Changing Skyline
A recent boom in large hotel construction has diminished the tower's prominence as a landmark. All of these hotels strive to give their guests as good a view of the falls as possible by taking advantage of their position of the height on land above the falls, once dominated solely by the Konica Minolta Tower. In contrast, the airspace around the Skylon tower remains fairly open, thanks to its position further back from the Niagara River.
Ironically, when the tower and surrounding area was first designed prior to groundbreaking on March 15, 1961, it was to be the centrepiece of a proposed hotel/convention centre. Due to finances, the accompanying hotel buildings were not built, and it would be over forty years before hotels began to rise adjacent to the tower.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the surrounding land was occupied by an aquarium to the north, and the Waltzing Waters attraction to the south. The Waltzing Waters site was moved across the street in 1995 to allow for site planning of the current Marriott hotel. The Waltzing Waters, a light and water show synchronized to music, disappeared altogether by 2000. The aquarium was dismantled in 1996 to allow for further site expansion.
Read more about this topic: Konica Minolta Tower Centre
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“A changing skyline.
A slice of window filled in
by a middle-distancing oblong
topped by little
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—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
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