BY ZACH MORTICE
The Upstate Archipelago proposal. Image courtesy Cornell Design, H+N+S, and SOAR (Strengthening Our Area Residents) of the Cornell University Cooperative Extension.
New York?s Erie Canal once projected a young nation?s power and commercial ambitions across half a continent. Connecting New York City and the Hudson River north of Albany all the way to the Great Lakes, at 363 miles long, it was the second largest canal in the world when it opened in 1825, and one of the most transformative infrastructure projects of America?s early history. It reduced bulk commodity costs by 90 percent, according to some estimates, and it?s been immortalized in stories and songs ever since.
But in the 201 years since it began construction, the canal has been leapfrogged by nearly every manner of freight and commodity transit: rail, road, pipelines, and even the now-navigable St. Lawrence River. Vessel traffic on the canal peaked in the early 1950s, and recreational boating peaked in 1989. To reverse this slide, the New York State Canal Corporation is hosting the Reimagine the Canals Competition to re-envision how this feat of 19th-century land engineering can be better integrated into the 21st century.
While the population of upstate New York has sagged in recent decades, recreational uses along the river (if not on it) have gone up. The competition seeks to expand this sort of access. Despite their diminished industrial significance, the canals are still a rich artery of sett...