Concrete was poured this week on the east end of the Erie Beach section of the Friendship Trail. It's looking good; just a little landscaping and some final touches (such as the lookout point in the bottom photo) to go and the workers will be out of the area.
Not much progress on the Friendship Trail this week; possibly a delay in pouring cement as the weather wasn't too co-operative. But one can see how the final product will look and note those nice finishing touches with the old posts from the original promenade.
FORT ERIE - Walk around the Erie Beach ar a while the final leg of th Friendship Trail construction is und rway and it's not hard to hear conversations about other work the town should be doing in the area.
Fixing the old steamship pier, filling the swimming pool with dirt and creating a park complete with bandshell, or even restoring the old concrete pool which was advertised nearly a century ago as the world's largest.
Such an endeavour would create quite a tourist attraction, said Howard Melcher when asked about the idea during a recent walk through the area.
continue reading in the Fort Erie Post
The preparation is nearly done on the east end of the Erie Beach section of the Friendship Trail. The base has been built up from truckloads of gravel, slabs of the broken, busted-up concrete from the original promenade are being used along the edge and the cement will probably be poured during the next week. At the west end, the boardwalk is installed and there is new concrete all the way past the old dance hall to the spot you see at the very end of this video.
Have to hand it to Stevensville Lawn Service, the company that is constructing the Erie Beach section of the Friendship Trail. Along the way, wherever possible, they have preserved elements of the old promenade. And where they've found some of the few guard rails/lamp posts that remain, they've incorporated them into the trail. Nice work.
The above and below photos, taken Friday, also shows the progress of the work being done at the east end of the promenade, where the rubble had to be sorted -- large blocks of the old concrete are being used to reinforce the new section and also act as steps to the waterfront -- and a new base is being installed. 
Ken dug into his collection of old roller coaster photos and passed along this beauty of the Wildcat.
Remains of the electric fountain from the Erie Beach Amusement Park were somewhat hidden for a long time, but in recent years have been dug out and used as a fire pit by those who have fun in the woods after the sun goes down. The above photo, taken by Doug Garner in the 1980s, shows how the centre portion of the fountain, installed pre-1920, was filled in with weeds and small trees at the time. When compared to photo below, taken in July, it also shows how thick the trees have grown in during the last two decades.
Below, you get an idea of what the fountain looked like in its heyday.
The above photo, taken from the opposite angle of the first three, shows the fountain near the middle on the right side, giving you an idea of where it is located next to the promenade just east of where the old dance hall stood.
Can't recall off the top of my head if the rest of the concrete is around there (it must be). Next time I am down there I plan to move some dirt around and see what's buried under there.
The water level at the east end of Lake Erie is lower than I ever recall seeing it. I recall when the water where that mid-sized dog is standing, in this photo from Saturday, was usually at least six feet deep and only the tops of those rocks were visible.
Construction at the west end of the old promenade is nearly complete. The cement is is place, just a little work on the boardwalk at Waverly Beach remains. Work on the east end, though, where there was no concrete base left to work on, continues slowly. What is done looks great -- and what is to come will no doubt look as good. It should be completed in mid-October.
Well, maybe not half way but there is a lot of progress on the Friendship Trail. This 10-foot wide section of cement was poured Tuesday along the stretch of the old promenade which passed the dance hall.
A friend of the family has some old video, circa 1960, of their time living in the Waverly Beach area. This short section shows the dance hall, long after it had closed but while it was still standing.
For those who have never seen it before, this is what your parents are talking about. For those who remember it, enjoy!
It's hard to believe now, but Fort Erie once boasted one of the most popular amusement parks in Canada.
Until it suddenly closed near the beginning of the Great Depression, Erie Beach Amusement Park was the top attraction in Niagara outside of the Falls.
But that was a much different time. Long before air conditioning and television, or even a family car, summer escapes to shoreline resorts were the highlight of summer for many people.
With its beautiful picnic groves, luxury hotel, expansive midway, giant outdoor pool and a three-storey structure which housed a dance hall and bowling alley, Erie Beach was a wildly popular destination for families from Buffalo and beyond.
"Everybody used to come from all over to go there because it was the best around," said Mavis Burger (nee Colman).
"Crystal Beach didn't have anything to compare."
CONTINUE
source: Fort Erie Post/Niagara This Week
Brought my video camera down to the old park yesterday to show the progress of the trail being constructed along the path of the old promenade (wish I would have captured video of the site earlier this year ... or many years ago). The first scene shows the Bardol Road end of the promenade, where a lookout point is being installed at the very west end of the trail before it turns up toward the end of Lakeshore Road. The second part of the clip shows the Waverly Beach end and the foundation of the boardwalk laid down so far. (Notice the decaying motor boat pier, or baby pier, and giant swimming pool in the background).
The trail, with three lookout points in total, should be complete in October.
FORT ERIE -- Construction on the final section of the Friendship Trail, following the century-old promenade left over from the days of the Erie Beach Amusement Park, is getting thumbs up from area residents, Niagara This Week writes.
Have never seen this before. No idea any footage from Erie Beach Amusement Park existed, let alone a ride on the Wildcat. Amazing.
Work began this week on the cleanup of the promenade in preparation for the section of the Friendship Trail which will soon pass through the old park at Erie Beach. The facelift should be complete in early October.
At one time, Erie Beach Park had what was billed as the largest outdoor dance floor in the world. The giant concrete pad, located beside the wading pool on the east side of the dance hall/casino, featured a large bandshell along the water and, according to some books on the park, was the area where movies were shown on a large screen toward the end of the park's life.
Below is a look back today across the concrete pad from the south east corner (dance hall rubble is located in the upper left).
Sand piles up along the edge of the old promenade near the former dance hall site. The area will look different in a couple of months as the old concrete walkway is being transformed as part of work to create the final section of the Town of Fort Erie's Friendship Trail. No doubt the last of the remaining concrete posts will be removed in the process and some of the other debris in the area will be cleared out.
Noticed this -- a small pile of stones, much like a grave marker, with R.I.P. Pete sprayed on a flat surface -- on my last trip down to the promenade. Like the big dark rock, it may have been there for years but I had not noticed, or it did not catch my eye.
Across from the memorial, on a small piece of retaining wall left over from the promenade, the words "And he's buying a SWTH (stairway to heaven)" are sprayed in the same black paint.
With the low water levels at this end of Lake Erie, it's easy to spot some of the stuff which has been dumped into the drink over the years, such as these concrete posts from the promenade.
A pleasure boat passes the old steamship pier as it heads out of Lake Erie and into the Niagara River. In the early part of the 20th century ships would dock at the end of the pier (the furthest portion of the broken-down cement structure is obscured behind the brush growing in the upper right) as they transported thousands of people each day to the Erie Beach Amusement Park.
