Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Preparations are already underway in Downtown Buffalo for the upcoming bicentennial celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Monday plans for a new Erie Canal bicentennial visitors experience called "Waterway of Change: A Complex Legacy of the Erie Canal" to be located at Canalside in Buffalo.
After four years of construction in the Longshed Building at Canalside, the replica Erie Canal Boat Seneca Chief will move out to make way for interior construction and installation of the new experience in the building on May 7.
Renderings of the visitors experience are available here .
"'Waterway of Change' will share the remarkable story of the Erie Canal and the area now known as Canalside with visitors," said Gov. Hochul on Monday in a statement. "As the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal approaches in 2025, this visitors experience will draw more people to Buffalo’s waterfront, and help them connect to its history in a new and participative way."
The concept for the 2,900-square-foot Longshed, located on the historic Western terminus of the Erie Canal, is to create a visitors experience that acts as a gathering space and starting point for visitors beginning their Bicentennial Commemoration journey.
President of the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC), Mark Wendel feels the history component that is the future visitors experience is a missing component that will be a welcome addition at Canalside.
"Having the bicentennial next year has given us the opportunity to bring the story of the canal, the creation of the canal and its impact on the city and the various residents and cultures that were in that area," said Wendel in an interview with WBEN. "We're very happy to bring that story in multiple interactive displays that'll be in the Longshed at Canalside next year."
Plans include visitors’ experiences that will explain and detail how Canalside’s timeline, from its beginnings as traditional homeland of the Haudenosaunee to the development of a rural village at the time the Erie Canal opened in 1825, to a thriving port and shipping hub at the end of the 19th century.
Waterway of Change will include interactive multimedia exhibits for visitors of all ages and abilities, sharing Buffalo’s Erie Canal story in an inclusive and diverse way through the use of short films, touch screens, audio, historical artifacts and dramatic lighting. A series of outdoor interpretive exhibits will also be created at towpaths along and around the canals.
"Having the Longshed building there has given us the opportunity to finally bring something that's internal, giving people to have these display," Wendel said. "The Buffalo Maritime Center has been great stewards in the Longshed Building. Their boat will be coming out soon, and be in the canal. And then we'll be coming in afterwards with these interactive exhibits that are going to tell the story, of the creation of the canal, that's going to touch on the engineering of the canal, the impact of the canal, not just in Buffalo, but probably across the state. We're weaving in a variety of stories to pique the interest of everybody that's gonna be visiting."
Local Projects, a multi-disciplinary exhibition and media design firm based in New York City, has been working with the ECHDC to create the visitor experiences for the Longshed and Canalside. Other partnerships include exhibit fabrication, with Buffalo’s Hadley Exhibits, and project development with the Buffalo History Museum.
"All-in-all, we're looking to have everything prepared and ready, and then with a lot of technical stuff, have that be tested to make sure it works well, and everything open to the public in May - right by Memorial Day of 2025," he said. "That'll be open for a while, and they're not going to be there just for the bicentennial year. They'll be there beyond, providing information to visitors at Canalside for years beyond."
While Wendel doesn't have an exact timeline of how long the visitors experience will be there at the Longshed, he says it'll be a fixture at Canalside for the near future.
"We do have these exhibits being in there for a while, and we'll work with the technology to make sure stories can be updated and more information can be added down the road, as we see fit, to create more unique opportunities for visitors," Wendel said.
The museum is providing interpretive content and historical guidance through all phases of the project. The collaboration includes consulting with a diverse group of community stakeholders and subject matter experts to ensure Buffalo’s Erie Canal story is shared with visitors from multiple perspectives and viewpoints.
"Waterway of Change will be the premier attraction at Canalside when we mark the historic 200th anniversary of the opening of the Erie Canal in Buffalo next year," added ECHDC Chairperson Joan Kesner on Monday. "We’ll be hosting visitors from around the globe, as well as our neighbors across Western New York, at this visitor experience and we are excited to share the first renderings of this beautiful and educational space in the Longshed. ECHDC also will be offering fun, thoughtful, and hands-on programming located on the lawns, ruins, and towpath areas. We have lots more in the works, enjoyment for all ages, all abilities—history buff or not, you may just want to make all of Summer 2025 a Canalside staycation!"
Additionally, the content in the visitors’ experience will be utilized by schools to supplement their Erie Canal history curricula during visits to the Longshed. The content will meet New York State Education Department standards to broadly reach and resonate with Grade 4-12 educational experiences.
While the anniversary of the bicentennial will likely be marked at events throughout New York State, ECHDC is planning a large celebration at Buffalo’s Canalside, which will also host the World Canals Conference in 2025 . That event, first announced by Gov. Hochul in June 2022 , will bring together canal and inland waterway enthusiasts, professionals and scholars from around the world to learn about a variety of canal-related topics.
"We've been working with a lot of local cultural groups to make sure they come and bring stories, whether it's through spoken word or performance or tours, bicycle tours, all to give people different experiences at Canalside," Wendel said. "And then the bicentennial celebration culminates with the World Canal Conference coming here in Buffalo in September of 2025, the Maritime Conference coming in September 2025. So we're looking for a summer-long celebration, and hopefully with a variety of performances and exhibits that really let the visitors experience the canal in multiple ways."
The event will highlight Buffalo’s transformed waterfront district, which has seen more than $400 million in new investment, including new hotels, a major sports arena, a children’s museum, retail shops and a re-created waterway on the footprint of the original Erie Canal in the "Queen City".
Today, the Buffalo waterfront attracts more than 1 million annual visitors.
In 2020, a wood frame structure at the Northern end of the Central Wharf, now called the Longshed Building, was completed. The structure reflects on the history of the wharf location by incorporating elements from the Joy and Webster Storehouse that was situated on the site in the early 1800s. Work on the building, which incorporates select interior modifications to incorporate a small office, transient boater shower rooms, and public restrooms, is currently being completed.
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