Olmsted City of Greater Utica Incorporated

Yet another productive Olmsted City service day at F.T. Proctor Park—this time with Proctor High School participants in the Mvcc Step Program. Many thank to them all for devoting part of their Saturday to our beautiful park!

And a special thanks to Olmsted City board member Bob DeSanctis for managing yet another successful service day. We can accomplish and are accomplishing so much as a community if we all pull together!

More photos from Olmsted City volunteer service days at Utica’s Frederick T. Proctor Park over the past few weeks—the first involving a group from Mohawk Valley Community College and the second involving students from Hamilton College. They made fantastic, vitally important contributions to Olmsted City’s efforts to maintain this beautiful popular park. They show how much we can accomplish if we unite as a community to get the job done—and keep it done!

If you would like to be on our no-obligations volunteer contact list (you are free to contribute as little or much of your time as you like), or if your business or organization would like to organize a special service day, please email us at [email protected] or message is through Facebook. Thank you!!

Many thanks to students from Hamilton College who pitched in on Saturday, April 11, at Olmsted City’s first cleanup effort at Utica ‘s beautiful historic Frederick T. Proctor Park. It was a wonderful way to kick off Olmsted City’s fifth anniversary year!!

We warmly congratulate Sandro Sehic, a member of Olmsted City’s board of directors, on this well-deserved tribute.

Utica school kids ski, skate free thanks to fund created by local anonymous donor to cover Val Bialas Ski Center costs starting opening day, Feb. 12 See link below ⬇️ bit.ly/4cm3fh2

The Olmsted City Team hopes you and yours are having a marvelous holiday season! We thank all of you who have contributed, either financially or as volunteers, to the great success of our efforts at historic Frederick T. Proctor Park in 2025 and in years past.

Our rehabilitation and beautification efforts will continue in 2026. If you would like to make a tax deductible gift to Olmsted City, you can do so with a credit card (https://olmstedcity.org/support/) or by mailing a check to Olmsted City, PO Box 8597, Utica, NY 13505. And we will very gladly welcom donations when you're ready--making a gift in January will be just as helpful to us as making one in December.

Thank you--and Very Best Wishes for a Happy New Year!!
(Below, photo of Thomas and Maria Proctor going for a sleigh ride in the parks around 1915. Courtesy, Oneida County History Center.)

Olmsted City of Greater Utica, Incorporated Explore the F.T. Proctor Park Virtual Map Discover Discover more about the history: the Olmsted family; the Proctors; Utica's parks and parkway system; the area's Olmsted-designed neighborhood; and monuments on Utica's Parkway. Learn more Explore Take deeper dive into each part of the system and

Thanks so much to Brindisi, Murad & Brindisi Pearlman for a generous gift that put more cheer into Olmsted City’s holiday season! If you’d like to make a contribution in support of Olmsted City’s efforts, please see the link and instructions in their post. Many, many thanks!!

Proud to support Olmsted City of Greater Utica Incorporated. Since 2022, Olmsted City of Greater Utica Incorporated, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has been rehabilitating the beautiful, 62-acre Frederick T. Proctor Park, located at Rutger Street and Culver Avenue in Utica. Over this time, and thanks to the generosity of its donors and its dedicated volunteers, Olmsted City has planted over 3,500 perennial plants (including 225 trees), reconstructed the iconic Lily Pond, installed 20 benches and signage, restored trails, rebuilt historic stonework, and carried out much-needed forestry work at this beloved park, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. And by all accounts, people like what they see, as increasing numbers use this park.

In total, Olmsted City has raised and invested over $500,000 in the rehabilitation and maintenance of the park. Olmsted City gets things done, in close partnership with the City of Utica--but fixing things and keeping them that way are two different things. Although there is still much to be fixed, Olmsted City is now also laying the foundation to ensure that what they, their donors, their volunteers, and their friends at the City of Utica have accomplished will endure long into the future.

Please help Olmsted City achieve its twin goals of continuing to rehabilitate this park while also ensuring its long-term future by making a tax deductible donation! You can do so either with a credit card online at https://olmstedcity.org/support/ (select "donate now" in the middle of that page) or by mailing a check to Olmsted City, PO Box 8597, Utica, NY 13505.

And if you have any interest in being on Olmsted City's no-obligations volunteer list for next season (when it starts in late April 2026) or if you have any questions about the work they’re doing, send an email to them at [email protected].

Today the Bosnian American Community Association-BACA and other members of this community dedicated the newest and arguably most distinctive monument to be added to Utica’s historic Olmsted’s-designed Parkway in decades.

Located at the very eastern end of the Parkway and at the figurative doorstep of the two Proctor parks, the “Sebilj” (a fountain modeled on one in Bosnia and built in the “old country”) is a fitting anchor for the Parkway, as it is not only a fountain but a striking, distinctive kiosk that will be lit at night. And it is the latest addition to the Parkway’s collection of beautiful monuments memorializing the cultural pride and the dedication of various large ethnic communities to Utica and the United States, going back to the dedication of the General von Steuben statue at Genesee Street and the Parkway by local German Americans in 1914.

We congratulate the Bosnian community and thank it for innumerable contributions to the revitalization of the city of Utica. They have rebuilt scores and scores of homes and commercial structures and abandoned churches, started successful businesses, contributed to public institutions (including our schools and government agencies), and have been valued supporters of Olmsted City of Greater Utica’s efforts to rehabilitate beautiful Frederick T. Proctor Park.

Other ethnic communities in Utica have also made and continue to make contributions to this city’s progress, but this is the Bosnian community’s moment—it is their coming of age—and it is a historic moment more generally for Utica and its beautiful 620-acre Olmsted-designed parks and parkway system.

Many thanks to the national Olmsted Network for recognizing the progress Olmsted City and its partners made this year!

A Greener Future for F.T. Proctor Park - Olmsted Network Olmsted City of Greater Utica is celebrating major progress in rehabilitating Frederick T. Proctor Park, a vibrant 62-acre landscape, listed on the National Register, that was the “gem” of Utica’s 620-acre parks and parkway system Olmsted Brothers designed in 1906-26. With the support of don....

Our final tree planting of the year—we added 25 more on Saturday, November 15, bringing the total number of trees we planted at Frederick T. Proctor Park this year alone to 105 (plus 40 shrubs).

Many, many thanks to our dedicated volunteers, our generous donors, and our partners in the City of Utica, as well as local institutions that worked with us on service days this year: the Bosnian American Cultural Association (BACA), the Environmental Club at Proctor High School, Hamilton College, Indium Corporation, Mohawk Valley Community College employees and STEP Program, Notre Dame High School ROTC, Utica National Insurance Group, and Wolfspeed.