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New York State's Canal System: |
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| Karen Engelke | |||
| Session: Sunday, April 16, 2000, 4:00-5:15 pm | Author Info | ||
The diversity of the New York State Canal System's canal components can be enhanced by regionally unique graphics for signage and other interpretive materials. The Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor is the pilot region to implement this cooperative approach to visitor services and story telling media. By intertwining heritage based community development with heritage tourism development, the Mohawk Valley is poised to leverage federal and state investment in waterfront infrastructure into a broader based economic revitalization.
The national award winning New York Canal Recreationway Plan has constructed a blueprint for a world-class Recreationway. Its vision is a collage of the individual dreams of the communities that line the banks of the waterway and pin their hopes for economic re-engineering on the success of the whole system. As my colleagues have pointed out, however, the realization of this vision is achieved project by project, by people working in very different waterscapes over a vast area.
The Mohawk River is a very unique and distinct region within the 524-mile New York State Canal System. To begin with, the canal running through six of the eight counties in the Mohawk River watershed looks like a river here--because it is. Our section of the canal is neither straight nor placid. It curves past dramatic hills, tumbles down steep waterfalls and overflows rich alluvial farmlands. It has been used by humans for trade and conquest as a water level passage through the Appalachians Mountains for thousands of years. Our history, and pre-history, embraces stories that include diamonds, potholes, Indians, international warfare and industrial giants. As Mohawk Valley residents face postindustrial economic restructuring in the century ahead, we have an unparalleled resource once again in the river running through us.
Our Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor Management Plan incorporates the many community plans developed during the two-year process of identifying the Canal Recreationway Plan of 1995. Because of our familiarity with both the grass-roots and local municipal efforts underway, we were able to provide the crucial "Regional Synergy" grant application document required by the recent HUD Canal Corridor Initiative investments.
As a regional heritage development umbrella, 80% of the Commission's resources through 2007 target the canal corridor. Our programs intertwine community and heritage tourism development, and are designed to link both physically and intellectually the hundreds of communities and "story-telling" landscapes and historic places within this region. Linking sites together makes more sense for each individual place because it enhances understanding of the bigger picture. It also, by the way, encourages longer stays and creates opportunities for passport ticketing...just like Disney World, but with real stories told in real places. Our heritage development work is in individual municipalities and places, but always with a regional effect in mind.
Scenic Byways, design and visioning workshops such as Your Town: Designing Its Future, Main Street programs, public art, niche market touring itineraries, passport ticketing, themed guidebooks, maps and brochures are some of the tools we use to create a distinct regional identity, strengthen the places that tell our stories, and market the Mohawk Valley as a discrete region. Today I want to briefly detail two current projects that illustrate how the Canal Corporation and Heritage Corridor integrate our goals and strategies.
Early on, we both identified interpretive and directional signage as crucial to assist visitors both find their way around and understand more about the land/waterscapes they are seeing. Our agencies were able to work with the same design firm to develop integrated signage that clearly identifies the Canal System, and allows distinct canal sections to achieve a regional identity. Mindful of a possible future national designation, these sign designs are compatible with the National Park Service grid. We are presently fabricating thirteen such four sided kiosks to be placed along the Mohawk section of the canal.
Three sides are the Canal's distinctive blue and yellow, and include canal history, community identifiers, and a visitor service map. The design elements are straight and balanced. The fourth side is the signature Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor purple and khaki...symbolic of the wampum beads in an Iroquois covenant belt. The lines are fluid, and design placement more organic and complex, reflective of our land/waterscapes and our stories. This side tells a component of one of our regional themes. This system/regional model can be used to define and exemplify the distinct canal sections throughout the full Canal.
The commission is expanding this interpretive/wayfinding signage in more detail in many of our Valley communities. In Little Falls, Canajoharie, Frankfort, Schoharie and other locations, we are engaged in a more in depth development of local stories and their relationships to regional context.
New infrastructure for ports harbors and lots of signs are only part of creating a world class Recreationway. The improved economic health of each canal community is the rest of the story. As our communities meet the 21st century head on, the preservation of our built environment has become a key component of the new economy. What should we do? Tear it down? Restore it? Re-use it for another purpose? These are everyday questions asked in every community. Let's face it, our attractiveness as good places to live and work also influences visitors. People like to visit pleasing, authentic places. They will spend more time and money in attractive, welcoming communities. Most of our existing upstate streetscapes have emerged over time not because of conscious choices, but through expediency. It just happened. New York has, for the most part, been a production landscape...farming, factories, and commercial districts. What mattered most was what we did during the workweek, 6 am to 6pm. Actually, it still does. Tourism will never fully replace lost factory jobs. But how we look...a presentation landscape...a leisure time choice...will change both our perceptions of ourselves and others' perceptions of us.
The federal and state monies invested in the canal system today has given villages and towns the opportunity to spruce up commercial districts and build new waterfront facilities. It also gives planners and community leaders the opportunity to identify the icons of each community...the great good places that are special to the people who live there. It can be a block or a special building. It can be a particular view or it can be a distinctive stoplight. Although it is often a cumbersome process, grass roots involvement of all sectors in these choices increases the likelihood of successful community change.
This companion piece of community change, like new waterfront parks, ports and harbors, is done one place at a time. Last fall our Commission sponsored two International Countryside Exchanges. One of the host sites was a consortium of seven communities in southern Herkimer County. For the past four years, the Central Mohawk Alliance has combined energy and leadership to enhance each other jointly. These municipalities are jointly approaching land use and economic revitalization. The Exchange was a catalyst that broadened community input, and an affirmation that the Alliance is effective.
Heritage based community development means considering the unique and distinct features of each place...and these folks do this in spades! Their four marinas target different boating interests; they have combined recreational resources, and have re-defined land use as a cooperative venture. They have new parks, stronger retail areas, and a new "can-do" attitude. As a result, new businesses are locating there, and new federal and state money for "kick start" funding is leveraging private investment. Their latest success story is the joint development of 4 acres of land between the Mohawk River, canal, and NY Thruway as a regional visitor center, restaurant, marina and "Made in the Mohawk Valley" retail space for twenty five legacy businesses, including Saranac Beer, Remington Arms, Beechnut, Quackenbush nut crackers, and Union Tool and Hoe. We may have a smaller presence of General Electric, no Griffith Air Force Base or Mohawk Carpets, but businesses are far from gone in upstate New York!
Each of us in this session represents many colleagues back in the field.
We each have a distinct role to play in making the vision of the New York
Canal Recreationway a reality. There are hundreds of projects we could
each describe, and many stories we can all relate about the fun and frustrations
of our work lives. We work in different arenas, with different partners
and on different aspects, but our goals are congruent. We are determined
to ensure that the New York State Canal System is once again humming with
activity, once again an international icon of industry and ingenuity, and
once again the front door, not the backdoor to our communities.
Copyright 2000 By Author
Karen Engelke
Mohawk Valley Heritage Corridor Commission
66 Montgomery Street, Canajoharie, NY 13317; 518-673-1045; mvhc@telenet.net