With three major waterfalls and dense woodlands of sugar maple, hemlock and oak, the park’s infrastructure here has always taken a back seat. But in recent years, visitors had begun to complain about the state of the park.
The bathrooms were so old that workers could not find replacement toilets to fit the pipes, meaning some were closed. And the park’s managers would periodically get calls in the middle of the night that the electricity had gone out after campers backed an RV into a site and knocked down the power lines.
Now, after a sustained push by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to correct years of disinvestment across the state park system, properties like Letchworth, whose 14,424 acres straddle Livingston and Wyoming Counties about an hour south of Rochester, are receiving the equivalent of a gut renovation.
Three new bathrooms, which include laundry facilities, were recently completed, replacing structures from the 1960s. The park’s electrical system was upgraded, with lines buried safely underground. And a $5.75 million nature center is under construction.
Throughout the park system, which encompasses 215 parks and historic sites, hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to addressing a backlog of more than a billion dollars’ worth of deferred maintenance and capital projects. By 2020, the state plans to spend more than $900 million on capital improvements, officials say.
