One by land and one by sea is how the city of Ogdensburg wants to promote itself to out of town visitors.

The city’s decision this week to apply for state funds for “Welcome to Ogdensburg” signage will focus on two high profile locations - the intersection of routes 37 and 68 and the St. Lawrence River waterfront by the city’s Dobisky Center community building.

“I think that people want to see something more appealing,” said Parks and Recreation Director Matthew J. Curatolo.

What the city has on the waterfront is a “Welcome to the Ogdensburg Marina” sign that has seen better days. It is stained, faded and cracked. And it makes no mention of Dobisky Center.

By contrast, directly below is a gleaming, new, recently-hung sign promoting the nearby Frederic Remington Art Museum.

“It’s old,” Mr. Curatolo said of marina sign. “It needs to be updated.”

The city has nothing to promote itself with at the intersection and the area in question - along a guardrail at the north end of the traffic circle - is actually in the town of Oswegatchie.

The city would need the town’s permission to erect a sign there. It would also need to decide its placement as the guardrail itself is virtually covered with more than a dozen smaller signs promoting local restaurants, Ogdensburg Command Performance and civic organizations such as Zonta, Kiwanis, Lions and Rotary.

“It’s all still in the preliminary stages,” Mr. Curatolo said.

The city also wants to enhance the landscaping on the narrow concrete island that separates the intersection’s inbound and outbound lanes.

The Ogdensburg Steering Committee discussed the issue at a meeting Thursday night, according to Interim Planning and Development Director Andrea L. Smith.

“We did just get council to approve a resolution to apply for the completion and implementation of a portion of the LWRP - Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan - to start looking more-in-depth at the gateways and the corridors and the signage and also the regulatory aspects of it,” she said Friday. “That is something we have to review as part of the LWRP so we are starting to look more deeply into implementing some of the signage projects that the community gave very vocal support for. The committee echoed their support.

Thousands of readers like you have made Northern New York Newspapers the number one ranked website* for local news and sports coverage in the north country.

You can continue on to this article in a few seconds, or you can visit one of our websites:

• Watertown Daily Times
• The Ogdensburg Journal
• Daily Courier-Observer