Utica Mayor Confirms Injury Suffered in Franklin Square Alley

The saga of the Franklin Square Alley continues! Anyone who has been down to the downtown city space recently has no doubt seen the new signed that's been installed there warning people of the dangers of the surface within the alley. We now know the reason why the sign was put up.

For a while there was also snow fencing and police barricades blocking access to the alley and Utica Mayor Michael Galime has now come out to explain the reasons behind all of it. Galime joined WIBX Thursday to confirm that the fear many had about the Franklin Square alleyway had been realized. Galime said,

We had a situation where someone fell and was injured. It wasn't very serious, but they reported this to the city. As you know, over the past couple months, we've been trying to figure out how to basically keep the notion of what that alley was intended to be while improving the different things that both constituents, businesses and neighboring property owners have been reporting.

Many business owners have publicly made their complaints known about the alley for months. Much of the criticism has been regarding the aesthetics of it, but safety has indeed been a concern. Mayor Galime has now taken steps to look into how they can improve the alley, while keeping the original intention of Councilwoman Katie Aiello's original vision in place.

Galime says that the city was technically put on notice as a result of the reported injury. The incident in question involved a child who was running around in there and fell down. In doing so the child skinned his knee, tearing it up pretty bad. Galime says,

We had to take pause, make some signs and the barriers are going to come down. Engineering is also looking into a way to sand the the material down so that substrate is a little more people friendly and we can all move forward together on this. We do have another event permitted there, which is cool to see that space activated. I know there was a BBQ a few weeks ago. We've done some things now in Liberty Bell Park and we have another group that has permitted to have an event in that alleyway and in the parks around it as well. We're trying to just keep it moving forward.

To tear that green surface material up and do something completely new is definitely what a lot of people would like to see happen, but that would be incredibly expensive and the mayor does not want to take on that financial burden. There are still some safety concerns there, but the mayor assured the public that the engineering department will continue to observe and monitor those concerns and make any appropriate and necessary improvements.