Why can't Niagara Falls, New York feed off tourism more?

[miketoronto]

Yesterday I went to Niagara Falls for the day, and for the first time, we actually walked over to the American side and took a walk around. I had already known that the American side was in pretty bad shape, but man was it empty. Aside from the State Park right on the falls, which is amazing, the rest of the downtown area is just a ghost town. We walked one block from the State Park, and it was full of vacant buildings, including two vacant high-rise buildings, one of which was a hotel at one time.
There were a few people hanging around, and other than that it was empty and most of the places looked like they had seen better days.

Then you cross over into the Canadian side(which the real downtown is in just as bad shape, but is located much farther from the falls), and their tourist area near the falls is just hopping. Half hour waits to get into restaurants, packed streets at midnight, flashy lights, etc.

Why has the New York side not been able to capture more tourism dollars and people like the Canadian side has done???