Rome Sentinel

“Olmstead City?” What’s in a name? Plenty for city of Utica

Phil Bean

People sometimes ask why we call our nonprofit group “Olmsted City” rather than something like “Utica Olmsted Parks.”

That’s understandable; we are currently focused on East Utica’s 62-acre Frederick T. Proctor Park. Still, we aim to do much more.

Four years ago, I returned after 23 years in Boston and Philadelphia and bought a home in the city of Utica. I wanted to contribute to Utica’s increasingly promising redevelopment efforts. Convinced that our parks are among our most important quality-of-life assets — they certainly made a difference in my life — I began working in 2019 to rejuvenate them, and two years ago I founded Olmsted City partly to promote that work.

It’s not enough simply to say we have parks — for decades, we’ve had too much talk and not enough sustained action to restore and maintain them. In contrast, by the end of 2022-23, Olmsted City will have spent over $250,000 on F.T. Proctor Park. Last year, we also recruited 150 volunteers who invested 1,100 hours in the park.

This is not a hobby for the amusement of the privileged or just a historic preservation project. Olmsted City is driven by the conviction that everyone, including the least fortunate, deserves beautiful recreational spaces. Indeed, such ideas drove Thomas R. Proctor to embark on a park-building binge more than 120 years ago. And today, a much higher proportion of our underprivileged neighbors live within a 10-minute walk of our Olmsted parks than do the most fortunate in this region.

This reality is at the forefront of everything we do.

Public health research has proven that visiting urban parks confers significant physical and mental health benefits. The local diabetes and blood pressure rates are higher than the state average, and a disproportionate number of Uticans (notably but not exclusively refugees) have experienced trauma.

For many such Uticans, parks have medicinal power. Healthy park tree canopies also cool temperatures and reduce pollution for those who live nearby.

Despite our dedication to parks, however, we call ourselves “Olmsted City” because we are also trying to rebrand Utica — not just one institution in it, but the entire city. “Olmsted” is by far the most nationally recognizable name to which Utica can attach itself. Very few outsiders have heard of Munson, Williams, or Proctor, and not many more know who Conkling or Seymour were.

For over a century, in contrast, the Olmsted family fundamentally transformed the American landscape. This fact recently inspired a highly successful, year-long nationwide celebration of the bicentennial of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., the inventor of the American urban park, the co-designer of Central

Park and innumerable others, and the first person to call for a national park system.

His son, who did so much in Utica, designed the landscaping for the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, and many other nationally famous sites. He also helped save the California giant redwoods and start the National Park Service.

People from major metropolitan areas celebrate the name “Olmsted” because their lives are enriched by Olmsted family creations like not just Central Park, but Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, Boston’s Emerald Necklace system, Philadelphia’s FDR Park, Montreal’s Mount Royal Park, the Seattle parks system — and on and on it goes.

So, who cares about what people in big cities think? Uticans should. Utica is definitely on an upswing, but it’s still an under-resourced city. We need more outside capital. Big-city money and talent are helping to transform other small cities. Many people who might bring these goods here are accustomed to parks like F.T. Proctor … but they also expect them to be well-maintained.

In addition, the businesses we’d like to attract are interested in quality of life for their workers, increasingly many of whom value the outdoors. Mention that we have an Olmsted-designed park, and it makes many such people see Utica in a different light — and so should we.

However, we don’t have just one Olmsted park. We are the smallest U.S. city with an Olmsted parks and parkway system that’s over 70% the size of Central Park and comprises about 90% of Utica’s public parkland.

It offers diverse opportunities to engage with nature and healthful exercise: miles of wooded paths; tennis, basketball and (soon) pickleball courts; baseball and soccer fields; ice skating (coming next season); swimming pools; biking paths; picnic areas; a golf course; a skate park; dramatic vistas of the valley.

We also have five beautiful Olmsted-designed neighborhoods: Brookside, Proctor Boulevard, Talcott Road, Sherman Gardens, Ridgewood … and in New Hartford, there’s Hoffman Road.

About a tenth of the landmass of the city of Utica — more if you exclude our vast wetlands — was designed by Olmsted and his firm, Olmsted Brothers.

Olmsted City is dedicated to our green spaces, and we have an impressive record of commitment to them — but we are also dedicated to promoting a story for a new Utica, a story that is positive, true, and compelling to outsiders.

It is about having the sort of local pride that attracts opportunity. It is about elevating perceptions of Utica to promote our economic development. The message in our name is that there is something special here: Utica is an Olmsted city, and we should celebrate and protect our Olmsted heritage.

Toward this end, last year alone we planted 27 trees and more than 2,100 other perennial plants, installed five benches, repaired a historic stone staircase, created two new destinations, and cleaned up the long-neglected park gate at F.T. Proctor Park. Unlike many other organizations, we have no paid staff or a multimillion-dollar endowment — our work is dependent on civic-minded volunteers and donors who share our vision and appreciate our track record of getting things done.

We are currently in the midst of reconstructing the park’s previously deteriorated Lily Pond, a 1913 Olmsted creation that’s one of the region’s most iconic spots. It should be running again later this month. Come see it then, but in the meantime, please begin thinking and speaking proudly of Utica as an Olmsted city.

Editor’s note — Phil Bean is chair of Olmsted City; the president of the Utica Public Library Board of Trustees, and a Proctor graduate. He is a former college dean and author of “The Urban Colonists: Italian American Identity and Politics in Utica, New York,” published by Syracuse University Press, and other works about Utica’s political and ethnic history. He is also the co-creator, with Dennis Dewey, of a series of well-received, short YouTube videos called “Utica: An Olmsted City.”

Opinion

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2023-06-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-07T07:00:00.0000000Z

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