UTICA — The local nonprofit program, Olmsted City, will host Proctor-Olmsted Day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, at Frederick T. Proctor Park, at the corner of Rutger Street and Culver Avenue. The event is free.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., whose 200th birthday is this year, co-designed Central Park and a large number of other parks and landscapes. Utica’s parks and parkway system is 70 percent the size of Central Park. The system also includes Thomas R. Proctor Park, not designed by Olmsted but donated to the people of Utica by the Proctors in 1909. The system is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and Utica is the smallest U.S. city to have an Olmsted-designed park and parkway system.

The core attraction at Proctor-Olmsted Day will be over a dozen antique musical machines—mobile pipe organs, some as large as 10-15 feet long, others smaller. These machines will be brought to Utica by members of the Carousel Organ Association of America, who will offer performances that will give some sense of the era when F.T. Proctor Park was opened to the public in 1914.

Other attractions include:

• Children’s Museum and ICAN will bring their giant kaleidoscope and give children the opportunity to make their own kaleidoscopes to take home, among other fun activities.

• Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute will have crafts activities for children and a demonstration of “plein air” (live, open-air) painting.

• 4 Elements Studios, a community arts center based in Utica and directed by artist Vartan Poghosian, will offer pottery and clay bead-making activities and will demonstrate spinning clay into pottery.

• Geppetto Studios, a Utica-based custom prop and costume maker that has done extensive work for Disney, Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers, DreamWorks, David Letterman, and Broadway productions, will display costumes and props, including some visitors can try on for size.

• The Italian Heritage Club of the Mohawk Valley will offer lessons on how to play bocce (Italian lawn bowling).

• Phil Bean, Chair of Olmsted City, will offer a one-hour walking tour, explaining the design, history, and evolution of the park, as well as recent work at the park and Olmsted City’s hopes for it, beginning at 11:30 a.m. at the picnic pavilion in the park’s Rutger Street Parking lot.

• The dedication of the new “Peace Garden” will take place in the park’s lower level at 2 p.m.

• Food will be available for purchase, including pastries courtesy of Cafe Caruso and lunch items from the Balkan Street Food truck.

The musical machines brought to Utica will also be on display and performing on Sunday at F.T. Proctor Park.

Established in August 2021, Olmsted City is a program of the Landmarks Society of Greater Utica, a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization dedicated since 1974 to the preservation of Utica’s historic architecture. Olmsted City focuses specifically on the restoration, preservation, and promotion of Utica’s Olmsted heritage: the 600-acre park and parkway system and six neighborhoods (including one in New Hartford) designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and his firm, Olmsted Brothers.