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Showered With Ideas – A Finger Lakes Museum Proposal

By John Adamski

(Courtesy, Life in the Finger Lakes magazine, Spring 2008 issue
           
            Sometimes an inspiration will come to me while I’m in the shower. One morning not long ago was one of those times. While some people may sing or whistle, as a writer, I just let my mind wander in the hope that an intriguing topic will somehow make its way through all that steam. And that morning, one did.    

The Adirondack Region has its well-established Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, which celebrates the area's cultural history, craftsmanship and lore. And it has the brand-new Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks, also known as The Wild Center, in Tupper Lake that showcases live exhibits dealing with the Adirondack ecology, environment, fish and wildlife. Yet no comparable institution exists in the Finger Lakes Region. To be sure, we have the Museum of Glass and the Rockwell Museum of Western Art, both of which reside in Corning, and the Finger Lakes Boating Museum, which is currently housed at the Glenn Curtis Aircraft Museum in Hammondsport. We can’t forget the Rochester Museum and Science Center in its namesake city either. And there are more. But we have no cultural or natural history museum to focus attention on one of the most beautiful, ecologically diverse and popular regions of New York State. My idea was a combination of the first two mentioned above: The Finger Lakes Cultural and Natural History Museum.

My first impulse was to dry off and run the idea past this magazine’s editor, Mark Stash, which I did. Mark was instantly receptive and asked for some time to discuss the proposal with his colleagues, which he did. In the meantime, I contacted Elizabeth (Betsy) Lowe, who conceived the idea for The Wild Center along with some friends on her porch overlooking Long Lake. Betsy went on to make that daydream become a reality. She graciously agreed to meet with me to share whatever direction she could provide to help get this ball rolling, which she did. Another Betsy, Elizabeth Folwell, who was instrumental in the founding of Blue Mountain Lake’s Adirondack Museum, has kindly offered to lend her insight to this project as well. I will be meeting with her sometime soon.

The potential is endless. Exhibits could celebrate Native American culture and early colonization, and feature the histories of agriculture, viniculture and commerce in the Finger Lakes Region. They could include antique boats and farm equipment. I would like to see an immense freshwater aquarium to display the variety of fish species that inhabit the Finger Lakes. A taxidermy exhibit could illustrate native wildlife species and a special exhibit could showcase the Seneca White Deer. Each of the Finger Lakes could be individually represented and perhaps a special presentation on Canadice and Hemlock Lakes might be included. There could be an art and photo gallery to exhibit the talents of past and present regional artists and an auditorium for media presentations, along with a bookstore. And these are just my thoughts. Historical societies from the 14 counties that comprise the Finger Lakes Region and colleges and universities located within those counties could each submit their own proposals for cultural and natural history exhibits.
A lot is involved in planning a museum: There is fundraising. There is a business plan. There is site selection. There is master planning. There are public meetings. There are meetings with groups, organizations, legislators and community leaders. There are architectural and exhibit designs. There is marketing. There is incorporation. There is financial management. There is accreditation by the state Board of Regents. There are committees. There are consultants. There are lawyers and accountants. Of all of these, fundraising is the most important component of a project like this.

Mark Stash and Life in the Finger Lakes magazine have enthusiastically endorsed the idea and offered to promote it. I would like to see how much public support there is. And I would like to see how much business support there is as well. A well-planned museum has the potential to become an important tourist attraction, further enhancing the Finger Lakes Region as a vacation destination.

Log in to www.lifeinthefingerlakes.com to vote for or against the idea in a reader poll. The results will be an indication of whether the idea has merit and enough support or is just the rant of a guy who was all wet when he thought of it.