Phoenix, NY

Phoenix is an Oswego County village on the east side of the Oswego River and Oswego Canal, southwest of the Town of Schroeppel. The 2020 census counted 2,226 residents. Lock 1 of the Oswego Canal sits inside the village, and that water route once carried flour, grain, lumber, iron, salt, and other freight between the Atlantic and the Great Lakes. Phoenix incorporated in 1848 as an industrial canal village, with mills, shops, and homes arranged in rows along the waterfront. The 1916 fire destroyed 80 buildings, so much of the canal district's current building stock dates from 1917 to 1929.

Today the river remains the village's clearest organizing feature, with waterfront businesses, boat access, and the canal lock tying local activity to the state canal system. Since 2008, the village has restored canal-front properties and improved boater services. Phoenix's local scoop is an upstate New York place where one lock, one river, and one devastating fire define the shape of the village you see now.