History Center gears up for grand reopening

May 12—Marcela Micucci, executive director of the Greater Oneonta Historical Society, stood in the History Center's gallery Wednesday morning, supervising as teams of volunteers and workers worked to ready the new permanent exhibit for a grand opening on Friday.

"That looks so good," she said, clapping her hands as two contractors used a heat gun and plastic squeegees to affix an 8-foot-tall vinyl wall panel about Oneonta in the 20th century. Micucci then turned to examine a section of exposed ornate floor tiles visible beside the new laminate flooring — original tile work dating from when the building was Laskiris Restaurant and Candy Shop a century ago.

Around a corner, volunteers from the Oneonta chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution set up a window display honoring the 125th anniversary of their chapter, framing posters about patriotism and historic preservation with small American flags and bunting.

"It's a busy couple of days but we'll be done. The most time-consuming is the graphics," Micucci told the DAR volunteers. The artifacts will be faster to install because their positions are already mapped out, she said.

"People will be amazed when they walk in," said volunteer Merrilee Lutz, "coming in to the modern era. It's nice they have a fresh new 2022 look."

The Oneonta History Center at 183 Main St. is scheduled to reopen May 13 at 6:30 p.m. after four months of renovations. The gallery space has been reconfigured, with a five-part permanent exhibit, a space for temporary exhibits, a children's corner and a gift shop. There are new walls with new graphics, floor maps, audiovisual and interactive exhibit elements.

The theme of the main exhibit is "Small Community, Big Ideas," divided into chronological sections. There are segments focusing on geographic history of the Susquehanna valley, the founding of Oneonta, and the "climax moment" when the railroads arrived.

A 20th century section looks at Oneonta's development in the context of national events —two World Wars, the Great Depression, civil rights movements and the Vietnam War. A modern history section discusses topics such as tourism and activism, addressing race, class and gender issues that were often left out of previous small town histories. "It's a really important moment for us to revisit Oneonta's history and really ... uncover some of these stories and give a kind of fresh perspective," Micucci said.

It's a lot of history to squeeze into 1,000 square feet, she acknowledged.

"Our previous exhibit ended in the early 1900s. So this has really been a challenge, but an exciting one, to be able to basically double the history that we're covering in this section, but in such a small space," she said.

In Micucci's narrow office behind the gallery, she sat and explained that a goal in creating the new exhibit was to highlight stories that people may not know about Oneonta — addressing topics such as slavery and worker strikes. In creating this exhibit, she learned things about the city she had never known, even though she first moved to Oneonta in sixth grade, and studied history at SUNY Oneonta and Binghamton University, she said.

She listed one example: looking at settlement patterns in terms of ethnic diversity. In the late 1800s, Italian, Polish and Lebanese railroad workers came to Oneonta but formed their own institutions and their own neighborhoods, in the Sixth Ward.

"People think of history sometimes as dates, and periods of time," Micucci said. What the exhibition team tried to do instead was tell history as a story, "because everyone likes a story. ... Historical figures are characters, and they make decisions based on the time and place in which they're living."

Micucci turned to the AV cart beside her desk, stacked with historic artifacts that will soon be in the new exhibit. One shelf held a caligraph, an early typewriter from 1882. Above that was an Oneonta fireman's helmet with a leather frontispiece from the late 19th century. Also on the cart were General Samuel Burnside's epaulette and E. R. Ford's top hat, and a ledger book with school attendance records from the 1840s and 1850s.

"We could use this object to build an entire exhibit," Micucci said, carefully turning pages. It can be used for genealogical research, and provides primary information about early education. But more importantly, it provides clues to the social and cultural history of that moment. "You can see who in those families were attending school, and who wasn't," she said. "You could even use this to explore economic history, looking at, you know, changes in labor patterns, child labor."

Upstairs, Micucci gave a brief tour of the GOHS collections and archive rooms. The history center holds more than 10,000 historic documents and more than 500 objects, mainly from the 20th century. In the public research library, past a shelf of old yearbooks, a civil war musket, a Red Sox baseball bat and Haudenosaunee arrowheads lay on a table next to a poster announcing a 1952 strike of D&H railroad workers.

By Friday, all these artifacts will be displayed in the gallery, Micucci hopes. But first she has "some very late nights, very long hours," ahead of her to finish getting everything ready. "I joked I should bring my sleeping bag," she said.

Friday night's grand opening will feature docent-led tours, opening remarks, drinks and music, plus a teaser introducing the first temporary exhibit set to open in summer 2022: a nostalgic tour of Main Street in the 1960s, curated by former Oneonta mayor John Nader.

Mike Forster Rothbart, staff writer, can be reached at mforsterrothbart@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7213. Follow him at @DS_MikeFR on Twitter.