Business View Magazine | March 2018

39 HISTORYWASMADE HERE T heAdirondackBankCenter at the Utica Memorial Auditorium,affectionatelyknown as“TheAud,”is amulti-purpose arena in this upstate NewYork cityof approximately 65,000.“TheAudwas commissioned back in 1957by Mayor JohnMcKennan,”says Robert Esche,CEOand President of the Utica Comets,theAmericanHockey League (AHL) team that has called theAud its home ice since 2013.“The lead architect was Gil Seltzer,who is still alive todayand 103 years old,and a Russian immigrant by the name of LevZetlinwas the lead engineer on the building.” According to Esche,Zetlin’s immediate challengewas to create as light a roof structure as possible since the Aud’s site happened to be on land that was backfilled along the old Erie Canal,and soil compression tests showed that it would not tolerate a heavybuilding. Zetlin came upwith a radical designwhich became theworld’s first pre-stressed,dual cable roof system. “It’s a cable tension roof system,”says Esche.“It’s like taking a bicycle wheel and turning it on its side.It ended up becoming a prototype for Madison Square Garden.”In fact,Zetlin’s designwas the predecessor of manymodern dome designs seen today,and in 2011,