One of the "Streets", past and present, of Downtown Utica's CoLa Neighborhood.
Records at the Oneida County History Center show Cooper Street being establsihed in years 1842-1843, commencing at Broadway and terminated at Varick Street.
"Mr. Cooper (born Southampton, Long Island, February 2, 1767) was one of Utica's earliest land owners. A carpenter by trade and arriving in Oneida county in 1790. In April of 1795, Cooper bought purchased one hundred and seventeen acres of great lot No. 96, a narrow strip of land extending from the Mohawk River to nearly the intersection of Genesee and State streets. In the fall of 1794 he also built a house on Whitesboro street where he resided throughout his life. The homestead and farm was swallowed up by the encroaching city."
"Mr. Cooper did not seem to have long pursued his carpenter trade. He constructed a bridge across the Mohawk River at the foot of Genesee street. It replaced the earlier structure and Cooper was also an artificer of Hamilton Oneida Academy, precursor of Hamilton College. As time rolled on his property increased greatly in value and enabled him to realize all the comforts of a thriving farmer and to bestow upon his children the advantages of an education, which in his own case had been limited to the subscription schools of that period but the value of which he well knew how to estimate. His early location in the county secured to him an extensive acquaintance and no small share of public favor, which was manifested by his appointment at various periods as judge, representative and sheriff, and by his filling many subordinate stations and offices in the place where he lived." [Ref.]
View the 1884 Parcels of Downtown Utica's CoLa Neighborhood. During the construction of the Chenango Canal, and again with Urban Renewal Project No. 1, both Spring Street and Cooper Street were truncated. The former path of these streets lies under today's City Hall and Kennedy Apartment parcels.
While Cooper Street no longer exists in CoLa, one may still visit a two-block length of Cooper Street in West Utica in the present-day Varick Street & Brewery District.
We're not opposed to a new hospital, just do not bulldoze Downtown Utica's Historic Columbia-Lafayette Neighborhood... "Build It At St. Luke's!"
