'Mad Traveler' shocked by conditions while searching for family home in Falls

May 10—Over the Easter holiday break, travel writer and Western New York native David Seminara returned to the region to visit family and friends.

After landing at Niagara Falls International Airport, Seminara, known professionally as "The Mad Traveler," decided to take a detour through the City of Niagara Falls.

He wanted to see Niagara Falls State Park, check out Main Street and Pine Avenue and get a closer look at the neighborhoods where his grandfather owned two homes and where his father grew up.

What he saw — vacant lots, boarded-up buildings, dozens and dozens of empty and abandoned homes — shocked him.

"I knew it wasn't going to look good, but I was shocked at how bad it was," Seminara said during a recent interview with the Niagara Gazette. "Usually, I don't go on these residential side streets when I go back to the Falls."

Seminara documented his experience, including his at times raw and emotional responses, in a video he posted to his "Mad Traveler" YouTube page under the heading "Why is Niagara Falls (NY) so poor?"

At one point in the video, he can be heard uttering a familiar question many have asked about Niagara Falls, New York for many years: "What the heck happened to this place?"

"Niagara Falls has some of the same problems cities around the world do. There's no question about that," Seminara said. "You do think because of the number of tourists that visit there, it should be more prosperous than it is."

FALLS FAMILY ROOTS TO WORLD TRAVELER

Seminara's grandparents, Carmello and Antonietta, settled down in Niagara Falls after moving to the United States from Gangi, a small village in the province of Palermo, Sicily.

His father, Carmen, now 92 and living in Amherst, grew up in the city as part of a large Italian family that included himself and eight siblings. All of Seminara's aunts and uncles lived in the Falls. His brother still lives in Buffalo.

Seminara spent the bulk of his adult life traveling abroad, first as a diplomat working with the U.S. Foreign Service and, in more recent years, as a freelance journalist and travel writer who has written pieces for the New York Times and other publications. Seminara is also the author of four books, including "Mad Travelers: A Tale of Wanderlust, Greed and the Quest to Reach the Ends of the Earth," which tells the tale of wealthy travelers who go in search of untouched frontiers only to be taken on a wild ride by a con artist.

In his role as "The Mad Traveler," Seminara said he basically allows his curiosity to take him from one place to the next. To date, he's visited 80 countries worldwide.

"I'm really somewhat obsessed with travel," he said. "I do have a desire to visit every country in the world."

SEEING THE FALLS, TOURING THE CITY

Seminara's Easter break visit to the Falls started where many do — Niagara Falls State Park. In his video, he gets a look at the observation tower and the Falls itself before checking out the Niagara Falls Culinary Institute. At one point, he points his camera at the Niagara Welcome Center and international food court, a site that causes him to ask: "What the hell is this?"

"I'll give them credit for trying, but they've never really figured out how to make Niagara Falls, New York attractive for tourists. There's just so much schlock everywhere," Seminara said in his video.

Seminara, who is joined on the trip by his wife and their two teenage children, also takes a ride down Pine Avenue, a strip he describes as "depressing" while not vastly different than others like it in other modern-American cities.

In his interview with the newspaper, Seminara suggested the city's "Little Italy" arches — one near Portage Road and the other near Hyde Park Boulevard — send the wrong signal to visitors. In reality, he noted, there's not a whole lot of "Little Italy" left in the area anymore.

"When you are calling something Little Italy and there's so little of the Italian heritage there, it is a little bit disappointing. You are promising something that doesn't exist," he said.

THE OLD NEIGHBORHOODS

Seminara's father told him many stories about how much he enjoyed growing up in Niagara Falls, which his dad recalls fondly as a safe community filled with friendly people. He said his dad always talked about DiCamillo's Bakery, where he loved to get slices of Romano pizza.

Today, Seminara said, it's difficult to imagine the Niagara Falls his dad enjoyed in his youth. In his video, he describes what's replaced it as "tragic."

"It's sad what's happened to Niagara Falls," he said in the video. "There's no question about that, but this has been going on for a very long time."

Using copies of his grandfather's draft registration cards — one from World I in 1919 and a second from World War II in 1942 — Seminara attempts to visit both of the houses his grandfather owned in the city.

In his quest to locate his grandfather's first home, which was located at 561 14th St., Seminara finds a vacant lot where the house once stood. The lot is in the area just off Niagara Street where much of the property and boarded-up buildings are owned by the private firm Niagara Falls Redevelopment.

Under imagery of dilapidated properties in the area, Seminara poses an interesting question: "Have any horror movies been filmed here?"

He describes it as "an utterly and completely decimated neighborhood."

On 15th Street off Pine Avenue, Seminara finds the other home once owned by his grandfather. The house, located at 1017 15th St., is still standing, although empty and not in great shape. He describes the neighborhood surrounding the property as "bleak" and as "really sad to see."

"This certainly looks better but not great," he said in his video. "Most of these houses are lived in at least."

HOPEFUL OUTLOOK

One thing Seminara comes across several times while making his video is approachable people who have positive outlooks about the city's future.

One of his interviewees is Tom DiCamillo, a member of the DiCamillo family who started working in the family bakery business at age 12. He asks DiCamillo when all the Italian families started to leave to which DiCamillo responds: "Well, when did everybody leave?"

"We have endured," DiCamillo adds, referring to the bakery business, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in the Falls in 2020.

DiCamillo blames the city's current state on a "lot of just poor decisions."

"We get anywhere from 10 to 13 million visitors per year and we should have capitalized on that," he said.

DiCamillo does express optimism about the city's future, noting that the Falls still has plenty of tourists, connection to one-fifth of the world's freshwater supply and weather that he describes as mostly "moderate."

"I think we've bottomed out," DiCamillo said. "I think we are starting to claw our way back up."

A NEW WAY FORWARD?

In his interview with the newspaper, Seminara said he's always struck by how often mentioning you have family from Niagara Falls results in someone saying something negative.

"I very rarely get positive feedback when I say I grew up near Niagara Falls and my father was born there," he said. "I almost never hear anything positive about the American side and to me, it is a lost opportunity."

Despite the city's condition, Seminara said there's no denying viewing the Falls itself remains one of the true "must-see" experiences for travelers.

It was one of the reasons why, while working on the development of the piece with editors from the New York Times, he recommended adding Niagara Falls to his list of "52 Places to Go in 2014." His editors agreed, provided he described Niagara Falls as more of a cross-border attraction and included references to things to see and do on the Canadian side.

A decade later, Seminara said the piece still gets "a mother lode of web traffic."

"I thought they would be able to take advantage of that," Seminara said of Falls leaders.

While in many neighborhoods it remains a minus, Seminara believes the city's glut of available and affordable homes and properties can be a bonus at a time when real estate demands and prices are high.

"If you want to get young people to move to Niagara Falls, there's never been a better time for this because young people can't buy a house anywhere else," he said.

Still, he said, more needs to be done to make the community more attractive to outsiders.

"People don't want to live with boarded-up buildings all around them. Cheap is not enough," he said.

THE TAKEAWAY

Seminara knows there's no easy answer to fixing all that's gone wrong in the Falls and he's not suggesting in his video that he has any. He said he hoped the video would spark a wider discussion about the need to consider new approaches.

"People can watch my film and make up their own minds," he said. "I don't want to try to convince anybody of anything. I hope it's thought-provoking."

As a place to start, he recommends local tourism officials form focus groups with travel writers and people who travel often in an attempt to gain some perspective about what makes a trip to the Falls worthwhile and what needs to be improved.

While it may sound radical, he pointed to a program adopted by Gangi, the Siclian village where his grandfather was born. The piece highlighted the village's efforts to encourage outside investment by literally giving away properties to individuals who agreed to renovate them.

In his video, Seminara makes the point that Niagara Falls is more than dilapidated buildings and declining neighborhoods, noting that there are some nice areas in the city not included in his video.

Even in its depressed state, he said the Falls does have some solid attractions and some good people who are still pulling for it. He counts himself among those who are rooting for a comeback and said he would volunteer his services and expertise if community leaders and tourism officials thought it would help.

"Nobody wants to see a renaissance in Niagara Falls more than me," he said.