Sixth Ward Celebrates Unveiling of Latest Historical Marker

By BILL BELLEN
ONEONTA

In the early, rainy afternoon of Friday, July 25, a sizable crowd began to gather outside the Oneonta Boys and Girls Club. By 2 p.m., the group had amassed a total of nearly two dozen members, all coming together for one purpose: The celebration and unveiling of the city’s latest historical marker. The third of five markers being unveiled this summer, this marker does not focus on a singular person or location as others before it have.

“This marker is the first we have commissioned for a neighborhood in Oneonta, and for great reason,” Dr. Marcela Micucci, executive director of the Greater Oneonta Historical Society, explained via e-mail. “The Sixth Ward has a rich history, rooted in Oneonta’s emergence as a railroad town. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Oneonta’s immigrant community settled this neighborhood and created a wide array of social and civic institutions, businesses, and clubs. Many of Oneonta’s D&H employees and trolley line workers lived and worked in the Sixth Ward. The ethnic enclave was largely self-contained, and self-sufficient, with their own schools, shops, gardens, dairies, grocery stores, churches, and industries. By 1915, nearly half of Oneonta’s 635 Italian, Russian, Polish and Lebanese residents lived in the Sixth Ward.”