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ROTTERDAM
Old Lock 23 passes milestone
Parks office lists Erie Canal landmark on N.Y. registry
BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
Reach Gazette reporter Justin Mason at 395-3113 or jmason@dailygazette.net

    Old Lock 23 in Rotterdam has rested in obscurity since the Barge Canal along the Mohawk River rendered it obsolete nearly a century ago.
    What was once the old Erie Canal’s most bustling lock remained overgrown and untended until Union College students and civil engineering professor Andrew Wolfe began restoring the site in 1999. The historic lock off Rice Road was again forgotten after Wolfe left the college in 2003.
    In 2005, Union students, history professor Andy Morris and members of Rotterdam’s Sunshine Rotary Club began clearing brush from around it twice a year. But because the lock lacked any state or federal historic designation, the group was unable to seek grants to aid any serious restoration effort.
    “It became pretty clear early on if we wanted to think big about this, getting it officially recognized was important,” Morris said Wednesday. “There are all sorts of grants that have that as a precondition.”
    The lock achieved part of this recognition this month, after the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation listed the property on New York’s registry as an important engineering landmark in Schenectady County. Historic preservation will recommend the enlarged double lock to be listed on the National Register, according to Ruth Pierpont, the director of the field services bureau.
    Morris said the designation could help advance plans to restore the 220-foot-long and 18-foot-wide two-chambered lock to how it once appeared. Among the foremost of these plans is an effort to remove a defunct water main running through the structure.
    Rotterdam Supervisor Steve Tommasone said the designation could also serve to bring renewed interest in areas of the old canal system in Rotterdam. Specifically, he noted a stretch of the old system running between Mabie Lane and Lock Street in Rotterdam Junction, which he suggested could be one day transformed into a state park.
    “The Lock Street lock is still there,” he said. “I think there are opportunities there for redevelopment of the Erie Canal.”
    In its heyday, Lock 23 was known as the “Gateway to the West” and was among the busiest of the Erie’s 83 locks, which allowed for gradual elevation changes in the dead-calm waterway. Schenectady was the last major settlement reached by eastbound canal traffic, making the city a major transfer point for both goods and passengers.
    Because of its prominence, canal commissioners once used the lock to record traffic along the Erie. At one point during the 19th century, they recorded 246 boats passing through in one day.
    When the Barge Canal was opened in 1918, the drained Lock 23 was acquired by General Electric Co. During the 1950s, the property was given to Rotterdam, which was in the midst of building its new water pumping station on the nearby well field; the town ran its new main directly through the canal chamber, partially covering it with debris.
    Wolfe and a group of volunteers did significant work clearing the site and even constructed replicas if the locktender’s hut and a wooden fender platform that once protected the lock’s water controls.
    Morris hopes the designation will open funding avenues to remove the old main and repair some of the limestone chamber walls. He said repairing the lock would help visitors develop a better idea of how the lock once operated.
    “There is a lot of potential there,” he said,

I always liked lock 23. It was always a nice place to go and fish. Beautiful scenery and not a lot of people there. Nice and quiet!