Having lived for five years in Kingston, Ontario, as a kid, I was somewhat familiar with the cultural environment of Central and Upper New York State – from television of course. As I sat glued to the T.V., I was storing up a range of programming highlights from Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Watertown, Ithaca, Utica and all points in-between. Cartoons and black and white re-run movies started airing very early in the morning. On weekends and holidays, I woke up early to soak it all in.

Upper New York State was a far cry from what I expected to find in the Big Apple, and yet different from what I had come to know in Canada. With television as my window to the world: life down south in the United States of America, I knew that the hot dogs were bigger, more red; there was a bigger variety of candies; and dime store specialty gifts were more affordable.

All of those years later, as an adult, visiting Sculpture Space brought me to the actual source of some of those cultural icons already familiar to me. I knew before arriving that bowling had been VERY big in Utica. I personally felt that one of the most interesting programs on T.V. was the Sunday bowling. Far from boring, the soothing voice of the announcer whispered the step by step action, building the tension of each player’s profile and emphasizing the high (monetary) stakes involved in winning the tournament. And there were Utica Club Beer ads! The jingle of the tournaments’ sponsor came back to me when I stood in the train yard outside the still-active Utica Club brewery. The factory, with its high chimneys and the oversized letters’ sign towered high above street level, lending a larger than life silhouette to the Utica skyline. VL