As I was growing up in Oneonta, I always heard local residents refer to the busy intersection of West, Clinton and Center streets as "crash corner."

But since returning here in the late 1990s, I’ve rarely heard the reference, probably because of a series of improvements made over the last 45 years. Coincidentally, each major improvement project was announced or began with a year ending in the number two.

Before 1928, the corner of West and Center was a fairly quiet area. There were farms and a few homes along West Street.

The intersection got a little busier when Hartwick College was built and opened from 1928 to 1929. At first, only a few automobiles were on campus. Students lived off-campus and trudged up and down Oyaron Hill to classes at the one building on campus, today’s Bresee Hall.

In 1932, ground was broken on upper West Street for a tuberculosis hospital, Homer Folks, to treat patients with the disease in a nine-county area. Occupied today by the Oneonta Job Corps Center, the hospital opened in 1935 and closed in 1975.

When World War II ended and veterans chose a college education from the G.I. Bill, the campuses of the State University College at Oneonta and Hartwick College expanded. The 1950s and 1960s were decades of unprecedented growth at both colleges, so West Street got busier as a result.

The first round of improvements was undertaken in April 1962, when the Oneonta Board of Public Service voted to accept land offered to the city by the Atonement Lutheran Church so the intersection could be expanded. Also, a bank of earth on city-owned property was leveled to take out a blind spot to motorists.

"It’s a generous offer," then-Mayor Albert "Sam" Nader said of the church donation.

Commissioner James Catella said that when the work was done, "it won’t have to be done over again in a few years."

The work neared completion in November. Costs amounted to nearly $4,600. A retaining wall was placed along where the bank of earth was removed. We know that area today as the "graffiti wall."

Catella was partly correct in his prediction of a few years. It was reported in March 1967 that there were still a lot of traffic accidents in the area. At least 24 accidents had occurred in the last 14 months.

Then-Third Ward Alderman James Lettis requested city Engineer Otto Mald look into better road construction.

The next round of improvements began in May 1972 after Lettis had become mayor.

This time, Hartwick College offered the city land along West Street and more near Clinton and Center, "including the often-painted cement wall," according to The Oneonta Star. This would reduce what was considered a dangerous grade at Clinton Street and reduce the sharp West Street corner.

Apparently still not safe enough, a third round of improvements was announced Sept. 10, 1982. Unlike the previous two projects, this work was taken on by the state Department of Transportation.

Work began in the spring of 1983. The graffiti wall was removed and more land was taken for widening the area to allow a left-turn lane from West onto Center. The wall was rebuilt a bit farther back, much to the delight of students and local artists.

A heavier guardrail was installed in 1987 across from the graffiti wall along West Street. It came by request of Dr. Otto Sonder, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Hartwick College, who owned the house. At a rate of about one a year, cars had gone off the road and into Sonder’s house since he bought it in 1979.

With all the improvements since 1962, it is accurate to say that the danger of "crash corner" has been significantly reduced. Police Chief Joseph Redmond concurred and had numbers to prove it. There had been 21 accidents at the corner between January 2002 and mid-May 2007, or 65 months. Nine have occurred in 2007 alone, most being in the February and March snowstorms.

This weekend: We’ll get to work in the garden with local seeds to grow.

City Historian Mark Simonson’s column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.