F. T. Proctor Park: Features

A grand gateway consisting of four large gray granite pillars (using a design that Frederick Proctor devised) is located at the southwestern corner of a large meadow reminiscent of the Sheep Meadow in Central Park. Although this is the most its immediately obvious aspect, this park is actually comprised of five distinct areas:

• the “upper loop,” the area adjacent to the gate, consisting of a large, gently undulating open meadow in the middle of a pedestrianized tree-ringed
  

  The Lily Pond in F.T. Proctor Park, as it appears today. The shrub bed behind it is a recent recreation, based on Olmsted designs from 1913 (although some substitutions were needed in planting, as some of Olmsted’s recommended shrubs are now considered invasive).

• a small plateau between the upper and lower levels of the park, which is home to the park’s iconic Olmsted-designed rectangular cement reflecting pool, known as the “Lily Pond” and a staircase also of Olmsted design. It is also home to two equally iconic stone-constructions “bathhouses” (originally to serve as public restrooms) and a grand stone staircase and hillside planting bed, both built by the WPA. Although the bathhouses were designed by the Utica city engineer and built by the WPA, they are consistent with the Olmsted preference for simple stone construction;
• the lower level of the park, the current central feature of which is a meadow, adjacent to the Starch Factory Creek, which is encircled by a walking loop.
• a northern sector, on the other side of the creek, containing the remnants of a walking loops designed by Olmsted, linked to the park’s lower level by a stone-construction WPA-built bridge.
• a ravine, adjacent to the upper loop, containing five of the park’s nine functional stone staircases and footpath connecting the lower level to the plateau and the upper loop.

Walking up from the lower level to the upper level.

Postcard depicting one of the two now-lost ponds in F.T. Proctor Park; the upper view depicts the east side of the pond, characterized by a waterfall spanned by a wooden lattice work bridge, and the lower view depicts the pond itself, as seen from the west.

The other lost pond, which was located opposite the road that runs parallel to the Starch Factory Creek in F.T. Proctor. This tear-shaped pond was fed by a natural spring that is still active, and it is for that reason that the field in the lower level where this pond once stood is wet much of the year.

The park’s lower level today, where the tear-shaped pond used to be located, now covered with wild plants that attract pollinators and butterflies.

People enjoying the “upper loop” at F.T. Proctor Park, with one of the pillars of the park’s iconic gate at left, on a sunny summer day.

Walkers on the Upper Loop.

Strolling on the Upper Loop at twilight.

One of over a half dozen stone staircases connected to the trails in the park’s interior.

An original staircase in F.T. Proctor Park, evidently reconstructed partially in the 1930s, with the only remaining example of the layered slate that Olmsted had used in several parts of the park to mimic natural slate formations he saw in and around the park. All other examples of this stacked slate construction had to be replaced because most of it did not survive Utica’s winters.