Who's Waterfall?

Too funny. "Come to America, where we have beautiful neighbors"

http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/195291.html?imw=Y

U.S. tourism video shows the wrong falls

Footage flaunts view of Canadian cascades

By Bill Michelmore - NEWS NIAGARA BUREAU
Updated: 10/30/07 7:32 AM

NIAGARA FALLS — A two-second blip on a slick new video that promotes attractions across the United States underlines what many tourists already know about Niagara Falls.

The view is better from the Canadian side.

But some in Niagara Falls, N.Y., say they wish the American mega-company that filmed the video at least would have trained its lens on what helps make that view more popular — the United States.

Instead, Walt Disney Co. chose to include footage of only the Horseshoe Falls, most of which lies on the Canadian side of the border.

The video fails to show the American and Bridal Veil falls, the two cascades entirely within the Unites States.

“This is not the United States,” thundered Paul Gromosiak, a Niagara Falls historian and author. “This is 100 percent Canada, shot from the Canadian side. This is an insult.”

The short sequence, shot from the Table Rock area in Ontario, is part of a seven-minute promotional film in the Bush administration’s campaign to promote U.S. tourism and welcome foreign visitors.

It will be shown in airports across the United States and embassies around the world.

Bill Bradberry, city administrator in Niagara Falls, N.Y., was among those on the American side of the border disappointed Disney never spoke with local tourism ambassadors before filming.

“Personally, I’d rather see the falls from our own perspective,” Bradberry said.

The video sweeps majestically from Hawaii to the West Coast and across the Grand Canyon, the Rocky Mountains, the heartland, Niagara Falls and to Times Square and the Statue of Liberty, all to the accompaniment of an inspiring orchestral soundtrack.

The falls shot lasts a mere two seconds but has caused a small international flap since it was released last week by the State and Homeland Security departments.

Gromosiak said he has spent the last two days taking phone calls from broadcast and print journalists from across the United States and Canada.

An Associated Press reporter in New York City phoned him Sunday afternoon at his Town of Niagara home, and he conducted phone interviews Monday afternoon with a Wilmington, Del., radio station and Monday evening with a City News radio reporter in Toronto.

“Everyone says the view of Niagara Falls is better from Canada,” Gromosiak said, “but what they fail to remember is that the view is of the United States and the American and Bridal Veil falls.”

Of some solace to Gromosiak: About 20 percent of the Horseshoe Falls, he estimated, lies in on the U.S. side of the border.

The Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp. knew where it was coming from when it filmed its own promotional video of Niagara County.

A 45-second segment of the four-minute video, shot entirely from the U.S. side of the falls, is being shown on a large outdoor screen above the main entrance to Fashion Outlets at Niagara on Military Road in the Town of Niagara.

But in the end, Bradberry said, people shouldn’t worry too much about a single image.

“If this will attract people to the falls,” he said, “then it does its job.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

bmichelmore@buffnews.com