When Bill Lupien began working for the city of Auburn, downtown had just been decimated for urban renewal. Streetlights were mercury-vapor. Streets got plowed, but snow still dusted the pavement.
Lupien will retire Dec. 1, 57 years later, believing his hometown is a better place. Downtown has been revitalized. The streetlights, all 3,800 of them, are LED. Plows clear the streets almost completely.
Fewer people notice the bigger projects Lupien has accomplished during his years with the city’s engineering department, the last 25 as its superintendent. They include the installation of a sluice gate at the State Dam, increasing its capacity by 25%, in 2018 — 45 years after he stood on the Canoga Street bridge in the wake of Hurricane Agnes, laboring to divert water so the dam wouldn’t breach.
Lupien is also proud of the challenging repairs to the Franklin Street water main in 2014 and the Mill Street hydroelectric plant in 2016, as well as the replacement of the State Street bridge in 2021.
But the accomplishment that makes Lupien proudest is the $6.5 million North Division Street bridge, whose installation in 2019 won three engineering awards that grace the walls of his office on the third floor of Memorial City Hall. During an interview with The Citizen there Nov. 16, he said he’s delighted every time he drives over the bridge. It’s long enough for a look at each side of the Owasco River.
“There’s a great satisfaction when a job’s completed,” he said. “We improve the quality of people’s lives, even if they never see it.”
An Auburn native, Lupien was a 16-year-old member of the Cayuga County Youth Corps when he began working in the engineering department at City Hall in September 1966.
Lupien graduated from Central High School the following June, on a Friday. That Monday, the city hired him part-time. His titles evolved from engineering helper to engineering laborer to, in August 1971, his first full-time position as engineering technician. He later became director of streets and buildings, deputy director of public works, and then superintendent of engineering services in 1998.
“I loved coming to work and learning something new every day,” he said. “Being able to work on these big projects and seeing them accomplished, knowing the city’s in better shape now than before.”
The engineering department has fewer employees than it did in 1966. A man used to clean catch basins with a shovel and a metal bucket, now a machine does the same work much faster. But the department is also more responsive, Lupien said. Not only are streets plowed better and more promptly, but city staff drive all 105 of its centerlined miles every year, surveying their condition.
That includes potholes. A frequent subject of criticism, they aren’t as deep in Auburn as they are in “cratervilles” like Syracuse, Lupien said in defense of his city. Most bumps in the streets are instead manhole covers surrounded by pavement that has swollen because water seeped through and froze, he continued. The city uses crack seal — those squiggly black lines — to prevent that.
The Owasco River runs over a dam at the North Division Street bridge in Auburn.
Water has been a recurring challenge in Lupien’s career. The repairs to the Franklin Street water main and Mill Street hydroelectric plant last decade were among his most difficult projects. The former required maintaining pressure to the city’s reservoir at Highland Park Golf Course while replacing the pipe supplying it, he said, and the latter almost saw the dam slide into 9 feet of excavated space.
“It was hurricane season,” he said. “For two to three months we were on pins and needles hoping we could get the concrete in so we wouldn’t lose the dam if we got more water than we could release.”
Another challenge was connecting Grant Avenue to North Street via John Walsh Boulevard. The connection had to be made near the railroad tracks on North Street, but the city was never able to solve that problem to the liking of the state Department of Transportation. The connector road became a disconnector road, Lupien said with a laugh, and he considers it unfinished business as he retires.
Lupien will also miss the rehabilitation of the Lake Avenue bridge, the city’s longest. But he said the hardest part of retiring will come when he returns to Auburn in the spring after wintering in Florida — and doesn’t walk into work at City Hall for the first time in 57 years. The city administered a civil service exam in October to select his replacement, and several members of his department took it.
Director of Planning & Economic Development Jenny Haines, a colleague of Lupien’s for decades, is among the city employees who will miss him. His knowledge of Auburn’s history was invaluable, she told The Citizen. His leadership was particularly critical when City Hall installed a geothermal heating and cooling system in 2003, she said, followed years later by the police and fire departments.
“He was a tireless and passionate advocate for improving the city’s infrastructure,” Haines said. “He was always upbeat, always laughing, and always good in thoughtful conversation.”
In retirement, Lupien will enjoy winters with his wife, Patty, in Saint Augustine Shores. He looks forward to having more time for playing cards and visiting his 94-year-old mother, Rita, in Auburn.
If Lupien ever misses the work he did for 57 years too much, he can always drive over the North Division Street bridge again.
“It’s been my honor and pleasure to work in such a rewarding career and to work for the residents of Auburn,” he said. “To work for such a great organization, and with such great people.”