9

The Sacred Laundromat

This was it? This was the Wesleyan Chapel, site of the 1848 convention for women’s rights? This was among the most important buildings in the country for women’s history? It was ludicrous to think that this thoroughly disguised building might be the centerpiece of a new national park. I loved the large plastic sign lit from within that said “Laundromat” in big white script letters on a blue background. It jutted into the sidewalk and was hard to miss. However charming it was, it did not make it easier to see this as the centerpiece of a national park. But I thought the National Park Service could figure it out tomorrow.

The laundromat was one of the largest, tallest, and most imposing structures on the village’s main street, Fall Street. But it told too many stories to be an easy fit for the National Park Service. No one could claim it looked like the authentic Wesleyan Chapel, site of the 1848 convention. A wall-to-wall red-and-white metal awning was rather cheery. Beneath the awning, nearly floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows were right up to the sidewalk, a reminder of the car sales operation that the building had once been. On the west side, a framed-in staircase and a cinder-block elevator enclosure had been added to the exterior to service the ten apartments created at some point after the roof had been raised to house a second floor. Several generations of windows had been cut out and subsequently filled back in, telling the stories of the building’s days as the Johnson Opera House and later the Regent Movie Theater. On the east side most of the exterior wall had been covered with mustard-colored stucco. This disguised some of the many window openings on that side. A large opening in the rear of the east side wall had been created to allow cars and trucks to park inside the rear of the structure. Despite the subsequent commercial narratives that were in evidence all over the building in its glaring assortment of alterations, it had originally been the sanctuary for the First Wesleyan Methodist Society, from its construction in 1843 through the early months of 1872.

But the building’s nationally significant story, that of the 1848 women’s rights convention, had been thoroughly buried behind and under so many other stories. The changes in use began when the founding congregation split, and both halves moved out of the church and sold the structure in 1872. We were told that some residents in 1978 believed that there was no more historic Wesleyan Chapel still standing. It took years of research by the National Park Service to document the changes that occurred here over the years, but the subsequent stories were indeed written all over the building.

The relationship between the Wesleyan Chapel and the Park Service should have ended before it began. Before 1978, no one tried to fit the chapel into the National Park Service. By 1978 the structure had been so modified there was no hope of “preserving” it. It could only be “rebuilt,” which violated Park Service policy. Any imagined chapel, a speculative reconstruction—theme park style—would be horrifying to the Park Service. Yet because the chapel was the gathering place for the three hundred women and men who asked for women’s right to vote, and all rights, it was clear this historic structure should be the centerpiece of the proposed Women’s Rights National Historical Park. It was the touchstone for the story, hallowed ground because of the Declaration of Sentiments adopted at the convention. But nothing about the structure in 1978 proclaimed it as a church, and certainly not historically significant, except for the small blue-and-yellow New York State historical marker standing on the corner, naming the structure as the Wesleyan Chapel. There was also a tablet installed in 1908 on the east side of the building that commemorated the convention.

In 1978 when I saw the chapel for the first time, I really did not care what it looked like. I refused to be stopped. A building was still standing there, and I wanted the larger park so intensely that I was happy to overlook the building’s condition. I just wanted to hold together all the pieces of a larger park.

The work of fifteen-year-old Hanns Kuttner and historical society director Anne Ackerson made it plausible to include the laundromat in the proposed park. Their noncontiguous historic district included all the park-related historic structures in Seneca Falls and next-door neighbor Waterloo. Their work was long on historical significance and short on how the chapel wound up as a laundromat. The nomination was pending before the New York State historic preservation officer. It was astonishing that they would include this building, but they did, and that was all I cared about. It was going to be certified as nationally significant, as Peggy Lipson said it must be. The park proposal charged forward. Again and again, I reiterated that the chapel had been nominated as nationally significant, and while of course the chapel building had been badly altered, the home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton retained its integrity, I said. At the time, I believed that to be true. The planning and legislative phases rode along on these two reassurances all the way to a congressional authorization of the new park in December 1980 and a subsequent presidential signature.

The Park Service began intensely researching the chapel once Congress authorized the park. The research before the legislation was enacted was limited to the somewhat thin history in the New Area Study. No one had challenged the work. But once the park was authorized by Congress, Park Service historian Sharon Brown scoured the regional and local archives. Sharon’s research revealed only one interior photograph, which was of a few teachers in the sanctuary sometime after 1858. One source, however, had not been explored by Sharon, as it seemed unlikely to reveal new information. One day I donned jeans and went over to the historical society to rummage through their basement, where a few dusty boxes were filled with dusty tubes. There I discovered, rolled into a tube and tucked inside a nondescript box along with other tubes, a large panoramic drawing of Seneca Falls made in 1882. Each corner of the nearly three-by-two-foot drawing featured a larger inset drawing of a church. I was ecstatic. But once I was back upstairs and made a closer inspection in good light, it was obvious that none of the larger sketches was the original Wesleyan Chapel. The tiny drawing of the chapel in the full panorama showed that a flat-roofed, block-shaped addition to its façade had already altered the historic chapel by 1882. The map did not show the lower half of the façade, which was blocked by another building drawing. I was crushed with disappointment.

Meanwhile, the contemporary laundromat on Fall Street was looking worse by the day. Scrawled signs were taped to the doors of broken machines, noting they would not be fixed because the Park Service would be buying the building. It was a terrible situation for the owner, Frank Ludovico. He was willing to sell, as he wanted to retire, but was unable to find a buyer because everyone thought the Park Service was going to purchase the building. But in actuality, Interior Department policy since James Watt’s appointment as secretary 1981 prohibited the Park Service from buying the laundromat, or purchasing any property for any park, for that matter. The park had greatly benefited from a donation of the Stanton home, but donation was not possible for the laundromat: Ludovico counted on the proceeds from the sale of the laundromat as his retirement income, and no organization stepped up to make the purchase and then donate the property to the Park Service. It was a tense time in the community, which sympathized with the owner of the laundromat, as I did.

In 1982 the congressional district boundaries were redrawn, and Seneca Falls was added to the district of Republican Frank Horton. His district stretched east from Monroe County, with Rochester at its core. One day, a prominent local businessman brought him to my office for a quick hello, to introduce us. But we quickly discovered we were both Cornell alumni, he from the Law School and I from the Arts College. We bonded as graduates of the big university at the south end of Cayuga Lake. The congressman was expected to offer his greetings and move on to his next appointment, but he stayed over an hour that morning, asking questions. He seemed appreciative and quite proud to have this new park in his district. He was the ranking minority member of the Government Operations Committee, and a much-respected gentleman politician of the old school of working together. He had first been elected to Congress in 1963. Representative Horton became our warrior for funding, so critical for a new park.

The park had been able to acquire, by donation, the Stanton house, and restore it for $350,000; that preservation project could proceed because as it fell below the $500,000 ceiling for funding required from Congress. And the full support of Director Dickenson and Regional Director Cables had secured the needed funding. However, any development that would cost more than $500,000 would be dependent on Park Service approval as well as congressional approval and funding. The park was supremely fortunate to have Frank Horton as our new representative.

Congressman Horton regularly traveled to Seneca Falls to hold office hours: citizens could line up to see him and share their dreams, desires, and complaints. During one of his office hours visits, the Stanton Foundation members detailed for him the need for funds to purchase the laundromat. They explained why the park could not request the funds to buy the laundromat through Park Service internal processes, and why I could not even talk to him about the acquisition funding. Influencing Congress on matters of funding is prohibited for federal employees, and in any case Secretary Watt was determined to block purchases by the Park Service. Before I moved to Seneca Falls, we had joked in Boston that if you had to use the word “acquisition” you must whisper so that nobody in Washington could hear you.

Congressman Horton was inspired by the Stanton Foundation’s pleas, and by the hardship of the owner, to initiate a $500,000 line-item appropriation for purchase of the laundromat. The appropriation legislation also specifically directed the Park Service to purchase the Wesleyan Chapel. Congressional appropriations law would override Secretary Watt’s policy prohibiting acquisition. The law was signed by President Reagan as part of that year’s appropriations for the Department of the Interior. It seemed to me that the congressman was delighted to show that his power was superior to that of the new secretary of the interior.

While the Stanton Foundation had provided the information to the congressman, and made the ask, I was still nervous at having circumvented, if not exactly flagrantly, a departmental directive. Not too long afterward Herb Cables called all the superintendents in his North Atlantic Region to gather at a conference in New York City to review the new directions included in that year’s appropriations legislation. Comptroller Bruce Schaefer from headquarters in Washington joined us to present and explain the latest congressional funding news and its impacts on departmental policies and our parks. The conference was critical, as this was years before this information could be found on the internet. Either your congressman telephoned you, or you waited to hear the news from Bruce. In the middle of his announcements, Bruce paused a moment, then quoted the language directing the Park Service to acquire the Wesleyan Chapel and the provision for $500,000 to carry that out. A hush fell over the room. The comptroller added to the drama by not speaking for some time, letting the silence hang among the assembled superintendents and managers.

I was hearing the news for the first time. I had not requested the congressman to keep me informed, as supposedly I was not involved with the request. I was thrilled, but also wondered if I would be chastised in the meeting, or worse, for so boldly outflanking the secretary of the interior. Yet I was not even reprimanded. Regional Director Cables said not a word and showed no reaction, no emotion in his face or in his body language. I guessed he was proud of my courage and ingenuity, especially since I succeeded in gaining the funding.

Herb Cables was canny, strategic, and wise. It was clear to all that Congressman Horton was 100 percent supportive of the park and what I was doing. Herb was not one to tangle with a highly regarded congressman with many years of service, as well as friendships and connections spread throughout the House and Senate. And the congressman had taken action critical to moving the park forward. I imagined Herb was cheering me on. It also seemed the spirit of the highly esteemed Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, another park enthusiast, was attending that meeting as well. The threats of the administration and the physical presence of Comptroller Sheaffer were no match for this congressional power duo of Horton and Moynihan. Sheaffer worked closely with congressional staff on a daily basis and was sensitive to their desires and actions and their power over the National Park Service. He was well aware of the consequences of opposing their wishes and confined his judgment to the silence around his announcement. Still, it was quite some time before I breathed normally. None of the other superintendents spoke to me after the meeting, perhaps afraid they might take on the taint of my presumed guilt. We all knew the seriousness of my gamble.

The federal government purchased the laundromat on April 2, 1985. The park now owned two properties, fortifying it against the threat of being extinguished. On April 17, we gathered a group of supporters at the laundromat to celebrate the purchase. We handed out gold-painted wood clothespins as souvenirs and used empty soap bottles as vases for fresh flowers sitting atop the washing machines. Judy Wellman brought a hamper of clothes to wash as her last memory of the laundromat. The smell of the soap and the thumping of the washing machine and then the dryer were sweet reminders of our progress toward a more fitting Wesleyan Chapel. Frank Ludovico smiled broadly as he raised high over his head a large metal ring full of over a hundred keys to the property. Julia Ludovico then passed me the key ring, symbolically turning over management to the Park Service.

The park shuttered the laundromat with its many broken machines. To me, any new complications to park management inherent in all those keys handed to me were inconsequential. On the contrary, I was thrilled because they represented a dream come true. The Park Service had been brave and strong to proceed with the direction of Congress and purchase the laundromat against the policy of Secretary Watt. But the course we were taking was risky, and especially to my job as superintendent.

The next step in park development was the general management plan, or GMP. We had completed the so-called Reconnaissance Study in 1978, and then the New Area Study in 1979. After Congress authorizes a new park, federal law required an environmental impact statement, generally referred to as an EIS. Every federal action had to be included and analyzed for its impacts before actions could begin. The Park Service combined the draft EIS with a draft general management plan. The GMP was a vision document, suggesting concepts for development. Planning would include services for visitors, plans for their getting around the park, parking, and, in Seneca Falls, my dream for boat tours from the visitor center to the Stanton house, and perhaps also the sites in Waterloo.

The process began with public meetings gathering the hopes and dreams of the public for the new park. Public meetings on the draft GMP and draft EIS were then held in July 1985 in Seneca Falls, Rochester, and Ithaca. Back then, copies of the documents had to be mailed out, and comments returned by mail. The comments, the research, and further planning would be incorporated into a final GMP and final EIS. The final GMP, which is signed by the park superintendent and the manager of the Denver Service Center and approved by the regional director, becomes the vision plan for the park and is submitted to Congress. Submission of the Park Service–approved document is required before Congress appropriates development/construction funds above the initial $500,000 authorization typical in the legislation authorizing new parks and included in the legislation for Seneca Falls.

Planning chief Terry Savage pulled together a team of specialists from Denver, Boston, and Washington to begin the GMP. The planning team included captain and planner Bonnie Campbell, landscape architect Linda Hugie, and architect Elayne Anderson, all from the Denver Service Center, and Terry Savage and me. Tedd McCann and Mark Malik of the Washington office of planning joined the team, and Washington office historian Heather Huyck continued in her advisory role to the park planning team of the regional office.

The planning team immediately agreed to drop the idea that the Wesleyan Chapel would just be cleaned up and interpretive exhibits displayed there, as outlined in the earlier New Area Study. The chapel deserved to be honored as the sacred space where the convention happened. Yet there was still no viable plan for the chapel. When I had so vehemently argued that the laundromat must be included in the park, it never occurred to me that I might become the on-site superintendent struggling with what to do with it.

After many meetings, team captain Bonnie Campbell suggested holding a national design competition for the Wesleyan Chapel, since we still had no information about the structure’s original 1848 appearance. It began as a simple thought from Bonnie after she read a magazine article about a competition. The idea was new to us, and we were not aware of the long tradition of past competitions for buildings, including the White House. It simply was the best idea we had heard and was better than continuing on with the laundromat. The Stanton Foundation, however, objected strenuously to turning over the future appearance of the chapel to unknown individuals in the profession of architecture, a profession historically unwelcoming to women. The foundation’s reaction was to propose a contest for information related to the appearance of the chapel in 1848, including a $500 reward for the winner or winners. The contest was held, and several individuals did bring to the park pictures and information, but always for the second Wesleyan Chapel, which had been built in 1872 on the corner west of the first Wesleyan Chapel. We wanted information only on the first Wesleyan Chapel, but nothing was submitted. The planning team appreciated this effort to establish evidence of the appearance of the historic chapel, and we were all disappointed when no new evidence emerged.

After the conclusion of the contest sponsored by the Stanton Foundation, I began announcing there would be no construction based on a fabricated historical appearance of the chapel on Fall Street. Yet no one wanted the chapel to continue as a laundromat. It had become clear and commanding: the Park Service was vehemently opposed to creating a reconstruction of the chapel, especially with no evidence. That left us two choices: no action, which meant leaving the laundromat in its 1982 appearance and just giving tours and lectures on the site’s historic significance, or a design competition. The planning team determined to move ahead with the idea of a design competition and began writing it into the GMP.

The park staff was slowly growing, as were the programs being developed. The planners determined the park needed more office space for staff and program development. It was also determined that expanded interpretive exhibits were appropriate and would require more space than was available at our first visitor center building created by George Souhan. I began surveying the community for potential structures large enough for this expanded mission. Only one structure was suitable. The former Village Hall was just one building away from the laundromat and also fronted on Fall Street. The village of Seneca Falls had decided to relocate their offices, their police department, and especially their jail to the vacant historic passenger rail station two blocks away. The single-story former train station was a perfect solution for the new Village Hall and jail; the police no longer would have to drag miscreants up a long flight of steps for their overnight stay in the jail, and all offices would also be on the first (and only) floor and accessible to the community. The three-story former Village Hall would make a perfect visitor center and offices for the new Women’s Rights Park after the addition of a safe new passenger elevator. The planning team was beginning to talk of a “Wesleyan Chapel Block” including a redeveloped Village Hall and the Wesleyan Chapel.

There was another hitch, however. Federal law applying to all federal agencies prevented purchasing with federal funds property already in public ownership: the Village Hall would have to be transferred to the federal government without any payment from the Park Service to the village of Seneca Falls. This was insurmountable—even Congressman Horton could never secure funds for the Park Service to purchase a structure already in public ownership. This transfer was discussed at Village Board meetings for nine months. There were some in the village who opposed donating the building to the Park Service and believed that selling it to a private developer, and adding it back onto the village tax base, would provide greater benefit to the citizens. I sat through each meeting silently, nervous and uncomfortable because this transfer would be so important to the developing park. One resident gave an impassioned speech about wanting his son to return to Seneca Falls to live after finishing his schooling. The resident said that park jobs would just be flipping burgers for three months, and that was not a real job and would not keep his son in Seneca Falls. Jobs considered good in Seneca Falls were working in one of the five manufacturing plants in town: the jobs were well paying, and certainly year-round. A summer job catering to visitors would never provide that level of income or stability. I heard no discussions critical of the park, or the Park Service. The concern expressed was for the finances of the village and its residents. They argued over which option might produce greater income for the village. After months of discussions the board did approve the transfer of the now abandoned Village Hall to the National Park Service, with the expectation it would become the new visitor center.

Between the Village Hall and the chapel/laundromat was a small cinder-block movie house that replaced the grand historic movie theater that had burned down. It was an obvious decision to acquire that piece of property and create the Wesleyan Chapel Block by replacing the movie house with an open green space between the chapel and the new visitor center. The community, however, feared the loss of their only movie theater, the next closest one being in Geneva, a twenty-minute drive west. I attended one daytime movie at the village movie house, and there were many teenagers and younger children there. It brought home to me that these young children were able to walk to their theater right in the middle of downtown. And certainly they could not walk to Geneva. Once the planning process moved forward with the idea of a green space where the movie theater stood, I telephoned the owner of the theater and encouraged him to open in another location in Seneca Falls. There were few vacant structures in the village, however. I hoped the owner would relocate somewhere nearby, but no new movie theater opened in Seneca Falls.

After the National Park was authorized by Congress, friendly collaboration among officials, some with the National Park Service and others the UCP, could not change the fact that the state and national organizations had two different missions in the village. The federal park mission was preservation of the historic structures and interpretation of the 1848 convention through those structures in Seneca Falls and Waterloo. The mission of the UCP program included the preservation of the history but also economic revitalization and recreation and tourism. The missions overlapped and complemented each other but were not the same. When it came time for the Park Service to write a general management plan to outline the vision for the development of the new park, planners had to face the fact that some actions proposed by the Urban Cultural Park were not in line with the preservation mission outlined in the federal legislation creating the park.

These structural gaps appeared also when we tried to plan a joint visitor center with the UCP but were stymied by the same issues of divergent missions, divergent fiscal years, and divergent funding possibilities. Eventually we opened separate visitor centers. We did, however, manage to leverage our twin planning and development tracks to everyone’s benefit: I would say to the Park Service, “The UCP is about to start this or already has,” while Bert and Phil would say to the state and the village, “The Park Service is about to start this or already has,” with each reporting on the other’s progress with urgency to our higher-ups.

The UCP Advisory Committee created by the village as part of the state’s plan for how the UCP would operate was faced with producing its own required management plan. Unlike the National Park Service, the village advisory committee for the UCP did not have a team of staff familiar with the topics and norms required by the state for such a plan; instead the community contracted with Jon Lane of Lane-Frenchman Associates for its overall plan. Lane, out of Boston, had become noted for his development of heritage area plans in Lowell, Massachusetts, and other communities throughout the East Coast. Lane affiliated with Frank Mahady of Economic Research Associates (ERA) for the extensive required economic research and analysis. He and ERA had done a number of cultural attraction feasibility studies throughout the United States.

Working with Bert and Phil and Augie, Frank and Jon produced a monumental management plan in a three-ring binder over three inches thick. The UCP plan proposed a new UCP visitor center with several exhibits that would tell the history of Seneca Falls, including “What happened to the falls?” so often asked by visitors. Seneca Falls had begun as a frontier economy based on agriculture and local commerce. It advanced to manufacturing when the waterpower created by the falls was harnessed for development and many small industries were built in “the flats.” Then the waterway was redeveloped from a canal edged by a tow path trod by mules into a barge canal where tugboats pushed loads far larger than could be moved through the previous canal. In Seneca Falls, the transition to a barge canal meant making the change in water level at one spot. A dam was built and next to it a pair of locks to move boats past the dam. Van Cleef Lake was created by the dam. Beneath the lake were the former sites of manufacturing plants and what had been the falls of Seneca Falls.

The management plan outlined numerous projects to promote public recreation. Several canal-side projects were proposed, including a new lighted walkway. The rear facades of buildings along the canal were largely undeveloped. The plan proposed new decks on the back of the Fall Street buildings to overlook the canal developments. The plan also proposed a performance stage down on the waterfront level, along with facilities for plays and festivals. Cafés and other attractions alongside the historic canal were also envisioned. A new boat landing could be used for boat tours across Van Cleef Lake to the Stanton home. Paddleboat rentals were suggested. In keeping with the theme of heritage area visitation, the community would ideally have recreation attractions for all ages in addition to the history to be discovered.

One of Hanns Kuttner’s ideas was included: a fountain and basin with several hand pumps made by Goulds Pumps arranged around its edge; the more individuals who pumped, the higher the water would shoot. It combined the history of waterpower in Seneca Falls with a visual expression of the power of a group of individuals working together. There were proposals to illustrate the community’s history, including a reflecting pool that outlined the flooding boundary created by the dam and which included small representations of the former manufacturing plants that were all now underwater. The UCP plan supposed a strong connection between the agitation for women’s rights and the significant changes that happened in a short period of time as Seneca Falls became an industrial center based on waterpower.

The UCP management plan was a grand vision with a collection of fine ideas. Regrettably, the follow-through was somewhat limited at that time. During the 1980s, many of the manufacturing jobs in Seneca Falls were lost as plants closed or relocated; only Goulds Pumps remained. In 1982 the local private Eisenhower College closed. Costs, and taxes, took on a new meaning to the residents, with many now unemployed. A canal-side walkway was eventually created all along the back side of the retail block, including benches, trees, and attractive lighting. The project included facilities for boats to tie up along the walk, making Seneca Falls a popular spot for boaters and an attractive strolling place for residents.

The UCP management plan released in 1985 included a description of Seneca Falls. It recorded a small population decline in the village: over the years 1970 to 1980, the population decreased from 7,794 to 7,412. Retail space vacancies on Fall Street at the time totaled 11 percent, while the unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, compared to 6.5 percent across New York State. Goulds Pumps had 2,000 employees, GTE Sylvania had 1,500, Guaranteed Parts 200, Seneca Falls Machine Company 175, and Seneca Knitting Mills 150. Most of these were skilled, well-paying jobs. The average family income was $31,044.¹

The UCP plan called for a total development investment of just under $15.5 million. The UCP program would fund roughly 14 percent, or about $2.2 million, and the village just under 9 percent, or about $1.4 million. “Other” investment was estimated at $11.8 million, much of it projected investment by the National Park Service. The plan, assuming all development was completed, projected about two hundred thousand visitors annually, with a day-trip visitor spending just over twenty-three dollars and an overnight visitor an estimated sixty-three dollars. There were 300 hotel and motel rooms, 120 of them in the Holiday Inn in Waterloo. Nearby attractions had substantial annual visitation already: 250,000 at the close-by Montezuma Wildlife Refuge, 143,000 at Cayuga State Park in Seneca Falls, and 100,000 at the Taylor Winery in adjacent Yates County. The Park Service as well projected an annual visitation of two hundred thousand when the park was fully developed and the UCP plan implemented.

When I drafted the legislation for the park, I had included an advisory commission. My intention was creating a group that could promote awareness of the new national park and also raise funds for the park development. I hoped to have some members appointed whose name recognition would increase the profile of the park. This was during the supportive Carter administration. Had I foreseen the future, I never would have included the advisory commission. Secretary Watt was now authorized to appoint five members—a majority—and the chair. He chose Dorothy Duke as chair. During Duke’s preliminary visit in the fall of 1982, I remember her telling me that her mission was to prevent wasting federal funds on preserving the historic structures of the park.

Her first proposal for the Wesleyan Chapel was variously called “Precious Gifts,” then the “National Constituency Project,” then the “Women’s History Project,” then the “Books of Honor Project.” For all the name changes, her plan was the same: clean up the laundromat and install a pedestal for each state and territory. A notebook would be attached to each pedestal and be available for any woman to write her story or any other woman’s story in it. This idea became more complicated as the Park Service struggled to find a way to authenticate the writings before they were added to the proposed books. The chief historian in the Boston regional office, Dwight Pitcaithley, traveled out to the park to attend a commission meeting. He suggested the historian for each state verify the information before it would be added to the books. It was never resolved how the stories would be preserved once a book was filled. Information from anybody about anybody without any secondary validation was a conflict with the Park Service’s desire to interpret history accurately. It also did not fit the mission of the park as outlined in the authorizing legislation: “to interpret the 1848 convention through the historic structures in Seneca Falls and Waterloo.” Duke proposed a budget of $400,000 for her project. She announced she had procured a single corporate donor for the project. When some months later she related that the $400,000 donation had failed to materialize, it marked the end of her notebooks-in-the chapel program.

Dorothy Duke’s next alternative was an $80,000 program to gather a number of CEOs of large corporations to brainstorm the interpretive and development programs for the Women’s Rights National Historical Park. Regional Director Cables firmly declared that the National Park Service would itself draft the development program, and the interpretive program, and would use interpretive planners from throughout the agency, especially the Interpretive Center at Harpers Ferry, not just our tiny staff in Seneca Falls. Duke also failed to raise the $80,000 for her program, and that ended her proposal.

Herb Cables attended every meeting of the advisory commission but one. He had been a semipro athlete, was tall and hefty, with a deep, loud voice and a commanding presence. He also listened well and respectfully, and generally let the staff argue the issues, then would emphatically bring the conversation back to the Park Service mission and the park purpose delineated by the legislation that created the park. He repeatedly reminded the commission members that they had no authority; they were only advisory.

Duke was opposed to the design competition idea for the Wesleyan Chapel. The Park Service planning staff had written the design competition into the general management plan for the park, as was required for such a major action. When the plan was finished and it was time for the advisory commission to vote on it, Dorothy Duke was the only no vote. She resigned from the commission shortly afterward.

The other appointees carried on. The Administrative History of Women’s Rights National Historical Park lists the founding members of the advisory commission. Secretary Watt’s appointments included Carrie George, coordinator of research for student services at Georgia State University; Neal Peden, director of administrative services for the Republican National Committee; Donna Carlson West, member of the Arizona House of Representatives; and Charlotte Conable, coordinator of public policy projects at the Women’s Studies Program and Policy Center, George Washington University. Eileen Wilmont and Nancy Dubner were appointed by New York governor Hugh Carey. Judy Jensvold represented the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Foundation, Marilyn Bero represented the Women’s Hall of Fame, Herald Bertran the town of Seneca Falls, and August Sinicropi the village of Seneca Falls.

The meetings had a significant impact on staff time and the park budget. The park was required to pay travel and per diem expenses for all who attended the quarterly meetings in Seneca Falls, and when all the administration appointments flew in, the cost to the park could be $10,000 a year. That cost was reduced over time as the administration appointments attended fewer meetings. Having the commission discussing and arguing about the GMP and the design competition and the interpretive program did increase awareness in the community, and that was an important intention in creating the commission. They were an important symbol of outreach, which was critical for a project as new and unpredictable as a design competition.

There was one significant loss. Park Service funding to plan the interpretive program was delayed because of the extended arguments in the advisory commission. The first planning team from the interpretive Harpers Ferry Center arrived shortly before I moved from the park in 1990. By law the advisory commission expired on December 28, 1990.

What could be done with the laundromat so that the building could again tell its 1848 story? What could make that muddled and much-altered site sing its 1848 story? We decided to put that to the imagination of anyone who would enter into a design competition for the chapel. The design could have been done by Park Service staff. But it seemed to me appropriate to offer this opportunity to all the public. A team was created to plan the design competition. It included Terry Savage, architect Elayne Anderson from Denver, and me.

Elayne Anderson discovered that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was at that time providing substantial grants, and technical assistance, for design competitions throughout the country. Our design competition planning team suggested that the Park Service partner with the National Endowment for the Arts to sponsor the design competition. This potential partnership with the NEA created new supporters and new excitement for the design competition. We made a call to their offices in Washington, and the NEA sent their ambassador, Charlie Zucker, to visit Seneca Falls on October 25, 1985. Zucker arrived in a whirl of energy and full of ideas. He sketched plans all day and scribbled on napkins at the Hotel Gould during dinner after an already full day in the park. His enthusiasm engaged us. We were disappointed to learn that shortly after his visit to Seneca Falls, Zucker took off for the West Coast on his motorcycle, with no plans to return. Nevertheless, Charlie had educated us about the traditions and history of competitions, and ours would be the first federal competition since the 1920s! And our plan to cosponsor with the NEA was creating the very first competition actually sponsored by the NEA.

Our competition planning team began regular meetings with the NEA in September 1986. We traveled to Washington to meet with the NEA director of the Design Arts Program, Adele Chatfield-Taylor. Adele had a distinguished career in preservation in New York City before moving to Washington and the NEA position in 1984. She had been the executive director of the New York Landmarks Preservation Foundation from 1980 to 1984, and prior to that she was director for policy and programs with the Landmarks Preservation Commission from 1973 to 1980. She was also adjunct assistant professor of architecture at Columbia University from 1976 to 1984. Our NEA liaison, replacing Charlie Zucker, was Peter Smith, noted as one of the founders in 1971 of a group to save from demolition the storied Post Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The group, which had named itself “Don’t Tear It Down,” had become a model for preservation activism. And fifteen years later he was working in that very same building, for the NEA.

The historic Post Office Building, between the Capitol and the White House, is in one of the most beautiful and fascinating buildings in Washington. Our planning team first visited the NEA offices there in September 1986. We climbed the stairs under the imposing arch at the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance and passed through enormous glass doors, to be suddenly overwhelmed by the smell of cotton candy. The building had been repurposed to offices upstairs, but on the basement floor back then dozens of vendors and food stalls and restaurants held the space. I was told the cotton candy smell was manufactured and disseminated every day through the ventilation system: an intended enticement for visitors to go down to the ground floor and shop and eat. The towering central atrium was open from the basement floor to the roof, with offices set off from hallways that were also balconies. You could stand in the balcony of the eighth floor and look down at the shops on the first floor and smell the cotton candy. It was a staggeringly beautiful place.

The Park Service planners catapulted from great innocence of design competitions to working with the very best in the field of design competitions for preservation. This partnership was reassuring to the Stanton Foundation members who had been so concerned about the competition. And it was impressive to the National Park Service, and to our heroes Congressman Frank Horton and Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Then the biggest challenge of all: Regional Director Cables was unwilling to fight for congressional funding for the development of the Wesleyan Chapel Block. He expected the park, working with the Stanton Foundation, to raise the necessary millions in donations. At that time the Park Service was engaged in an expansive and expensive fund-raising campaign to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island in New York Harbor. Herb Cables repeatedly said to me that Seneca Falls needed to do what was being accomplished in New York City. This seemed impossible, but we were ready to attempt whatever was necessary. Herb set up a day for the new Stanton Foundation president Suzanne Cusick and me to fly to New York to meet with leaders of the Statue of Liberty campaign. Their offices were on a high floor, and the view of New York Harbor out the windows was spectacular. Everything bespoke big money. We heard about their connections, major donors, and sophisticated and expensive campaigns for raising funding. We returned home dispirited. Back in Seneca Falls we contemplated how we could raise millions for the chapel despite having no connections, no major donors, no experience raising funds, and no money to hire high-end consultants or even print brochures. We painfully remembered we were still selling T‑shirts for two years after the park opening, working to pay off assorted vendor debts from the history conference.

I knew that the park would need millions of dollars to turn the Wesleyan Chapel into its centerpiece. I knew I needed every friend I could make. Consequently, I accepted every invitation to speak. Tedd McCann, our ear in the community, told me there was a planning conference at Cornell University, and I should speak there. As an alumnus, I was happy to spend an afternoon driving down Cayuga Lake and talking to the group. I was the last speaker and put on my usual slide show. While the room was still darkened, a woman came up to me after the talk and said she would be happy to help me however she could, as she was excited about the new park. In the dim light I could not read the card she handed me, but the embossed golden eagle in the top left corner did jump out at me. That gold eagle told me she worked for the US Congress. I said thank you very much, I will surely be in touch with you.

When all had left, I went into the brightly lit hall and read her card and nearly sank to my knees. The card read Debbie Weatherly, chief of staff for the House Appropriations Subcommittee for Park Service funding. That was the beginning of a close working relationship and personal friendship. Debbie Weatherly worked with Congressman Horton to support his initiatives; they were an invincible partnership. She was a powerful ally for funding my park and many other parks during her long career on Capitol Hill.

Our first need was for $350,000 to fund the design competition. I worked closely with Debbie in the following months. She told me the date that the Appropriations Subcommittee would vote to approve the funds and asked me to call her to confirm the good news. I was at Yellowstone National Park that day, on a special visit tied to my attendance at the General Superintendents’ Conference at Grand Teton National Park. Before the appointed time for the call, I had surveyed the Native American jewelry in the park gift shop and spotted a magnificent Navajo bracelet with a very large, beautiful turquoise stone. But it was too expensive. I requested quarters in exchange for dollar bills so that I could go out to a pay phone on the plaza by the front door and call Debbie in Washington. I would not be close to a pay phone for hours after that. Debbie did pick up her phone and said yes, the funds had been approved. I went back inside the gift shop and purchased the stunning bracelet to celebrate, and ever since have called it my million-dollar bracelet.

The seemingly unstoppable team of Congressman Frank Horton and House Appropriations Subcommittee chief of staff Debbie Weatherly pivoted the whole project by obtaining the $350,000 add-on appropriation in 1985 to fund the design competition. This was a relatively modest add-on by Washington standards, and just for the one year of planning and carrying out the design competition. The $350,000 included payment to the Stanton Foundation to support aspects of the project that could not be done directly by the National Park Service, and covered the salary of Peter Smith, now the official competition manager, and other costs of the NEA. In July 1985 the House appropriations bill included the $350,000, and in August 1985 Congress voted to approve the allocation in the appropriations legislation. This congressional appropriation was equally as dramatic as the appropriation to purchase the laundromat. It signaled congressional approval for the project.

Denis Galvin called this era the “golden age of line-item add-ons.” Congress was accustomed to granting a certain amount of funding every year for major construction projects among the parks, but the Reagan administration would not request that amount. So that left several million dollars within the Interior Department’s approved budget that Congress could direct to their favorite national park projects by means of line items that directed a specific amount of funding to specific parks for a specific purpose. Congressman Horton’s long and respected career was extremely important to the Women’s Rights Park as he directed funds to its benefit.

Now that initial funding was available and the GMP approved, we could move forward with the design competition. On December 22, 1986, the Park Service’s deputy director Denis Galvin signed the cooperative agreement with the NEA, a major step forward. I remember sitting outside Denis’s office waiting two hours for his return from a meeting outside the building because the NEA required his signature before the end of the calendar year. I had traveled down from Seneca Falls, but I was also on my way to Richmond, Virginia, for Christmas with my family. The design competition had acquired another level of credibility once the cooperative agreement was signed with NEA. It had moved from an idea to a proposal to a project.

It was another enormous leap forward when Denis Galvin traveled to the park from Washington in March 1987. Gerry Patten, the Denver Service Center manager, also flew in, to meet up with Denis. Denis and Gerry toured the park on an unseasonably cold and windy day, and in the evening listened to part of the Seneca Falls Village Board meeting, in which residents and board members argued about transferring the Village Hall to the Park Service without payment from the Park Service. I was concerned that Denis and Gerry would be disheartened by the discussion and was anxious about their reaction.

The next morning, we three met for breakfast at the Rexall drugstore on Fall Street. My stomach was in a knot and my heart beating fast as I met them there. I did not know what to expect and hoped the small-town charm of the setting might influence our discussion. The drugstore retained its long eating counter with stools, and booths in the rear of the store. We sat in a booth in the very back. As soon as we ordered our breakfasts, Denis began explaining to me how a congressional appropriation would work. He took his paper place mat and drew a spiral, with planning in the center, design in the next ring of the spiral, and development/construction in the outer ring. It would be necessary, he emphasized, that all the required funds be contracted and obligated in the three years. Construction had to begin in year three but of course had to take as long as it took. The National Park Service worked very closely with Congress on major construction projects, those costing over $500,000. The Park Service and Congress had agreed on this process, and best of all, it meant that when Congress funded year one, it committed to fund years two and three.

Just like that, a scribbled place mat unlocked for me our funding challenges for the Wesleyan Chapel. In my mind, in that moment, the need to raise millions of dollars in donations for the Wesleyan Chapel construction was assigned to the dustbin. After that, my conversations with Herb Cables all focused on a congressional appropriation to build the winning design. He never again mentioned fund-raising. Equally important, Denis Galvin himself was personally blessing the project, and Denis was the man who made all the Park Service construction projects move ahead. It also meant that he trusted that I, a new superintendent, could manage all the aspects that had to be in place for this Wesleyan Chapel Block to be funded by Congress and built on schedule. I was not in control of most of the essential aspects of this complicated program, but my job was to inform and inspire and cajole those in control so that the whole project could come together, and on time.

Denis Galvin put a gauntlet on the table for me. The Wesleyan Chapel Block had to be awarded a high number on the Park Service priority list of construction projects; without that designation by the Park Service, Congress would not fund the project. Here again Herb Cables fought the good fight for the park. At the next meeting of regional directors, the Wesleyan Chapel Block development and its design competition priority number jumped from 213 to 39, thanks to Herb. As a former semipro athlete, Herb knew how to win. Once the project had a high number, Congressman Horton could initiate a line-item appropriation. I was also tasked with keeping the project to the three-year schedule, as neither the Park Service nor Congress wanted these millions of dollars sitting around waiting for a project to get back on schedule.

The Rexall place mat was now a blueprint for Denis’s funding plans: year one was the $350,000 for planning the design competition and our partner work with the Stanton Foundation and the NEA in 1987; design development would be 1988; and 1989 would begin construction. And the Village Board did vote to transfer the Village Hall to the federal government. I treasured that place mat, and still have it in my papers.

When we first met with the NEA design director Adele Chatfield-Taylor, she was clear about her support. Interviewed in 2019 about her role in the creation of the park, she told me, “[The] story of the Wesleyan Chapel was a turning point in history”—how could she not care about it? She found it “unbelievable, fantastically ironic, and deeply insulting” that the centerpiece of the new park was a laundromat. The NEA mission was “to demonstrate the difference that good design makes, and how it informs and educates.” The Wesleyan Chapel was “a remarkable opportunity to make a difference with good design.” To her it seemed “surrealistic” that in 1984 “people did not know women could not vote until 1920 and did not know about the 1848 convention in Seneca Falls, and had never heard of Seneca Falls.” Adele knew that a nationwide public competition would focus attention on the story, and the park. She said to me, “The minute I met you I knew that the competition was going to happen as outlined and would be successful.” The “project obviously came from love, from the heart and not just the head.”

To strengthen the critical personal ties necessary for a smooth and effective partnership between the two agencies, we began face-to-face briefings. Terry Savage and Peter Smith and I briefed Herb Cables, and then competition manager Peter Smith traveled to Seneca Falls to brief the park’s advisory commission. I briefed the new Park Service director William Penn Mott Jr.; Adele Chatfield-Taylor flew to Seneca Falls to meet with Mayor Robert Freeland and the Village Board members. My 1986 records show forty-five phone calls that December and sixty-nine pages of notes devoted to this project alone. And that was just the beginning stages of planning the design competition.

With the national design competition included in the approved general management plan, an agreement signed with the NEA to cosponsor the project, and another agreement signed with the Stanton Foundation for their support, and funding approved, the challenge became planning the design competition for the newly named Wesleyan Chapel Block.