Utica Boiler-Maker
Heritage Center (BMHC)
Utica's past and present are significantly influance by "boilers." As such, the Wynn-BUD Intiative advocates for creation of a boiler-making heritage center. The BMHC will protray Utica's past by telling the story of how Utica's canals spurred on manufacturing of Numerous Utica Furnace & Boiler Companies, which helped to create Utica's early prosperity.
Recalling over 200 years of Utica history, through interactive displays, hands-on exhibits, replica stoves, furnaces, boilers, and manufacturing processes- including narrative audio tracks and original artifacts.
The Utica Boiler-Maker Heritage Center will; work cooperatively to advance the annual Boilermaker road race, give out-of-town runners a new reason to visit Utica, and educate area locals about the heritage behind their beloved weekend race festival.
Read Michael Lehman's Part 1: History Of Utica's Columbia Lafayette Neighborhood.
Displays will show how early boilers were produced. Scale models will show the factories, mills, shops and homes that clustered around this neighborhood on the canal banks. The transportation stories will be told and an antimation will show downtown's development unfolding, its changing roads, buildings, and events. Visitors are moved forward through time, the changing history of the CoLa Neighborhood explained up until how it became home to Utica's newest hospital.
The center will connect visitors to the city's preeminent Boilermaker Road Race, the National Distance Running Hall of Fame and ties to the ERC company. Working with the History Center on Genesee Street, a supremely authentic story will be told.
The historic, Erie Canal-era, property at 418 Lafayette Street will become home of the Utica Boiler-Maker Heritage Center.
We're not opposing The Wynn Hospital, just don't bulldoze more of Downtown Utica's Historic Columbia-Lafayette Neighborhood... help inact the Wynn-BUD Initiative.