Weighlock Building - Syracuse, NY
Posted by: 
ripraff
N 43° 03.047 W 076° 08.929
18T E 406438 N 4767094
The building is also on the National Register of Historic Places. There is a plaque showing the Weighlock Building as a New York Civil Engineering Landmark.
Waymark Code: WMVQQ5
Location: New York, United States
Date Posted: 05/19/2017
Views: 4
text on plaque "New York Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Weighlock Building designated by the Syracuse Section ASCE 1984"
museum website (
visit link)
"Committed to preserving the only existing weighlock building in the United States, the Erie Canal Museum collects and conserves Canal material,"
There are lists of National Landmarks, the Erie Canal is one of those. There does not seem to be a list of New York Landmarks.
The building built in 1850 is the current building, but it was not the first on the site. This is where the canal boats were weighed for the toll.
(
visit link)
"Starting in the late 1840s , new weighlocks were designed, usually incorporated into the front of a large Building, often in the Greek Revival style, on the berm side of the canal. The building served as an administrative center and living quarters for the workers who were on call 24/7. Boats were towed into the lock chamber, the gates were closed and the water was drained out, allowing the boat to settle on cradles. An elaborate system of balance beams were used to balance the load and determine the total weight. Knowing the empty boat weight, which was recorded early in the season, the weight of the cargo could be established. Now, this method was certainly no more accurate than the old one, in fact, it was probably more prone to calibration errors, but the captains understood this method and were much more comfortable with it. It remained the standard until tolls were eliminated in the 1880s. There were seven of the more modern weighlocks on the Erie System, five on the Erie Canal itself (Albany, Troy, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester), one on the Oswego Canal at Oswego, and one on the Champlain Canal at Waterford. Today, only the Syracuse Weighlock building remains."