Historic Outwater Park Steps---
Now Called A "Nuisance"

We're thankful Richard P. Mullaney isn't City Historian.  He's actually City Clerk and wants these historic steps believed built in the 1930's by WPA labor, "gone." 

The steps, like so many assets at Outwater and other city parks have been the victim of no maintenance.  Over 60 years they have deteriorated and been the victim of vandalism.  Mr. Mullaney, in public papers, is calling this part of our memories an "attractive nuisance" and "no good for anything." 

Many of us have a different opinion.  Most who have grown up in Lockport have gone up and down these steps on the way from Outwater Park at the top of the escarpment to a level down where Glenwood Cemetery is located.   More than a few of us remember falling on the steps or, more likely, the steep hill as we tried to traverse the distance with the reckless abandon of our youth.

On July 19th a woman joined the long list who have taken a tumble while trying to go down the escarpment.  She, however, filed a formal complaint with the city after suffering an ankle fracture.  Now many city officials are stumbling all over themselves trying to take this part of Lockport away from us.   Some want the steps to be just taken out.  The majority, at an August meeting, instructed the City Engineer to put up fencing along the entire escarpment area, including where the steps are, to prevent people from doing...what people have been doing for almost a century.  6th Ward Alderman Mark J. Dudkowski says he's talking with county officials about having some jail inmates on work programs rebuild the steps.  Bravo Alderman Dudkowski!  His suggestion is the least the county could do to help its second-biggest taxpayer base which essentially receives little in county services!  Mayor Ken Swan is quoted as remarking, "I personally think the residents of this city will not want the stairs taken out of there.   There's some history there."  Indeed there is, Mayor, and a lot of us still remember it!

Rather than fix this historic stone stairway at Outwater Park, City Council members want a barricade put up.  Glenwood Cemetery is seen at the buttom of the hill, across Glenwood Avenue.  (7/99)

Update 8/12/00:  More than a year after our first report, City officials are saying that as much as $50,000 would be required to fix the steps at Outwater Park.  They are reported seeking "grant money" to help pay the costs.

A Reader Remembers

I remember when I was ten years old and my Aunt Veronica and my dad's cousin Sandy were going to put flowers on my great-grandparents' headstones in the cemetery on Memorial Day, 1986. My cousins, Frankie and Steven and my sister, a friend and I were playing on the steps and the hill all day. We were telling the myths that we had heard from other people... the man who had frozen to death pining for his lost lover in the small cave on the side of the hill, etc. We had so much fun that day and the steps and the hill have always been a romantic and nostalgic site for me, even when I was a teenager.

To see the way signs and barriers have sullied that area makes me sad :(

Andrea Ciscia
8/00

Al Goehle, who ought to know, sends us these e-mail comments:

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, I worked summers at the park. The rose garden was then in it's prime and was cared for lovingly by Jimmy DeCarlo who continously cultivated and trimmed every bush and the climbing vines over the rose arbor. He lived off Vine St hill and always had a great vegetable garden of his own. My wife still has his spaghetti sauce recipe. I recall that he had twins(two sets?) of which he was very proud.

One summer I was assigned to carry flagstones as Jimmy built the stone steps from near the rose garden to the cemetery road. It may be that they had been built earlier and we were just doing maintenance, but I think he was doing original construction, using native stone from the hillside below the garden.

Jimmy's work ethics, his outlook on life and the events of the day, expressed with a definite Italian accent, remain as great memories in my mind today.

Al Goehle        Lake Havasu, AZ
9/12/99