Urban Renewal was in full swing in 1975. The Convention Center was the sparkly new thing in the city, and the rest of Downtown was being rebuilt.

This advertisement ran in 1975 in a program for Miss USA (which was held in the Convention Center: don’t tell me all of Urban Renewal was a failure).

Look at this thing: it’s so 1970s. Did you know there’s portable seating on telescopic risers? How about TV and microphone imputs? AMAZING!

Whats really great about this is how they sell the city. Look at some of these lines:

“Gateway to America. Gateway to the world. Historical. Cosmopolitan. That’s the new, surprising City of Niagara Falls.”

“Now, the city of the future is ready today.”

I love the line on the Convention Center:

“We’re rebuilding the city just to complement it.”

Of course, the headline is still the best:

“We didn’t just build a convention center. We’re building a whole new convention city!”

Real talk: doesn’t this sound great? Doesn’t this sound like a really awesome city? This was our city! We did this! It didn’t last, but we tried.

I think we can do it again.

With all the progress being made downtown, maybe we should take the passion of Urban Renewal. Was it the best decision back then? It’s debatable, but that’s not my job. I’m just here to show print ads.

Next week we have another piece from the Urban Renewal era. It’s actually one of my favorites.