aficionado. Meaningful values include: know thyself, family, health, common sense, truth, logic, integrity, sharing, creativity, curiosity, quality, arts appreciation, and humor. Two years graduate student of Marshall McLuhan at the Centre for Culture and Technology.

Read more about the Klondike Hotel

Democracy: a Poem by Lori Lococo

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Councillor Lori Lococo speaking at the event

What is local democracy?
Is it quiet or is it loud?
Does it only involve a few?
Or does it involve a crowd?
What are the issues that matter?
Infrastructure, programs or taxes?
Can we break through all of the chatter?
Many different perspectives.  Some want and some need.
A lot to consider, yes indeed.
Who will benefit and who will be left behind?
Can democracy be kind?
In order to build, you must take part.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to start.

Source: The author, 2026

Lori Lococo is a long-time Niagara Falls (Ontario) City Councillor, and who works at Consult Niagara, which provides Project Management including Election Campaigns and Office Logistics.

This poem was written an an event held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Niagara Falls Poetry Project‘s website going live.  Lori gave greetings on behalf of the mayor and council, as well as reading this poem at the event. She has been a key player in the arts and culture community in Niagara Falls for many years.

Niagara Falls Arts & Culture Wall of Fame Nominations Open

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The City of Niagara Falls (Ontario) Arts & Culture Wall of Fame nominations are open until May 31.

Nominees must meet certain criteria, including:

  1. Outstanding achievement in their artistic or cultural field.
  2. A measurable impact on the Niagara Falls community must be illustrated municipally, provincially, nationally, or internationally.
  3. A person must have resided in Niagara Falls and/or have Niagara Falls as the main venue for their art for an extensive period of time.

Click here to go to the city’s nomination page

Our Lady’s Knights by M. of I. Heart

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Loretto Academy after the fire of January 10, 1938. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library


A tribute to the Faculty and students of Mount Carmel College, who rushed to the rescue as the fire of January 10 devastated Loretto Academy.

Our Lady’s Knights of Carmel,
Whose inner life is led
Upon the mountain peaks of prayer
Where angels softly tread,
With zeal, to labour hasten—
Their joyful hearts serene—
To win new realms for their King,
And Heaven’s peerless Queen.

Their converse is with Heaven ;
Yet mindful of the need
Of toilers in the valley,
For fellow-men they plead,
Whom, when disaster threatens,
These valiant Knights descend
On Charity’s swift pinions,
Their whole-souled aid to lend.

Undaunted by the danger,
Disdaining selfish claim
That checks the noble impulse
Of hearts with love aflame,
They fly ; and all unconscious
They’ve deeds of prowess done,
Through darkness, cold, discomfort,
They toil till end is won.

Sweet Lady of Mount Carmel,
Who visited of old
The saints of that fair garden—
As by tradition told—
May Carmel of Niag’ra
E’er with your smile be blest ;
Your mantle of protection
Forever ’round it rest.

Source: Loretto Rainbow, vol. XLIV, no. 4, April 1938

Many thanks to Arden Phair for pointing this poem out to the Niagara Falls Poetry Project.

Read about the fire at Loretto Academy

Lines to Harriet by Traveller

On the hill beside the river
Stands a building dear to me,
By its threshold one bright morning
There I first saw Harriet C.

Then that house was new and cheerful,
Now its walls are sad to see.
Years have passed and it’s decaying—
Where is charming Harriet C.?

When we watched the mighty cataract
She would closer cling to me,
And our hearts nigh ceased their throbbing—
Then I loved sweet Harriet C.

Time passed on and we were parted,
It softened much our childish glee
And I’ve never, never since then
Seen my lovely Harriet C.

But I’m standing by the schoolhouse
Where her form I first did see,
And my heart is sadly asking—
Where is gentle Harriet C.?

Source: Zavitz, Sherman.  Niagara Falls: Historical Notes. St. Catharines, Looking Back Press, 2008. First published in the Niagara Falls Review as part of the Historical Notes series.

The historical note about the school is reproduced below with the permission of Sherman Zavitz.

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The View Down Clifton Hill, Niagara Falls, March 28, 2003. Photo by Janice Leak
Note sign for the Comfort Inn, partially visible on the right. This was the site of the original Clifton Schoolhouse more than a century earlier.
Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

 

The Schoolhouse on Clifton Hill: Who Was Harriet C?

A school on Clifton Hill? While such a building would certainly seem out of place there now, in fact a one-room schoolhouse once stood on this thoroughfare, long before it became the now famous Street of Fun.

A roughcast structure, it was built around 1835 and was located on the south side of the street where the Comfort Inn Fallsway is now located. In 1848, after all the property on the south side of the hill was purchased by local entrepreneur Samuel Zimmerman, the building was moved to the other side of the street.

The school served the area along the Niagara River from Dufferin Islands (as they are now called) to the Whirlpool. This included the little community of Clifton, which at that time was centered around the Clifton Hill, Victoria Avenue area. Clifton was established in 1832 by Capt. Ogden Creighton, a British half-pay officer.

The following year, a hotel was built at the foot of Clifton Hill where Oakes Garden Theatre presently stands. As happened with the hill, the hotel took its name from the community in which it was located. The Clifton House became Niagara’s most renowned 19th century hotel.

Some of the teachers at this early school included William Pointer, Miss Tobias and a Mr. Williams. Around 1849, the teacher was Mr. McMullen, who also had a side job. The owner of a hansom carriage, every time an excursion party arrived at the nearby Falls, he would rush out of the school and become a tour guide, leaving his niece to take over his teaching duties.

The last teacher at this school was Marsena Biggar, who was there from 1851 to 1853. During the fall of 1851, Marsena might very well have taken his pupils down the road to the Clifton House to hear the famous singer Jenny Lind. Known as the Swedish Nightingale, she was a guest at the hotel for a number of weeks that autumn and would occasionally present a concert from its balcony.

The little schoolhouse on Clifton Hill closed at the end of 1853. The school section had been divided into two and new stone schoolhouses had been built. One of these was just to the north along Victoria Avenue, near Bender Hill. Open for only three years, it was replaced in 1857 by Simcoe Street School. The other was on Buchanan Avenue (now Fallsview Boulevard) where the Hilton Hotel now stands. It was used until the opening of Falls View School in 1910.

In February of 1857, an interesting letter appeared in a Buffalo newspaper. It was from an anonymous gentleman (he signed his name “Traveller”) in Lockport, New York, who told how several years earlier he had paid a visit to the old Clifton Hill schoolhouse. He had been a pupil there in its early years and wandering around the closed building naturally brought back many memories, including those of an infatuation he had had with another pupil he identifies only as Harriet C.

Moved by the nostalgic experience and lamenting his lost love, he wrote a poem, which was published along with the letter.

Entitled “Lines to Harriet,” [above] are a few of the verses.

Just who was Harriet C.? While we can’t be absolutely certain, it was likely Harriet Crysler, who was born here in 1831. The Crysler family home stood where the Victoria Avenue Library is now.  Harriet died in 1903.