FAIRPORT, N.Y. – The Canal Corporation unveiled its newest tug boat named after Tom Grasso. You may not know the name but you probably enjoy his hard work.

Just about everything you see along the river and the canal today was influenced by Tom Grasso and today a canal tug was christened with his name.

“Tom would be over the moon with this honor,” Carola Grasso, Tom’s widow, said. “He never had any expectation, no aspiration to be celebrated like this.”

Grasso died three years ago from cancer. He said the canal is the only man-made object that is in harmony with nature and he had a passion for the canal.

“When I think of the impact of Tom I think of the passion he brought to everything, Bill Poray, Perinton Town Historian, said. “And the one thing that I and many of us can take away – have a passion for something.”

Jim Farr was a friend and worked on the canal with Grasso for years.

Berkeley Brean, News10NBC: “He was instrumental in all the work we see on the river downtown.”

Jim Farr, Erie Canal National Heritage Corridor: “One of his greatest dreams and he always said it was one of the only good ideas he had was to re-water the aqueduct downtown. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s going to come to fruition but his other saying was ‘just add water stupid.’”

Turning Broad Street into a canal again isn’t in the plan anymore but the plan does turn it into a walkway. The city is working on three concepts that range from removing half of Broad Street to a design that snakes over the aqueducts with walking underneath to a middle path to no upper level at all.

This was the directive from the governor last year.

“And we promise we’re going to work on the aqueduct, right? We’re moving along with that local team? Okay – I want that done. Okay?” Gov. Kathy Hochul said in June 2024.

News10NBC tried to get an update on this project. In the last story on this, News10NBC was told the final design is well over a year away but that was well over a year ago. Changing that bridge is part of the Tom Grasso influence.

That would mean removing a street over the river that carries almost half a million cars and trucks a year but the argument is there are four other bridges over the river downtown.

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