Honor Society and Rotary Interact Club students from both Pittsford high schools cleaned up brush and debris from Lock 62 on the former Erie Canal behind Pittsford Plaza.
Lock 62 was a functioning lock until the Erie Canal was rerouted nearly 100 years ago. The town is creating an educational site for recreation and community use.
Pittsford Supervisor Bill Smith told WXXI the cleanup is about improving access, "to try and unlock all of the educational, historical, and scientific opportunities that site can offer members of the public."
Over the past month, town crews started the project using backhoes and chain saws. Sunday, students helped adult Rotarians and other volunteers clean up. "The lock structure itself is one of the best-preserved old canal locks in the state of New York,” said Smith. There's already a trail connecting Lock 62 to the (current) Erie Canal in Pittsford.
“The town wants to make sure that the site is clear, so that everything is accessible. We want to make sure that everything there is safe and that's the purpose of this community effort."
Smith adds that advice from the group "Historic Pittsford" will help the town decide what's next for the old lock site. "It wasn't just buildings. It wasn't just fences. It wasn't just a bridge that was over parts of the lock. There were also the canal lock gates themselves. Is it desirable and practical to rebuild those? That's part of it - so people can at least see how the gates worked. All of these are things that are possible.”
What’s next? “We're taking it one step at a time. First we get the site cleared, so people can come to it, use it, and see it."
It’s not time to seek donations for the project. Not yet. "Once we identify, perhaps some of the certain things that we may wish to see rebuilt there...maybe the gatekeepers little lodge house, or maybe the fence or maybe the bridge. Then I think we'd be interested in talking to community partners for sources of funding for doing that,” said Smith.
Volunteers are welcome to help on future work days.