Support

Olmsted City is a volunteer-driven organization (it has no paid staff) that is heavily reliant on contributions from those who love and value Utica’s historic Olmsted parks and parkway system and its Olmsted-designed neighborhoods. People make different sorts of valuable contributions to our mission:

  • Contribute monetarily to Olmsted City’s general operating budget, which helps to defray the cost of restoring the historic Olmsted legacy of the Utica area.
  • Contribute equipment and materials and professional services.
  • Devote time to work side-by-side with members of Olmsted City’s volunteer staff.
  • Donate trees or benches in honor or in memory (if desired) of specific individuals.

Olmsted City is very fortunate to have had a growing body of loyal and generous financial supporters, but since our work in this vast system—which is over 70% the size of Central Park in New York City—is never done, we will always be able to find worthy uses for whatever you feel you can contribute, however great or modest you consider it. No financial contribution is too small—it all adds up!

Please consider supporting our efforts to restore and care properly for this historic quality-of-life asset and source of beauty so that it can bring pleasure and comfort, as originally intended, to the people of this richly diverse community.

Donate Now

Olmsted City helps to restore and maintain Utica’s F. T. Proctor and Roscoe Conkling parks, which were designed by renowned American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. Both parks are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, along with Utica’s Olmsted-designed Parkway. We also seek to raise awareness of the significance of these parks as quality-of-life assets crucial to the historic character and ongoing rejuvenation of this community.

Olmsted City is volunteer-driven–we have no paid director or staff. We also proudly do our work in partnership with the Parks Department and the Department of Public Works of the City of Utica. If you are interested in volunteering or simply want to be on our volunteer mailing list so you are aware of opportunities to join us, please let us know by email: olmstedcity@gmail.com. You will be under no obligation if you sign up, and we do work at the park on dozens of days each season, so you will have plenty of choice as to when as well as whether to join us.

We also seek to raise awareness of Utica’s Olmsted-designed neighborhoods: Brookside, Proctor Boulevard, Talcott Road, Sherman Gardens, and Ridgewood in Utica and Hoffman Road in New Hartford. Along with Utica’s Olmsted-designed parks and parkway system, these neighborhoods give Utica, a city of just 65,000 people, a relatively large “Olmsted footprint.” Utica therefore deserves to be recognized as an “Olmsted City.” We seek to promote this message through free public talks, interaction with the media, our popular Facebook page (fb.com/olmstedcity), this website, and our YouTube series, “Utica: An Olmsted City.” Olmsted City is also an affiliate of the National Association for Olmsted Parks (NAOP).