Officials mark grand reopening of the Cohoes Visitors Center
COHOES, N.Y. » Officials gathered Wednesday morning to mark the reopening of the Cohoes Visitors Center.
The long-anticipated renovations feature new exhibits highlighting the Spindle City’s historic connection to the original Erie Canal, which once had 10 locks that drove the development of knitting mills in Cohoes.
“This is such a beautiful and historic building and such a great place to have a visitors center and I’m so pleased that we got some help from the New York State Canal Corp. and also the New York State Council for the Arts, they basically paid the vast majority of the funds available to put this together, Cohoes Mayor Chris Briggs said.
The Canal Corporation contributed $62,000 through the Capital Region REDC and the New York State Council for the Arts $62,500 toward the new canal related exhibits.
“We’ve got some beautiful exhibits, it’s quite a show and I hope everybody can take the time to see it if they haven’t already,” Briggs added.
“What’s great about it is we’re capturing our city’s history but in modern- day technology. It’s critical that share the message with generations to follow,” Assemblyman John T. McDonald III said of the renovations.
There’s also hope the Visitors Center will serve as an interactive learning place for schoolchildren across the area.
“The Visitors Center in the past has been a large contributor to economic development and a resource for local children to be able to come in and learn about Cohoes history. We plan on expanding that with the interactive displays and it will be a great resource for the children who are in fourth grade all over the area to come in and learn about how the locks operate and get a little history of the area,” Chuck Mossey, Coordinator, and Caretaker of the Cohoes Music Hall said of the new exhibits.
Mossey also spoke to a partnership with the Cohoes Music Hall that will help the Visitors Center thrive.
“My hope is that this will be the first place people come when they visit the city. There’s a lot of things happening, the Music Hall has great shows that are coming in, so we’re going to partner with them to try to bring more people from around the area here. We’re planning on being open at night when they have shows so that the people coming to the shows experience
what’s down here and also to get the word out,” Mossey said of the expanded hours.
Mossey also notes how the great history of the Spindle City can inspire current residents looking toward the future.
“My daughter wrote this paper on why Cohoes history was important and so many people don’t understand the rich history that former citizens contributed from the Erie Canal to baseball hall of famer George Stacey Davis and the renaissance of what the mills were and there’s so much opportunity that children can learn about just by learning the history here,” Mossey added.
The Cohoes Music Hall will look to help showcase the city’s history and heritage as well.
“I think it’s a great association because the history of each space is well known and I think the two spaces partnering makes a lot of sense,” Holly Brown, Executive Director Cohoes Music Hall said of the partnership.
“People that come to the Music Hall obviously are coming because they want to see shows there but they’re also fascinated with the history of that building and I think this space will tie in really well with that, really featuring the history of Cohoes and how these buildings came to be in the first place, why some of the businesses in Cohoes succeeded and others didn’t. The fact that this building is still standing I think all makes for a really nice story,” Brown noted of the historic space on Remsen Street.
“This is a beautiful space down here. We’ve had a few receptions in here over the last 12 months and this space really lends itself well to that. I think we’re going to look at some options of using this prior to shows, it gives a nice space for people to gather and it’s an interesting space for people to gather in because they can kind of learn about the city while they’re here,” Brown added of the possibilities for the space.