A model Seaway

We are not videographers, thankfully. The world would be visually poorer if we were.

But we’re trying. Every once in awhile, we’re going to try our hand at video. It’ll be simple, down and dirty, but hey, something new is good.

On Monday, I was waiting for my interview with U.S. Seaway Administrator Terry Johnson. (You can hear the second part of that tomorrow on The 8 O’Clock Hour and All before Five.) He was running a little late.

The lobby of the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation offices in Massena has this really cool scale model of the St. Lawrence River around Massena. This is where Robert Moses’ grand vision that inspired him to build the Seaway in the 1950s all comes together: 80 feet of vertical drop flooded to make head for a 50-turbine, international hydropower dam; 2 locks and a canal for ocean-going freighters to bypass the dam en route to the Great Lakes or the Atlantic Ocean; great lanes of powerlines carrying electricity Downstate.

I’ve always wanted to do a story about this scale model that was done in 1959, when the Seaway opened. (I may still: who made it? Dunno.) But it’s more of a visual thing. So I asked the Seaway’s Carol Fenton to give us a video tour (apologies about the overhead light reflections – again, I’m a beginner). Enjoy: