Syracuse B-4

January, 2012

2012-01-31T10:08:00.000-08:00

To the editor of the Post-Standard:

In regards to the much talked-about war memorial, I would like to say, like all other projects in the city, I am afraid it is going to be too small. It may be alright for the city of today, but 20 years from today it will be like the U.S. Post Office built 20 years or more ago, too small.

Look around at some of our buildings in recent years, MacArthur Stadium, too small; post office, too small; NY Central Station, too small; State Tower Building, too small, and a lot of other projects which were big enough when built, but too small now.

Now, 9,000 seats are too small for boxing. I saw a few boxing matches at the ball park last summer, and they say the ball park seats 12,000. Well, I had to sit on the concrete steps, because I could not get a seat. That would give you an idea just how many seats you would need if let’s say, DeJohn fought some top flight boxer like Tony Zale or Marcel Cerdan and others. Why, you have to turn them away.

While we are at it, let’s build it big enough, or let’s not build it at all....Syracuse is going to be a pretty big city in a few years to come, and a small coliseum is going to be just too bad.
…Anyway, in conclusion, I will say here’s for a bigger coliseum, one that you will not have to try to make larger later.

William J. Ganeau, Syracuse February 17, 1949

Post-Standard, April 23, 1976

What was that I wrote in my last entry about “back to school, back to work, back to activities and appointments that often seem to continue non-stop through year’s end”?

Yes, this blog has been on the quiet side, but Sean Kirst’s article about the musical history of the War Memorial inspired me to revisit the archives. To be honest, I haven’t been inside the War Memorial in over thirty years, and the closest I’ve come to a rock concert at the venue is a clown parade at the Shrine Circus. But as the article made clear, most War Memorial memories are well entrenched in the past, leading many commenters to debate the future of the facility:

johnsyracuse: Sorry guys....I am a veteran myself...but the War Memorial is a sh##hole. It's a building, like many before it and many after it whose designed function has gone the way of the dinosaur. Replacing it no way disrespects our veterans. In fact; I think it is more disrespectful NOT to replace it. That being said...who wants to pay for it? The state needs to focus on the infrastructures that benefit everyone for the right reasons; not rebuild a worn out building. Syracuse has not been a mecca for rock bands for a long time. I travel to Rochester and near Albany to hear anything relevent. Seems unnecessary to me.

Michelle Klukiewicz: totally disagree John....I think if the War Memorial is spruced up a bit, many of the bands today that I am sure are fans of the past bands that graced the stage at the WM, would be honored to play in the same place....I would LOVE to attend a show there...somethings are sacred and should be treated as such..it honors the Veterans as well as the music that in my opinion..keeps us all sane..." let the music keep our spirits high"....

The conflict is obvious: the War Memorial has a dated form tied to timeless function. Yet why had such a decision been made during a time when obsolescence was linked with progress?

“The pace of obsolescence is growing more rapid,” Mr. Grimm said. “We must make things more susceptible to obsolescence in order to make way for progress. If dresses were designed to so that women wore them until they fell apart, the dress industry would die. There will be more acceleration in change of design." (Post-Standard, February 26, 1955)

If city leaders envisioned a 21st century downtown Syracuse with "modern structures of glass and steel," then why did they decide upon the construction of an arena as a war memorial, which would certainly be a target for demolition as it aged? Is this another case of the post-WWII generation fulfilling an immediate need—much like the highways and suburbs—and leaving future generations to sort out the inevitable conflict of interest? Or were there Syracusans who foresaw these 2012 comments in their own impassioned letters over 60 years ago?

To the editor of the Post-Standard:

Will Syracuse ever get out of the one-horse town class?

Imagine a city the size of Syracuse thinking of building an auditorium that will only seat 8,800 maximum!

That is what you would look for in a village the size of Baldwinsville.

Don’t they ever expect to have any large conventions in Syracuse?

Maybe they are only planning on a peanut vendors’ convention.

It looks as if the major veteran organizations will never be able to hold another convention in Syracuse. What they have planned now is not suitable to veterans and the whole of Syracuse.

What a war service memorial!

Why not get smart and put up a memorial everyone will be proud of and not ashamed of.

Why not go two or three levels underground if they want a squatty building, and have the entire main floor for an auditorium only, with offices, meeting rooms, etc. on the floors above?

It might be well for some people to get out and visit other cities and see what is needed in such a building. Let’s not throw our money away on something that will be useless!

Member of VFW and American Legion
Marietta
March 12, 1948

Economy had been essential during the World War II years, so not surprisingly the War Service Memorial committee saw a multi-use memorial as a most ideal solution:

For some time prior to the appointment on January 10, 1945, of the original six members of the Onondaga County War Service Memorial Committee by [Onondaga County Board of Supervisors chairman] Mr. [Edward] Yackel and Thomas E. Kennedy, then mayor of Syracuse, there had developed considerable sentiment and need for a civic center. This sentiment and this need were promptly visualized by the committee as the ideal solution to the primary problem of what type of memorial should be adopted.

We saw and grasped the opportunity to realize in one move two long-hoped-for ambitions...a fitting war memorial and a community center with unlimited possibilites for general public use. Having reached this decision we began planning for the time when the citizens of the city and the county would have their own civic center adequate for any social, cultural or athletic indoor activity, and simultaneously, a memorial to those who gave their lives, those who served in the armed forces and those who served on the home front. (from War Memorial Progress Report given by Hurlbut W. Smith, chairman of the Onondaga County War Service Memorial, Inc. to Onondaga County Board of Supervisors chairman Edward O.Yackel and Frank J. Costello, Syracuse mayor, on February 15, 1947, reprinted in Syracuse Herald-American, February 16, 1947)

Yet it quickly became clear to the parties involved that one building could not be all things to all people:

“A sports arena, and a music hall, and theater can never under any architectural plan be housed in the same hall. Love of theater, music, dance or beauty must not come in a poor second again when a civic enterprise is under consideration. Whatever the final decision, it should be representative of both athletic and cultural groups. Perhaps the amount should be increased so that the plans might include two complete and separate units under one roof. If it is impossible to raise such an amount, let’s do one or the other and create a memorial of which we we all may be proud for many years.—Dorothy Kelly Carr, Mary F. Lynch, Marydee Richards, directors of Children’s Theater group of the Museum of Fine Arts

“The civic center should be in two complete units, one as an auditorium to seat about 3500 in permanent designed seating, including all necesssary facilities for stage—the other an arena type for sporting events, conventions and the like. Each unit could then operate independently of the other. To us, the idea that one auditorium could be used for a hockey match one night and a symphony concert the next in the same hall seems highly impractical. It is up to the people to see that one center is built to satisfy the needs of the various civic enterprises, even if necessary to allot more money in bonds. It must be built right to serve many years.”—David B. Salmon of Dave Salmon, Inc.

(as quoted in Syracuse Herald-Journal, March 11, 1947)

A year earlier, the War Memorial commission had plans for such a “2-in-1” building, and retained L. Andrew Reinhard, an architect who worked on Rockefeller Center, to design a building with “two separate areas, one a music hall, one a sports arena,” and left the decision to Reinhard to “put both under one roof or erect them separately” (Post Standard, March 23, 1946) Yet as there was only a limited amount of land for the building, sports enthusiasts quickly saw the flaws in this proposal:

Here we go again on the proposed sports arena. The county memorial committee has revised its plans again, this time to evolve some method of satisfying both the sports fans and the so-called cultural group. I would like, at this time, to emphasize again that the plans better be good....

It is my personal opinion that the Putnam school site for the proposed memorial building or buildings isn’t big enough for two auditoriums, providing the sports arena, which would be part of the building, is to be big enough for profitable operation. …

Many fans want more than 7,500 seats for sports events , but any rate, that should be the minimum, and worthwhile promotions could not be attracted to Syracuse if the seating capacity were less. (“Keeping Posted with Bill Reddy,” Post-Standard, March 23, 1946)

To the editor of the Post-Standard:
Bill Reddy is right (Keeping Posted, March 23) and more power to him! The county war service memorial committee can’t please everyone, but if this is to be a war memorial, let’s have what the veterans want, a first class sports arena.

...If it is to be a war memorial and the money is to be raised by public subscription, let’s give the veterans what they want and not camouflage about it. The veterans want to be entertained, they don’t want to be “cultured.”

If those who want an auditorium for conventions and a music hall are in earnest, let them go out and raise money independently for it, and not try to ride in on the backs of the veterans.

There’s only one location in the city that would be big enough for a sports arena with an eye to the future when Syracuse will be much larger. That is the old New York Central railroad station property. Close up that one-block extension of West Washington Street and use the entire space and then a sports arena seating 12,000 to 15,000 could be erected.

Let’s either drop the whole thing or give the veterans what they want. Ask them, they’ll tell you quickly enough, you memorial committee members.
Peter Piper
Syracuse
(March 26, 1946)

Not only was lack of space a concern, but lack of budget as well. An initial shortage of building materials in the years immediately following the war led to higher costs, which led some to question whether a more substantial arena could be built if the project was held off for a few years:

While a large number of veterans are pressing for action, others are said to be taking the same view the board has taken thus far, that it would be unwise to undertake erection of the building under present conditions.

Because of the prohibitive cost of materials and labor and difficulties in procuring many items at any price, it is said if a decision to begin this year should be reached, it will not be possible to carry out the plans, for the sort of memorial building that has been proposed. There is fear that if a building of the sort that could be built is erected, regrets are likely to be heard a few years hence. (Post-Standard, January 28, 1948)

This point became further emphasized one year later, when none of the construction bids submitted to committee came within the 3.5 million dollars appropriated for the project:

Since the bids were opened, architects and engineers have been figuring substitutes and alternatives and otherwise wearing out their pencils in an effort to make $3,680,000, plus architects’ fees, plus extras not included in the contracts go into $3,500,000.…

How far the architects and engineers can go in recommending substitutions is another question. The memorial has been “sold” to the public on the basis of the plans and specifications on which bids were submitted, and to cheapen it to a point where the public might suspect that a “shoddy” memorial to the county’s war heroes would eventuate could result in trouble, a possible situation that board members are keeping in mind. (Post-Standard, July 24, 1949)

By the time construction began in late 1949, nearly every facet of the building had come under criticism. Ninety-two Syracuse University Architecture students signed a petition calling the auditorium’s design by Edgarton & Edgarton “a disgrace to any progressive city...with all of its superfluous ornament resembles a colossal wedding cake.” (Post-Standard, March 10, 1948). Several Post-Standard editorials lamented the lack of dedicated theater space, and worried that Syracuse would always lose valuable performances to other upstate cities:

Recently many of the city's music lovers went to Rochester for an opera performance with the famous tenor Tagliavini. Many more will go to Utica on the first of April for another opera with this famous tenor.

It is always away from the city— never here that we can attend and enjoy events of this kind.

While Syracuse certainly is not as much of a musical city as Rochester, it seems pathetic, to say the least, that Utlca could get the drop on us and take its place as a Central New York gathering place for the many people who like the opera and the legitimate stage.

The proposed sum to be spent on the county war memorial will do very well for a sports arena. But we might as well forget about a theater thrown in to boot. It would take more than that for a suitable theater alone. By suitable we mean a permanent theater seating at least 3,000 in comfort, acoustic excellence with a perfect view of the stage from every seat in the house, the very best in all stage technical requirements, and a simple and dignified exterior. That names a few of the specifications in general.
…

If people in this area are going to listen to opera and orchestral music, and maintain a love for the legitimate stage, they are going where those needs in their lives are available. If they can't come here, they will go to them.

Is Syracuse going to admit defeat in this matter, or is it capable of taking the bull by the horns? (Post-Standard, March 23, 1948)

And the complaint as old as downtown and cars themselves, parking:

The question is, of course—where are those 8,000 or more persons going to park around the proposed sports arena, provided it is located on the site given out in the elaborate publicity.

Your paper editorially and otherwise, and committees concerned with parking facilities in Syracuse, have been asking the same question over and over again—where are people going to park? (from a letter to the editor signed “Curious,” Post-Standard, March 13, 1948)

from Post-Standard, August 7, 1949.
"Death of a Landmark: Written by Progress and Staged in Syracuse...
these four photos trace the destruction of the old Syracuse post office
and the transition of the historic site into a parking area."]

Planners actually had considered the downtown parking shortage, and had an inspired solution: tear down buildings!

"Unusual measures" will have to be taken to get smooth operation of traffic in Syracuse, with prewar conditions soon to be reached and passed, worsening due to increases in large trucks and semi-trailers, William F. Kavanaugh, city lighting-traffic engineer warned as a highlight of his 1945 annual report released yesterday.
…Buildings will either have to be removed or remodeled if parking space convenient to the retail center is to be acquired. Old New York Central terminal site and old West Shore site at E. Belden Ave. and N. Salina Street suggested “for serious consideration.” The Hills Bldg. block (S. State, E. Washington, Montgomery and E. Fayette Sts.), if closed, would not interfere seriously with traffic and would also eliminate a bad five-point intersection. [Plan called for “abandonment of all the rest of the Hills Bldg. Block to provide multi-deck parking space.”] (Post-Standard, January 27, 1946)

Post-Standard, Decemeber 31, 1950

Which is to say, perhaps this is why, at a time when the landscape of downtown was about to undergo its most radical transformation, city and county leaders planned for a living war memorial. There’s a fine line between history and nostalgia, but neither had saved the vaudeville theaters and movie houses, the homes of prominent figures or countless other buildings that faced the wrecking ball as the city viewed its “scaffolding-scarred face...the mirror of prosperity” (Post-Standard, December 31, 1950). Yet by establishing their arena as a living memorial, the War Service Memorial Commission could possibly ensure that the War Memorial would be spared in the future precisely because it would have the ability to evolve. As a Post-Standard editorial noted on the day of the building’s groundbreaking, the War Memorial “will not be a statue or primarily any object of art for all to look upon and pass by. It will be a living part of the community’s life...it will not have the quality of a museum, but a home—a county community home where we can enjoy ourselves as each of us sees fit.” The editorial continued:

The dead no longer care what we think about them. That would be impossible in the face of that vision of eternity which they now contemplate. But we are living and bounded by the finite world of human emotion, idea and thought. We cannot escape reacting in that sphere. (October 22, 1949)

Considering the outpouring of letters and comments that always accompany any discussion about the War Memorial and its future, this element of the building's history appears to be the most timeless of all.

September 2011

2011-09-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

September—always a jolt to the system. After a month with a calendar so empty that its very existence has been questioned, September is back to school, back to work, back to activities and appointments that often seem to continue non-stop through year’s end.

Unless you were the top city and business leaders in urban renewal-era Syracuse, when September meant three-week ~~vacations~~ "oblications" to Europe!

Forty-two Syracusans will leave Hancock Airport at 4 p.m. today for a three-week trip to Europe where they will study urban development programs in four countries. The group, participating in a tour sponsored by the Metropolitan Development Association (MDA), will visit Denmark, Sweden, Finland and England to see new town developments and other urban development programs. (Post-Standard, September 9, 1970)

Wanna get away? Post-Standard, September 28, 1963

In the days before Google street view, or, apparently, access to the New York Times, city leaders routinely browsed European countries in person for inspiration for Downtown Syracuse. Between 1963 and 1974, the MDA arranged four European tours, each trip lasting between 16-20 days. The first trip, in October 1963, brought Mayor William Walsh, 18 city notables and their wives to England, France, Germany and Amsterdam:

Old World hospitality was the fare for members of the Metropolitan Association's European tour when the Burgothe Burgomaster of Rotterdam, hosted a state luncheon in the great banquet hall. Women members of the tour agree that this was a high point of the entire trip. There were 60 seated at the table where footmen waited on the assembly. Five thousand chrysanthemums were used in riotous colors, an organ was played during the luncheon and all present toasted the Queen of the Netherlands and the President of the United States.While the Rotterdam occasion was an outstanding event, Mrs. William F. Walsh, wife of Syracuse's mayor, also remembered another state luncheon in London, where she had a British Peer Lord Farrington sitting beside her. As in Rotterdam, the Lord Mayor of London feted the American visitors at a formal luncheon. "We weren't entertained by royalty, but we certainly were accorded the royal treatment by every city visited on the tour," Mrs. Charles N. Howard was quick to report. (Post-Standard, October 24, 1963)

Almost 50 years later, this still seems outrageous. No, not because took first trip at same time the city was torn up by the tearing down of the 15th Ward, or that six years later, when the city had suffered even greater decline due to this decision, the focus of the trip had shifted from downtown observations to “gather ideas for the new town being constructed near Baldwinsville by the MDA and the State Urban Development Corp.,” (September 9, 1970), or that the city paid $1,100 ($8,114 in 2011 dollars) for Mayor Walsh’s trip (other members paid for themselves, with the mayor’s wife travel “privately financed” (Post-Standard, September 22, 1963)). Rather, after spending a total of 78 days abroad, in cities such as London, Coventry, Rotterdam, Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, Zurich, Vienna, Budapest, Salzburg, Munich, Copenhagen, Bergen, Oslo, and Brussels, where is the European influence in post-urban renewal Syracuse?

Because of her position as councilwoman, Maria (Mrs. Richard) Farr played sort of a “divided role” on the European trip. Despite her businesslike interest in slum clearance, rebuilding of war-torn cities and attendance at all the briefing sessions and lectures, Mrs. Farr evinced a very feminine interest in shopping centers—”malls,” as they are called.“They really are a shoppers paradise,” she said. (Post-Standard, October 24, 1963)

***

While American cities are synchronizing green lights to improve traffic flow and offering apps to help drivers find parking, many European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear — to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation.Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter. (New York Times, June 26, 2011)

Clearly, when it comes to transit, few similarities exist between European cities and Syracuse today. Yet even back in 1963, Mayor Walsh could not envision a city not shaped by cars and interstates:

The mayor reported an amazing thing was that 22,000 of the workers [at Philips Electric Company in Eindhoven, Holland] ride bicycles. It was a sight he confessed he had never seen the equal of when these workers left the plant. He remarked to one of the officials what the situation would be like when eventually the workers put aside their bikes and drive cars to and from their work. (Post-Standard, October 12, 1963)

While some of these Philips’ jobs disappeared in the late 1970s and 1980s when production moved to Asia, the bicycles did not. Eindhoven currently has “140 km (87 miles) of cycle paths and many additional km of cycle lanes.”

Meanwhile, by year’s end, Syracuse should have its first half-mile “cycle track”!

While in Königswinter, Germany, MDA President Kenneth Bartlett wrote a 14-page letter to the Post-Standard, reprinted in the newspaper over the course of two days. At its conclusion, Bartlett highlighted key observations that he thought could be of great service to developing downtown. 48 years later, these ideas are still discussed as mere possibilities—if that— in Syracuse:

We have, of course, seen only 'the best,' " Dean Bartlett continues in discussing the rebuilding of several European cities. "But even from it, some conclusions may be drawn:

The European city values land so highly that it places the most severe limitation on the development...Simply because a man owns land is no reason why he should be allowed to desecrate a city that will live a thousand years.

The planner holds a position of high regard, at least he is not thought of as a bureaucrat whose motive is to slow up growth. The planners we have met are men with vision, courage and the ability to articulate their plans. In Coventry, for example, they showed what they were doing by maps that showed, separately, (a) a schematic theme or principle; (b) pedestrian traffic; (c) car park; (d) roads, and finally (e) a model. Anyone may see it, it is on permanent display.

Eindhoven is one of the few cities where we were told they want not new industry, and, further, they want no new suburbs—preferring to develop ‘a totality.' The latter term is, in fact, one heard many times.

Flowers are everywhere. One really can not sense how barren our downtown is until one sees for himself the flower boxes in London, in Rotterdam, Coventry, Amsterdam and Utrich. (Post-Standard, October 21, 1963)

Then again, some observations were taken to heart immediately:

They also will see a town in Gothenburg, Sweden...Gothenburg contains the largest enclosed shopping center in western Europe. (Post-Standard, September 9, 1970)

***

In 1974, after returning from a 20-day MDA trip, William G. Morton, chairman of the Onondaga Savings Bank, “gushed images of the places he’d seen”:

The group arrived in Bergen on Constitution Day to find a riotous celebration going on in the square outside their hotel, Morton remembered.

Food and paper had been mashed by hundreds of feet so that it coated the street.

Morton rose early the next morning to find the square spotless. He said he noticed the same concern for appearance everywhere in Europe.

"I don't know how you can transfer it here," he said.

"Education?" he asked, then let the question alone. (Post-Standard, June 8, 1974)

In this same edition of the June 8, 1974 Post-Standard, there was an educational lesson of a different sort:

South Salina Street between Water and Onondaga streets has seldom looked worse than it did yesterday afternoon.

The messiest block yesterday was that, between Fayette and Jefferson, where both sides of the street are lined with big new planters, set up in former bus lanes.

Sidewalks on each side were littered with trash, including a considerable pile of cigarette butts in front of Woolworths, which had been there for at least 24 hours. Apparently some oblivious citizen had emptied the ashtray of his car on the sidewalk beside one of the planters.

Out on the street, buses were weaving in and out of traffic, with several cars parked double in the second lane beside the planters, drivers gone. Other cars were tucked into curb areas between planters, all apparently immune to parking violation tickets.

Incidentally, when we got back to the office we had a telephone call from a former president of MDA who had returned Thursday evening from a 20-day MDA trip to Europe. He was shocked at the appearance of Salina Street and had some blunt comments about the planters blocking traffic.

It would seem our local planners and beautifiers are still a long way from transforming Syracuse's Downtown in the European pattern. (Post-Standard, June 8, 1974)

The following September, the MDA stayed home, using their newfound knowledge of European government to help aid the city, albeit New York City (in the New York Times, which by then must have become available in Syracuse!). However, a grad student at SUNY-ESF arranged a far more productive tour: studying how outsiders view downtown Syracuse.

Some of downtown's finer spots to people watch were given the once over by a group of urban scientists, city planners, managers and designers the other day.

By the time participants had filled out the 10-page questionnaire and finished the tour with lunch at a local restaurant, the Everson, MONY Plaza, Plymouth Square, Salina Street, Lincoln Plaza, Vanderbilt Square, Clinton Square and Hanover Square, in that order, had been scrutinized by experts from across the U.S. and Canada. (Syracuse Herald-Journal, September 8, 1975)

The tour members—” a meteorologist from Washington, D.C., a professor from University of Toronto's faculty of forestry, a member of Syracuse City Planning Commission, and an internationally recognized ecologist from University of Quebec”—were not as enthusiastic about the city as their counterparts had been in Europe. Regarding Lincoln Plaza:

"Bank windows reduce sense of privacy. Too busy. Too much going on in the immediate area," one questionnaire said.

"Too much heat source. Concrete paving," another participant wrote.

"Sitting near the art form, it feels warm and somewhat uncomfortable," said another questionnaire. "Aware of high noise levels," another respondent wrote.

MONY Plaza:

"Too much money has gone into pavement patterns, too little money into human needs. No congregating areas have been provided for outside the building," one participant commented.

"No place to sit except for seats in the front of the plaza placed unaccountable to people," another said.

"The plaza is quite large—does not encourage the average person to enter the complex," was the comment of the third participant.

Also as part of the study (and a slightly distasteful way to force tourist dollars in downtown), participants were “instructed by their questionnaire to buy something for someone on the tour along South Salina Street”:

Among gift items exchanged were a pair of ladies bikini briefs, a bag of mixed nuts, a book called "The Art of Living," a key chain, a bandana and a pot holder.

Save for the keychain, none of these items could probably be purchased today on South Salina Street.

You could, however, buy them at Syracuse’s lasting European tour souvenir: the mall.

August 13, 1979

2011-07-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

It’s summer in Syracuse! For some, this means sunning or swimming at the beach, for Alec Baldwin, cooling off in the Wegmans dairy case. The city broke a heat record on Thursday, with a high of 101 degrees.

In other words, the perfect time to discuss snow-covered sidewalks!

No, not because maybe with a two-season lead time, the problem of snow removal on city sidewalks in Syracuse and elsewhere might actually be solved this year. Rather, the hubbub every winter about unshoveled sidewalks buries the year-round truth of the matter: pedestrians are an afterthought in the American transportation system. At best, they are simply ignored (such as with the unshoveled sidewalks); more increasingly, they are viewed with outright contempt, such as the recent conviction of pedestrian Raquel Nelson in Atlanta, Georgia with vehicular homicide. Despite the driver being intoxicated and guilty of two previous hit-and-run accidents, Nelson was charged with “homicide by vehicle in the second degree, crossing roadway elsewhere than at crosswalk and reckless conduct” as she attempted to cross the busy highway with her three children at a designated bus stop (much like, in 2009, Professor Emeritus Joel Kidder tried to cross Erie Boulevard from Barnes and Noble to a designated bus stop). Unlike Kidder, Nelson survived, but her 4-year old son, who broke away from her grip as they waited on the median, ran into the street and was killed. For this tragedy, she faces 36 months in jail, thirty more months than the actual hit-and-run driver served.

I’ve often thought the anger directed at pedestrians is born of fear: fear that financial misfortune may cause the loss of a car; fear that age or sickness will rob the ability to drive. But how to explain the hostility long held towards one particular group of pedestrians?

For reasons best known to themselves, some people can’t stand the sight of a runner. There aren’t many of them, but when one comes along you know it. They shout abuse at you from passing cars, fling objects at you and sometimes drive so erratically that you fear for your life. (Jim Fixx, The Complete Book of Running, 1977)

Post-Standard, May 17, 1975

While buildings were being torn down in cities across 1970s America, a very different sort of urban renewal was taking shape among their residents. Inspired by books like Bill Bowerman’s Jogging and Jim Fixx’s Complete Book of Running, millions of people hit the streets in their jogging shorts and Nikes for fitness and fun. Syracuse fully reflected this trend: summer weekends in the seventies were filled with local races. A 50K bike race and marathon were held on the same day; the Mountain Goat Run was but one event in the “Run for Fun,” which also had 3k run and 3k walk options as well. While running grew because of the involvement of suburbanites, the suburbs themselves weren’t necessarily designed for the sport.

Syracuse Herald-Journal, June 4, 1975

In July 1979, with the country facing a second oil crisis and sold out gas pumps, Jimmy Carter gave his “Crisis of Confidence” speech, asking citizens to reduce their use of energy. While new runners in Syracuse weren’t abandoning their autos for Adidas, there were a few who worked their commute into training runs:

George Dowley, president of Wells and Coverly, will be sponsoring several of his employees in the “Run for Fun” to benefit the Olympics.

One entrant is the assistant store manager, Tom Shafer, who is entered in the 10-mile race. Shafer, as part of his training, ran 7.3 miles from work to his home on Cold Springs Road the other day. (Post-Standard, April 22, 1979)

Yet rather than encourage runners (and walkers) in this direction, to rethink how a city of growing outdoor fitness enthusiasts could promote alternative means of transportation, the Post-Standard, in its lead August 13, 1979 editorial, chose to highlight the dangers of traveling by foot:

The State Motor Vehicle Bureau has no figures to back it up, but suspects that joggers are responsible for an increase in pedestrian deaths during 1978 as compared to 1977.

The department reports pedestrian deaths increased from 706 in 1977 to 736 in 1978.

The increase, the department noted, accompanied a growth in popularity of jogging. But, as incredible as it sounds, motor vehicle officials claim that that the police reports on which their statistics are based do not show whether a pedestrian who was killed was jogging at the time.

Incredible as it sounds, the Post-Standard didn’t appear to be concerned with pedestrian deaths, per se, but rather, what they were doing when a 2-ton car veered off the road and mowed them down:

Becuase of the reams of information that police and insurance companies and lawyers gather on a fatal motor vehicle accident, the many questions asked and the great amount of time consumed, it seems absolutely unbelievable that somewhere there is not some reference to what the pedestrian was doing at the time he or she was killed.

We just can’t understand the state officials remaining mute on the subject.

An investigating police officer certainly has to say, somewhere on his report, what the pedestrian was doing when he was killed.

If this information isn’t being forwarded to the motor vehicle department, someone down in Albany should be screaming for it.

To which one asks, why? The editorial contends that while the Motor Vehicle Bureau press release warns joggers to be more careful, “we ought to find out first if they are now being careless.” What about the blame of the drivers? Were they being careless? The editorial makes no mention of this, but a letter published on the editorial page two weeks later criticized the Post-Standard’s auto-centric view:

The initial paragraph states that “joggers are responsible for an increase in pedestrian deaths during the 1978 year.” I wonder if this might be due to the heavy jogging suits that they wear, which increases their mass as they crash into the pedestrians that are traversing the highways.

The next interesting bit of information that is stated is “that the major thrust of the press release is to warn joggers to be more careful.” The editorial comment states that we should make an effort to find out how careless joggers really are. It may be naive from my point of view, however, I do feel that if a person in a motor vehicle strikes a pedestrian, whether he is ambulating slowly or moving at a faster rate with a slow jog, or even God forbid running, that it is the person handling the automobile that is at fault, rather than the pedestrian. If it were in God’s divine plan, we would be born with wheels rather than legs. (from letter signed Charles A. Mango, Syracuse, Post-Standard, August 30, 1979)

We are now experiencing another running boom, both nationwide and in Syracuse. The Ironman 70.3 will make its second appearance this September, followed by the inaugural Empire State Marathon. Although the Ironman Syracuse website features images of Syracuse University, Clinton Square and the Dinosaur Barbeque, participants won’t bike or run near any of these sights, as the course is now contained entirely in Jamesville. Local race director Ken Hammond stated in a March Post-Standard article that this course change was due to last year’s traffic on Erie Boulevard where spectators clamored to photograph participants. This move actually may be preferable to the triathletes (as one comment on the event’s Facebook states that he found the Erie Boulevard portion “mind-numbing”), but how much influence did the angry drivers who complained about their own personal delays last year influence this decision?

Maybe next year, if there is a next year, the organizers can use some common sense and not tie up the busiest streets in the county on a Sunday afternoon. This race did not score many points with the hundreds of motorists who were greatly inconvenienced. Next time try running your race on isolated rural roads and at a more appropriate time.

What a mess! Tied up in traffic near E Blvd for about an hour trying to get to lunch whith [sic] our family and the family behind us. We decided to abort the eating out at Cici's because of the time sitting idle for so long and not being able to turn around on the blvd. Here's a novel idea go jog in a park not on a busy street in the city. Bottom line is I don't give a crap about a bunch of people jogging, only when they interfere with everyone else trying to get from point A to point B.

Just months after excitedly announcing a 2-loop course around Onondaga Lake, Empire State Marathon announced last March that the course would have to be altered, so as not to require closing a 690 off-ramp:

Hammond says the site for the start and finish has not been finalized, but looping the lake will not work because runners would have to cross the off ramp of the Interstate 690 on the west side of the lake. "There's no way you're going to be able to close a 690 off ramp without spending a lot of money," he says.

True, closing streets for races costs money. However, aren't the runners paying large entry fees so they can run the city's main thoroughfares, for once having priority on the streets? As a runner posted on the Fleet Feet message board, if the exit/on-ramps for I-690 at Hiawatha were closed, there’s an alternative route for drivers a half-mile away on Bear Street. And perhaps more to the point:

Providing a good course for upper end racing and the general recreational market will be a long lasting benefit. If all our politicians,chambers and tourist agency interests who tout the city and area benefits get in line maybe a city-suburb course would be workable. Instead we get negative feedback about all the inconvenient logstics [sic] problems with traffic control and expenses. Hey,take that $150,000 of squandered taxpayer funds to pay downtown greeters and put some of it towards what can be a yearly event of merit. And has real potential to grow and attract out of towners to spend some money in our market.

***

Syracuse has recently turned its focus to redesigning some portions of its roadways according to “Complete Street” guidelines. While the construction of designated bike lanes and safe crossings is welcome news, what does this mean for all the other streets? Will runners, cyclists and pedestrians be expected to limit themselves to Complete Streets? Will the winter sidewalks of Complete Streets be shoveled, while those of “Incomplete Streets” remain uncleared?

Once the weather turns cold and snowy, the topic will surely again be one of the hottest in the city.

June 2011

2011-06-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

Last month, I spent the weekend in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where I ran the Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon (and beat Drew Carey!). While the course started and finished in Central Park, a retail “power center” that includes almost every big box store and chain restaurant currently in business (as well as three hotels, an expo center and a two-year old Wegmans), the race also ran through the historic downtown district, past such landmarks as the Fredericksburg Battlefield and Kenmore plantation, once home to George Washington’s sister.


Post-Standard, September 26, 1954

What’s remarkable is that the Town of Onondaga—where I grew up, and where my parents still live—has its own rich history that dates back to the very founding of the city of Syracuse. Unfortunately, the hypothetical trolley tour today might be somewhat sparse: here is site of Onondaga County’s first courthouse, now an intersection; here is the site of the town's first schoolhouse (and later town hall), now the same intersection. True, most of the historic buildings were already gone by the early 20th century:

The oldest of present or former residents of Onondaga Hill are too young to remember the events which wrote the name of that community high on Onondaga County’s historic roll of honor.

But there are men and women who have heard their parents or grandparents tell of the epoch making days when virtually all lawyers in Onondaga County lived on the hill, when the lone prisoner in the jail was shackled and taken to the new jail, when a new courthouse had been built on North Salina Street, Syracuse.

They have heard tales, too, of the visit of LaFayette, who toured the country and stopped at the hotel on Onondaga Hill, which long since has disappeared.

While Onondaga Hill, in the main, is made up of modern homes occupied by families whose heads work in Syracuse, a few historic old buildings still remain. (Syracuse Herald, August 5, 1930)

The most recent change is the expansion of the local Byrne Dairy. 562 residents have "allegedly" signed a petition opposing the land swap that would eventually result in the installation of gas pumps at the store (and another parking lot for the town). Is this another shift away from the town's historical past, or one step closer to the landscape envisioned 45 years ago, when town councilors—including current petition skeptic Charles Petrie—became enamored with another Virginia city?

Nine Town of Onondaga residents will depart at 8 am Monday from Hancock Airport for an on-the-scene look at America’s community of tomorrow.

Just 18 miles from Washington, D.C., Reston, VA, has been hailed as the community of the future. A planner’s dream, Reston is a model planned community built upon what used to be open land.

It contains one-family residences, town houses, high rise apartments, its own churches, schools, stores and industry. It was designed so everybody who lives there works there.

Two planned “community” developments are now in the preliminary plan stages for the Town of Onondaga. One of them is the multi-million dollar Sherwood Farms development which, if approved, would be located on Harris Road.The other is the $12 million Marnell development on East Seneca Turnpike. (Post-Standard, May 20, 1967)

Reston, Virginia had been founded in 1961, conceived by (and named after the initials of) real estate developer Robert E. Simon, who purchased the 6,750 acres of land in Fairfax County after the sale of Carnegie Hall (which his family had owned). Simon wished to create Reston in the model of a “New Town”: a community where residents could work, shop, and play within walking distance from their home.

The ideals Simon sought to apply in Reston included: a wide choice in housing to accommodate all income and age levels; the ability to work and live in the same community; the proximity of commerce and culture; the importance of recreation and leisure activity; privacy in the midst of public space; walkability and convenience with a minimal role for the automobile; preservation of trees and woodland and a minimization of lawns that require maintenance; and underground utility lines.

The “New Town” concept had also caught fire in Syracuse at the time, with MDA Executive Vice-President John Searles discussing about the possibility of creating new “planned and balanced communities” in Onondaga County:

Could this be done in Onondaga County? I believe it could. A new town planned for our county could cover 500 to 1,500 acres of land in the city or in one of the suburban towns. The development, unlike existing developments, would be balanced and planned. In the new town, there would be sites for industry, commerce, housing for families of different income groups and accompanying recreational, social and service facilities. Because the new town would be planned at the start to provide the various, but essential, types of uses which make an urban area tick, the problem of pushing the lower value, higher consuming uses into the next town, and of attracting an extra share of the “high return—low consumption uses,” such as high cost housing and clean industry, would be minimized. (Post Standard, January 6, 1963)

Certainly Syracuse had a need for more housing, as a mere nine months later, a long-standing residential community that had great proximity to commerce, culture and industry was bulldozed in favor of a highway. Yet as former 15th Ward residents relocated to nearby urban neighborhoods also complete with recreational, social and service facilities and housing for families of different income groups, a large number of white homedwellers left for the suburbs. Where, in accordance to the “New Town” movement, they wished to recreate their old existence:

A $12 million planned residential development, Marnell Heights, would add 1,014 housing units to the Town of Onondaga, according to a preliminary program for the development.

When complete, the project would provide a “progressive, self-sustaining community” with shopping and restaurant facilities as well as complete summer and winter recreation developments, according to [project developer John] Marnell.

Marnell Heights, to be located on the southern side of East Seneca Turnpike, north of the Lafayette Country Club, had a master plan similar to Reston. Like the Virginia new town, Marnell Heights would be built in “clusters," with a mix of apartments and single-family homes:

Plans call for four neighborhood groups clustered about a centrally located shopping complex. Each neighborhood would contain a combination of apartment units and town houses accented by a high-rise unit near the core of the overall project.

The shopping core, at the center, a multi-leveled structure, would contain a partially enclosed arcade with small supporting retail shops and a larger market. A below grade parking plaza would serve both the high rise units and the shopping area. Ultimately it would combine and conceal all building, shop servicing and mechanical areas.

Plans for the shopping center include a superette, drug store, laundry, barber shop, beauty salon, small restaurant and a below grade service station.Each of the four neighborhood sites feature:

housing for more or less 250 families
an adult swimming pool and a wading pool
three tot play areas
seating pavilions
a tennis court, as well as the general recreation area
interior trash storage with pickup by a project maintenance crew
landscape development
semi-concealed parking areas
“Essentially the choice of materials and building systems reflects a direction toward totally unified design, both in appearance and thought,” the developer said. “An organic approach of brick and wood seemed to reflect the human scale and elegance we intended.” (Post-Standard, April 6, 1967)

Or, more succinctly, a Downtown do-over in suburban Syracuse!

Make that two new (down)towns, as just seven miles away, developers wished to build an even more ambitious planned community:

The state’s first total community, featuring a full-range of housing from single-family residences to high-rise apartments, is scheduled for construction next spring near Howlett Hill and Harris roads in the Town of Onondaga.

Tagged Sherwood Farms, the new concept in living will cost private investors in excess of $25 million for just the 500 apartment units and 500 single-family homes.

Included in the overall plan will be a small shopping center, an elementary school, fire house, two churches, and 120 acres for park and recreational area. These facilities are expected to cost again as much as the apartments and houses.

The developers describe the community as “small neighborhood clusters of housing units spaced by sprawling parklands featuring pedestrian walkways.”

To avoid drawing large numbers from outside the community for shopping, the shopping center will only be 26,000 square feet, including a supermarket, variety store, drugstore, hardware store, laundry, liquor store, bank, barber shop, beauty salon and a small group of offices.

Current estimates call for about 3,400 persons living in Sherwood Farms enjoying “the convenience of the city residence with the freedom and individuality of suburban life.” (Herald-American, August 6, 1967)

Syracuse Herald-American, October 30, 1966

When Town of Onondaga Supervisor George F. Savage returned from his exploratory trip to Virginia (which had been sponsored by Sherwood Farms developers and Niagara Mohawk), he felt that Sherwood Farms had even greater potential than Reston, as “the hills of Onondaga would lend themselves to ‘better views’ (Post-Standard, May 23, 1967). Town of Onondaga residents were not so enthusiastic, expressing their downright displeasure of the idea at a town meeting:

Approximately 35 Town of Onondaga residents last night voiced disapproval and skepticism of the proposed Sherwood Farms planned community at Howlett Hill and Harris Roads in Onondaga township. Primary objection was to the high rise apartments, town house and duplex facilities to be included in the 320-acre development.

Residents of Harris Hill and the existing Sherwood Farms tract felt that the high density concentration in the community would decrease the value of adjacent properties. Proposed changes in zoning restrictions met with objection. (Post Standard, August 11, 1967)

Although several new “luxury” high rises had recently been built on James Street, high rise apartment buildings in Syracuse were still closely associated with public housing controversy from a decade earlier. Reston, VA was 18 miles outside Washington, DC; Sherwood Farms was located less than four miles from the corner of Velasko Road and West Onondaga Street, where one of the more contentious battles had been fought to prevent a public housing high rise from being built in the neighborhood. Renting also had a negative connotation due to urban renewal:

He’d hate to sell and leave this neighborhood, the homeowner thought. But what to do?

The house needed costly repair. And plainly the area was changing. Would the future justify the outlay he must make?

He sat on the porch surveying the street. The sun filtered through the tall shade trees across the wide lawns.

But how many of the lawns were unkempt! Paint was peeling in strips from the house next door. Porch steps sagged across the way. Should a middle-aged man and his wife invest in a new furnace, and a year or so a new roof, to continue living here?

His glance moved to the two one-family houses down the block, which an investor had bought recently. The new owner did not plan to live in the area. The talk was that he would cut these fine old homes up into housekeeping apartments. Everyone knew that many families would soon be looking for quarters because of the urban renewal program. This would bring more cars to be kept on the street. If other houses went the same way, there would be much more traffic. And where would the children play? (Post-Standard, November 23, 1961)

As a more transient population, renters might not contribute to required responsibilities of the homeowners’ association:

[Gallinger Real Estate's John] Gallinger said the parks and recreation area would be managed by a homeowners’ assocation at the expense of the residents.

The association would also oversee the maintenance of community regulations designed to prevent property deterioration. Typical of rules enforced, officials said, would be a ban on above-ground utility wiring, exposed trash containers, and any exterior construction without the approval of the association’s architectural review board. (Syracuse Herald-American, August 6, 1967)

Marnell Heights and Sherwood Farms would differ from Reston in one other key factor:

The first industrial customers came to us before there were roads, sewers, or waterlines, when Reston still looked like Virginia countryside. Soon there was a strong demand for industrial space. Albert Mayer, who was connected with Radburn, wrote me a letter saying, "Congratulations. You are the first New Town to get industry at its conception." This pleased us very much. (1966 speech by Robert E. Simon)

Post-Standard, November 16, 1967

Ideally, residents of “new towns” could forego their cars, as they would be able to walk to work as well as their daily errands. Neither Marnell Heights or Sherwood Farms had any plans to locate significant employers within their developments, given that each had far less acreage than Reston (320 acres in Sherwood Farms and 88 acres in Marnell Heights, compared to the 6,750 acres in Reston). Nor did either have any plans for public transportation from the community to Downtown or neighboring suburbs. So if residents had to drive from Sherwood Farms to their workplace, they could easily stop for groceries at Loblaws or Kmart in the new Western Lights Plaza, go shopping or eat at Fairmount Fair or Camillus Plaza. Therefore, the need for a supermarket or salon located within walking distance from home became less important, as more expansive options were located along the driving route that residents traveled every day.

Approval for both Marnell Heights and Sherwood Farms was contingent upon the construction of sewers for the projects. As stated in an article about Marnell Heights, “under town regulations, the developers would have five years to build the development under ‘modified, planned development district’ before the building would return to ‘open land.’” (Syracuse Herald-Journal, April 6, 1967). Apparently, Marnell could not build the development within the five years, as the project was not mentioned again until the the 1980s, when Lee Belle, husband of then (and now) Town Councilor Suzanne Belle wished to revive the project as Stonegate Heights. By decade’s end, Sherwood Farms resolved their sewer issues, but the mixed-use community—apartments, in particular—had lost even more appeal. In 1969, 1,000 Town of Onondaga residents protested the construction of the Westbrook apartment complex, located just two miles from Sherwood Farms:

Over the protests of an estimated 1,000 individual homeowners, the Onondaga Town Board, last night, passed a zoning resolution, 4-1, paving the way for the construction of a 408-unit apartment complex to be located between McDonald Road and Route 173, behind the Onondaga Community College site.

Casting the no vote against the resolution was Charles Petrie, of Nedrow, who said, “I am not opposed to good apartments...I am opposed to a heavy concentration of apartments in any area.”

Robert H. Marble, treasurer of the Hill Homeowners’ Association, said the town had a population of better than 16,000 persons in its 58 square miles and the resolution approving construction of the new apartment complex had the effect of jamming too many persons into a tight area which would produce undesirable conditions. He described the town as a neighborhood which 98 percent of the homes were individually owned. (Post-Standard, September 18, 1969)

Syracuse Herald-Journal, May 2, 1988

Ironically, the town soon underwent an explosion of single-family housing developments, which some felt had the effect of jamming too many houses into a tight area which then produced undesirable conditions:

For generations the hills of Onondaga have provided a panoramic view of the city below and served as a barrier to the growth that spread more easily to the north and the east, into Clay, Salina and DeWitt.

But those towns are now heavy with subdivisions and developers are going west, tantalized by the town of Onondaga’s open spaces, scenic vistas and proximity to Syracuse.

“People were attracted to Onondaga, a town of 17,793, because of its semi-country atmosphere, Doug Morris, planner for the Syracuse-Onondaga County Planning Agency, said. Even houses that were built in subdivisions look out onto nice vistas and vacant land, he said.

“Now all of the sudden, all that vacant land is disappearing,” he said. “In some people’s minds, it’s going to look like Clay with a lot of hills.” (Syracuse Herald-Journal, May 2, 1988)

The number of subdivisions has increased even more in the two decades since, seemingly limited only by the thesaurus which provides their pastoral-sounding names. One comment in the recent Post-Standard article about the Byrne Dairy expansion controversy suggests the town that grew as an escape from the city must now be escaped as well:

I moved from the Town of Onondaga six months ago, after 30 years as a home owner there. The Town of Onondaga is one of the top towns for SPRAWL in the United States. There was an article about a year ago with the supporting statistics. They have turned a small town atmosphere area, with a lot of green space, into a sprawling future ghetto of tract housing on a sea of over fertilized lawn with sparse immature landscapes. It has become overcrowded and ugly. The sound of lawn mowers never ceases, and the traffic is overpowering the road networks.

The greed and short-sightedness of the Town of Onondaga administration has already done its damage over the past two decades. All of the development in the past decade looks the same cookie-cutter style. It is ugly and it won't age well. A totally automobile dependent community. I'm just glad that I got out of the Town of Onondaga, and now live on a farm north of Oneida Lake. There is a need for another gas station there like there is a need for another donut shop there. It is stupid from a town planning perspective and a real shame.

Of course, similar sentiments could be expressed about Reston. In 1967, the community was sold to Gulf Oil Corporation, who it turn sold it to Mobil Oil in 1978. Oil companies would hardly be the champions of car-free lifestyles, and accordingly, despite a master plan which called for “the pedestrian [to] have uninterrupted access to the full range of neighborhood facilities,” few major arteries have complete sidewalk networks . The master plan called for “seven villages with seven community shopping and social centers,” each with its own housing and pedestrian walkways; this was eventually considered “economically unsound...later centers, like South Lakes and North Point, were built more along the lines of traditional shopping centers.” And: Ebola.

Although the Town of Onondaga at times appears to suffering its own virus of hemorrhaging every last trace of its past, it is important to remember that the oldest and most key element of its history remains intact: Seneca Turnpike. The road that carried travelers from Utica to Canandaigua was "of the greatest importance to the county, it meant more than any single railroad ever constructed here” (Syracuse Standard, June 9, 1894). Opponents of the addition of gas pumps at the Byrne Dairy are concerned about increased delays and accidents on the turnpike, but what could be more true to road’s roots?

Rising out of Onondaga Hollow is a long and steep hill. The road is constructed on the southern side of a precipice, in such a manner that, as you approach the top of the hill, you have a tremendous gulf on your left hand, at the bottom of which you hear the murmur of a brook fretting among the rocks, as it is passing on toward the Onondaga Creek, which it joins in the Hollow. There is a kind of railing or fence, composed of logs secured with stakes or trees, which is all that prevents the passenger, and even the road itself, from falling to the bottom of the gulf. (Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers, by Archer Butler Hulbert, 1904).

Talk about a traffic nightmare! But relief awaited the travelers at the top of the hill:

On the hill we found an embryo of the village. A courthouse is already built, and the frame of a hotel is raised. The hotel, we are told, is to be kept by one Brunson. It is an accommodation much needed on this road. (Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers)

What could be more accommodating in our present day than not having to drive 60 more seconds in three possible directions to locate another gas station?

And there’s this: while in Fredericksburg, I paid a visit to the James Monroe Museum, dedicated to the history of our fifth President of the United States, who once made his home in the city. One of the first reading panels that greets visitors shares this history regarding the museum:

[Monroe’s great-granddaughter] Rose de Chine Gouverneur Hoes played a central role in the creation of this museum...In 1927, when notified that the old buildings on Monroe's Fredericksburg town lot were about to be demolished and replaced with a gasoline service station, she bought the buildings and brought there her collections of objects, books and documents, opening our James Monroe Museum, now in its seventy-fourth year.

So even the property of a Founding Father has been threatened with a gas station. With their own current fight, Town of Onondaga residents stand beside the great figures of early American history once again!

April 1917

2011-04-27T08:52:00.000-07:00

Syracuse Herald, March 21, 1917

As Syracuse approaches the 75th anniversary of the elevation of the railroad tracks, this blog will revisit the history leading up to this most divisive decision. Call it (Dis)Union Station, if you will.

After taking a break from this series for over a month, I had to refresh my memory on where we were in the timeline of grade crossing elimination in Syracuse. This was not a problem for Syracuse residents in April 1917, as they were where they had been for close to two decades: trains running through the center of the city, gruesome accidents, and every mayoral candidate promising to be the one to solve the issue. In a 1915 campaign speech, eventual winner Walter Stone stated that he “expected to see the abolishment of grade crossings during the coming two years.” (Syracuse Herald, October 7, 1915).

Stone’s first action to make this revolutionary change finally happen? Hire the person most closely associated with the grade crossing project for the previous thirty years: Henry C. Allen.

Henry Clayton Allen first worked as an assistant to the City Engineer in 1886, and took over the post four years later at the age of 26 under Mayor William Cowie. Cowie had been one of the early mayors to express his concerns about the grade crossing problem:

Mayor Cowie said that the question under consideration was one of great interest to the city. The most important thing was “to get the New York Central out of the heart of the town,” and a committee of influential citizens should be appointed to wait upon the railroad authorities and see if they couldn’t learn what they proposed doing in the matter. (The Evening Herald, May 1, 1891)

Six months later, these “influential citizens” apparently consisted of Mayor Cowie alone entering into an agreement with the New York Central Railroad to “make improvements on Washington Street in return for releasing the Central company forever after from its present obligations”:

Mayor Cowie returned yesterday and was called upon this morning by a Herald reporter. He said that he went to New York on private business, but incidentally he called at the general offices of the New York Central railroad company, where he had a conference with President Chauncey M. Depew, H. Walter Webb and others of the road relative to their intentions in regards to the improvements asked for by the people of Syracuse. Regarding the result of the conference, the Mayor said:

“They are ready to go ahead and pave Washington Street as proposed by the city. This means a sandstone pavement on a concrete foundation from Franklin Street to Crouse Avenue, to be laid under the supervision of the City Engineer...I say they are ready to go on with this work at once. I came away thoroughly convinced of one thing, and that is that the company has no idea of abandoning Washington Street.

“It can readily be seen from this expression,” continued the Mayor, “that the company have no idea of moving their tracks, and, as we cannot drive them out of the street, the next best thing, in my judgment, is to get all we can out of them. I have been hammering at them all summer with the hopes of getting some sort of a settlement, and when I found that they would accept my proposition, I thought it was a good bargain, and so did some of the leading property owners.” (Evening Herald, November 20, 1891)

Though he had been city engineer under Mayor Cowie, and later Mayor Amos, who finalized the paving agreement (which absolved the railroad from any further responsibilities until 1917), Allen soon became the leading figure associated with plans to eliminate the tracks from Washington Street. By 1915, he had served as City Engineer under Mayors Fobes and Schoeneck, and as Grade Crossing Commission Engineer during the Will administration. Under Mayor Stone, Allen would hold both titles simultaneously. Hoping to break the stronghold that Allen held over the grade crossing planning for the previous thirty years, Mayor Will, in his final days in office, set aside funds for the hiring of an expert to study the problem.

Bion J. Arnold certainly had the credentials to serve as an outside consultant; he had devised plans for Chicago and New York regarding the electrification of their rail systems. Of course, such expert advice came at a price: not only Arnold’s $250/day fees, but a long delay in the review process:

Over thirty different possible solutions of the grade crossing problem in this city are being considered by B.J. Arnold and his assistants. It is expected that he will be able to report upon what he considers the best within the next few weeks.

The many different solutions which Mr. Arnold is considering do not necessarily mean that he will recommend any solution different from the one adopted by the Grade Crossing Commission which contemplates the use of the Erie and Oswego canal beds. It does mean, however, that Mr. Arnold is conducting thorough investigation into the situation here.

Mr. Bibbins [Arnold's assistant] said that he could not explain which solution Mr. Arnold favors, but that it would only be a matter of a short time before the decision is made. The report will be sent directly to Mayor Stone and Mr. Allen. (Syracuse Herald, July 2, 1916)

In fact, Arnold did not submit his findings until January 1917, a full year after his hiring. As mayors only held office for two-year terms, such a delay cost valuable time when grade crossing elimination formed a central component of candidates’ platforms. Luckily for Mayor Stone, Arnold’s report agreed with Allen’s earlier opinions regarding both the New York Central and Lackawanna tracks:

The so-called dual plan A-X is recommended by Bion J. Arnold, of Chicago, expert engineer, in his report on grade crossing elimination in Syracuse, submitted to the Grade Crossing Commission. This plan provides for:

Elevating Lackawanna tracks along or near present right of way under certain stipulations.

Depressing New York Central tracks in the Erie Canal from the eastern city line to the junction with the Erie Canal, then northwesterly on the line of the West Shore, with certain modifications.

A depressed passenger station for all New York Central traffic located along Belden Avenue west of the Oswego Canal with station headhouse near the junction of West Genesee and North West Streets.

Mr. Arnold practically accepts the plan prepared by city engineer H.C. Allen. (Syracuse Herald, January 26, 1917)¹

With this plan confirmed as the best option, Mayor Stone worked to have a new Syracuse Grade Crossing Bill passed by the state:

The Syracuse grade crossing bill is expected to become a law within a week. Advanced to a third reading yesterday in the Assembly, it will be finally passed on Monday next. Governor Whitman will sign it soon after and before many weeks the people of Syracuse will actually see work started on the grade crossing elimination.

Under the bill the city is permitted to start the work. At the end of the year the grade crossing commission will submit a list of the expenditures involved to the public service commission, which, as a board of audit, will scrutinize the figures and determine how much of the money has been spent in actual grade crossing elimination. It will then pro rata the cost, reimbursing the city for money spent in the work assessing the State one-fourth, the city one-fourth and the railroad one-half. (Syracuse Herald, April 4, 1917)

There was also a late amendment added that required a public hearing and Common Council approval of any plans that involved track elevation. The amendment had been added under the pressure of the Syracuse Real Estate Association and various neighborhood improvement groups who were against the planned elevation of the Lackawanna tracks through the southern section of the city:

With the plan of eliminating the Central tracks at grade by the partial utilization of the Erie Canal channel our Syracuse readers are now familiar. No objection to it that is worthy of serious consideration has been heard. It is generally regarded, we believe, as the best solution, from the engineering point of view, of the Central problem, as well as the least expensive.

The same cannot be said of the proposal to remove the Lackawanna tracks from grade by the expedient of an elevated structure. This has encountered resolute opposition among the people most directly concerned. The Herald has contended that this feature of the plan should not be pressed in the face of a determined, and as we believe, formidable antagonism. It may be questioned whether any proposed measure of relief of the grade crossing nuisance which involves a bitter grievance to the residents of a populous section of the city would be preferable to existing conditions. (Syracuse Herald editorial, April 18, 1917).

When the bill was finally signed by Governor Charles Whitman on May 16, 1917, the Herald announced that “plans for the elimination of crossings at grade have been started and the work will now be rushed in every way possible.” Except, as they noted a month earlier in their editorial, without ownership of the Erie Canal lands, there was no way possible:

We must, however, possess our souls in patience a while longer. The actual launching of our great enterprise of grade crossing elimination must await the abandonment and alienation of the canal bed by the State. That may come a twelvemonth hence, or perhaps a little more than a twelvemonth; but the time is so relatively short that it will seem like a single circuit of the clock compared with our long years of tribulation and patient endurance. (April 18, 1917)

Their patient endurance would continue to be tested, as "a little more than a twelvemonth" stretched into nineteen years.

^{1. The Arnold report also discussed improvements for the city as a whole, such as connecting Lodi Street to Walnut Street. Arnold also suggested that "every artificial barrier to the expansion of the present business should be discouraged." Read the report here. ↩}

March 1957-March 1958

2011-03-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

A Syracuse tale of city, suburbs, public housing, arterial highways...and bowling:

March 18, 1915

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As Syracuse approaches the 75th anniversary of the elevation of the railroad tracks, this blog will revisit the history leading up to this most divisive decision. Call it (Dis)Union Station, if you will.

By 1915, Syracuse still had no answer to the Grade Crossing dilemma. It had, however, “reached the conclusion that one solution had been found that eliminates the disadvantages of all other suggested solutions” (Syracuse Herald, March 18, 1915). The proposal: run the trains through a 6,000-foot long tunnel underneath the eastern section of the city.

Yes, this was a far cry from the track elevation plan that had seemed inevitable just two years earlier during the Schoeneck administration. But 1913 brought the election of a new mayor, president of Will & Baumer Louis Will, as well as an in-depth study by the Grade Crossing Commission, which submitted seven potential plans for grade crossing elimination to Mayor Will shortly after he took office. The plans, as described in a February 6, 1914 Post-Standard article, are summarized in the chart below:

Click to enlarge

Syracuse Herald, September 14, 1912

Will, the city’s first Progressive mayor, had placed Grade Crossing Abolition at the top of his campaign platform, stating “any future city administration will be remiss in its duty if it fails to use every means in its power to accomplish the abolishment of [railroad] traffic through our city” (Syracuse Herald, October 16, 1913). Granted, the Republican and Democratic candidates had as well; the problem had now been in the headlines for almost 15 years. East Washington Street continued to be scene of gruesome accidents. As the number of automobiles increased, traffic jams also became a major concern, as Will addressed in a speech to voters:

The switching of trains by means of switches located between Clinton and Franklin Streets frequently cuts off these streets for five and ten minute periods, and these switches, located as they are (causing two streets of such great importance to be shut off almost hourly), should never have been permitted at these points and should be removed. (Syracuse Herald, October 16, 1913).

Yet as the years passed, the option that once had been most readily considered, the solution that had been put in place in other upstate cities such as Rochester and Schenectady, fell more out of favor with Syracusans. Despite actual fatalities cause by grade crossings, Mayor Will spoke of the death that could befall Syracuse if elevated tracks were allowed in the city:

“If the New York Central lines were elevated through the city that would mean that the Lackawanna tracks would also be elevated,” said Mayor Will. “There would be two unsightly banks running through the heart of the city and the city would be killed.” (Syracuse Herald, June 11, 1914)

The Delaware, Western & Lackawanna Railroad map, 1922

Residents from all sides of Syracuse came out in protest against track elevation: the North Side against elevated New York Central tracks that would act as another barrier in addition to the canal, the South Side, against elevated Lackawanna tracks on embankments that would depreciate property values, and the East Side against the railroad’s plan to “open Van Buren Street, declaring that it will practically shut off the Raynor tract and make the district far from desirable for residential purposes” (Syracuse Herald, July 31, 1914). In the face of this widespread opposition, the City Planning Commission issued the following statement:

“We, the members of the Commission, are agreed that in effect and appearance, no matter how sightly and well-designed an elevated structure may be, it will always be a barrier and affliction. If any other solution is practicable, elevation should not be tolerated.” (Syracuse Herald, July 28, 1914)

Though the Syracuse Herald editorial page offered this observation the next day:

The members of the City Planning Commission are agreed that the proposed elevation of the Lackawanna tracks in this city would “always be a barrier and an affliction.” It would be an affliction richly deserved, however, if the city meekly puts up with it.” (Syracuse Herald, July 29, 1914).

***

Syracuse Herald, October 19, 1913

Louis Will had run on the “the efficiency ticket,” promising “a vote for efficiency is a vote for better methods.” When New York Central engineers seemed amenable to considering track depression as an alternative solution (tracks would be built in the abandoned Erie Canal bed), Will—in disagreement with the Grade Crossing Commission—rejected the proposal as unacceptable:

The mayor says that, as he figures it, it will be five years before the canal bed is abandoned and that it would probably mean years of litigation when the city set about to secure the abandoned land. He is against any plan for ending the grade crossing nuisance which is going to take that length of time. (Syracuse Herald, November 24, 1914).

The efficient plan was the one that could be started immediately, and Will contended that such a plan existed:

Mayor Will said that if the commissioners and the railway authorities would agree upon the plan to have the railway tracks pass through the center of the city on the north there is no good reason why work of doing away with the grade crossings could not begin tomorrow. He is against any policy which will interfere with the beginning of the work. (Syracuse Herald, November 24, 1914).

Will favored what would later be come to known as the Northern Route: the tracks would skirt the city to the north, with a passenger station on Spencer Street, by Onondaga Lake. Will contested the railroad's claim that the disadvantage of the plan was the non-central location of the station:

Mayor Will said he believe he could prove if he had time to gather statistics that 75 percent of the cities of the United States have their railway stations a mile or more distant from the center of the city. He sees little to the argument that a railway station must be near the center of the city. (Syracuse Herald, November 24, 1914).

The mayor argued that New York Central rejected the plan outright due to their own corporate and financial interests:

Mayor Will said that he pointed out to the officials, among the [New York Central Railroad] president A.H. Smith, that extending tracks north of the city would allow the trains to run at full speed. Much time could be gained over that which it takes trains to proceed through the city at present.

“Of course what the Central wants,” said Mayor Will, “is to shorten their trackage and still be allowed to run at full speed through the city.” (Syracuse Herald, June 11, 1914)

Perhaps this gives some indication as to why Will championed the underground tunnel suggestion. The plan certainly didn’t seem more efficient in terms of time, as digging a tunnel that would begin “east of the city, somewhere in the vicinity of Greenway Avenue...run under Teall Avenue, Lincoln Park, Oak and James Street” would probably take at least the five years required to secure canal beds. Nor was it very practical, as there were questions about tunnel ventilation, and the soil, which “throughout the eastern section of the city would not lend itself advantageously to the tunneling work...it is a loose shale and elaborate supports would have to be constructed.” (Syracuse Herald, March 19, 1915). Yet the plan was efficient in one specific area: Mayor Will asserting his autonomy from the New York Central Railroad and the Grade Crossing Commission. Mayor Will did not wish to “appeal to the [railroad’s] sense of justice and good” as city leaders had fifteen years earlier. Even when the Grade Crossing Commission officially approved a plan using the canal bed on April 23,1915, with the intent of immediately entering a contract with the New York Central Railroad to construct this new route, Will made clear that he would not give up on tunnel proposal:

The idea of tunneling as the solution of the grade crossing elimination problem has not been abandoned by Mayor Will despite the fact that the members of the Grade Crossing Commission have reported adversely upon it and have proceeded to endorse another plan recommended by [Grade Crossing Commission Engineer] Henry C. Allen, providing for a depressed route through the city.

Accompanied by City Engineer Wooley, Deputy City Engineer Palmer and Commissioner Mather of the Department of Public Works, Mayor Will spent some time today looking over the surface of the land in that section of the city where it is proposed to build the tunnel.

Deputy City Engineer Palmer has been busy drawing contour maps of the vicinity, and the mayor is evidently determined to investigate the project thoroughly before endorsing any other plan. (Syracuse Herald, April 29, 1915).

One month later, he still held firm:

Officials of the Grade Crossing Commission declined today to make any comment on the Mayor’s statement in which he charged that they were wedded to the canal route as a solution for the grade crossing problem. In the statement, the Mayor again went on record in favoring of his tunneling plan.

“If he had plans which are the most logical why don’t [sic] he let us in on the secret?” asked Henry C. Allen, chief engineer. He said that he did not intend to get into any dispute with the Mayor. (Syracuse Herald, May 26, 1915).

In another ten years, Will would let the city in on his plan, when he became the driving force behind the group of prominent Syracuse businessmen and residents determined to keep elevated structures out of the city. Even more importantly, the Future Syracuse Committee, formed in 1923, wanted the decision of grade crossing elimination to be made directly by the voters. Because as Will realized during his final weeks in the mayor’s office in 1915, there was a great dispute of opinions between the Mayor, the Grade Crossing Commission, the Railroads and the people of Syracuse:

FOR THE GOOD OF THE CITY
Mayor Will has acted wisely in taking a firm stand against the settlement of the Lackawanna’s grade crossing problem proposed by the railroad company and acquiesced in by the city’s Grade Crossing Commission. If he succeeds in blocking this plan to build a huge concrete embankment through a populous section of the city, it will be one of the most important acts of his administration.

In this matter, as the Mayor says, too much deference has been paid to the railroad’s point of view. The city’s interests come first, and no plan that involves such injury to those interests as this track elevation plan does should be accepted without at least first making sure that no other solution is possible.

Other cities have solved this problem in a manner which did not sacrifice their interests to those of the railroads. Why should it be impossible for Syracuse do to so? The union station proposition was accepted in Utica. Evidently we need to take some lessons from Utica on how to deal with the railroads.

The Mayor’s suggestion that an outside expert be called in to look over the situation is a good one. Certainly no effort should be spared to provide the right solution to a problem which is of such vital importance to the future of the city. And rather than accept the wrong solution, it would be better to let matters remain as they are. (Syracuse Herald editorial, November 11, 1915).

And so matters did remain as the same. But as Will may have realized, so too would those making the decisions on these matters. The members of the Grade Crossing Commission—including Will’s own brother, Albert—had remained unchanged since their appointment in 1911 (with the exception of Alan Fobes, who stepped down after one year, replaced by Thomas Meachem). Of particular concern must have been Grade Crossing Commissioner Engineer Henry C. Allen, who started with the crossing elimination project under the McGuire administration as city engineer. When Will replaced him upon his own election to office, the Grade Crossing Commission immediately appointed Allen as their chief engineer. Now, as Will concluded his time as mayor (he did not run for reelection), Allen appeared poised to serve as both City Engineer and Grade Crossing Commission Engineer simultaneously under the incoming (Republican) Walter Stone administration. With less than two months left in office, Will not only successfully blocked Allen's plans to elevate the Lackawanna tracks, he issued a critical statement against Allen and the Grade Crossing Commission:

Mayor Will today issued a broadside against the Grade Crossing Commission and Henry C. Allen, the commission's chief engineer. He first declared that Corporation Counsel Stilwell would refuse to approve any contract calling for elevation of the Lackawanna tracks through the city and then detailed his criticisms of Mr. Allen and the commission.

The chief criticisms can be stated as follows:

First—That the plan to elevate represents the conclusions of the railway companies and one man, Mr. Allen, and that the problem is too important to be passed upon finally but one representative of the city.

Second—That Mr. Allen, and the commission have accepted the plan of the railroad to elevate in order to avoid a fight with the company and that if the commission and Mr. Allen had dared "lock horns" with the railways three or four years ago the whole crossing problem would have been settled advantageously to the city before this time.

Third—That the city should not be committed to the elevating plan until some impartial expert has gone over the whole situation. The Mayor holds that no expert has been called in for consultation yet.¹

Fourth—That the companies accepted the union station proposition in Utica and other cities. Why not in Syracuse? ²

Fifth—That it would be better to wait twenty years and get the right solution of the crossing problem than to hastily select the wrong solution.

(Syracuse Herald, November 10, 1915)

With less than six weeks left in office, Will scored a final victory: the Grade Crossing Commission would hire an outside expert to conduct a study of Syracuse grade crossings. But in another decade's time, the most prominent outside voice in the grade crossing dilemma would be Will himself.

^{1. After making this declaration, Will discovered the 1899 Seaman study done under Mayor McGuire, which had supported elevation of the New York Central tracks, but not the Lackawanna tracks.↩}

^{2. The Grade Crossing Commission insisted that "it would be impossible to get the Lackawanna and New York Central railways to use the same station." When Will expressed an interest in hiring the expert who eliminated grade crossings in Chicago, Grade Crossing Commission president Alexander T. Brown said "practically all the tracks in that city are elevated and that if the expert were brought here he would probably approve the elevating plans." Will immediately shot back that "as he understood it, there wasn't a railway station in Chicago that wasn't occupied by more than one railway." (Syracuse Herald, November 13, 1915) ↩}

March 1910

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Corner of Salina and East Washington Street, October 1909

In the first decade of the twentieth century, under Mayor Fobes, Syracuse bought the land for Kirk Park, opened the Frazer playground and started work on Lincoln Park. At the time, there was a movement nationwide for increased development of open spaces for recreation, as cities became more crowded and congested. In Syracuse, of course, this meant parks that provided an escape from the noise and pollution associated with the New York Central Railroad running down Washington Street.

In 1910, another young Mayor took over City Hall. Although attorney Edward Schoeneck and former mayor James McGuire exchanged a war of words during the campaign (Schoeneck viewed his opponent, George Driscoll, as “a creature of McGuire” (Post-Standard, November 1, 1909); McGuire considered Schoeneck “weak clay in the hands of his political maker and his candidacy an affont to the citizens” (Syracuse Herald, October 20, 1909)), once elected, Schoeneck picked up the grade crossing elimination battle where McGuire had left off almost a decade earlier:

Mayor Edward Schoeneck yesterday took up the serious consideration of ways and means by which the removal of the New York Central tracks from Washington Street may be effected and a plan worked out by which scores of railroad crossings at grade may be abolished in Syracuse.

Mr. Schoeneck has had the matter under advisement for some time, according to statements made yesterday by members of his administration with whom he has discussed the question. He is said to have agreed with the declaration of Judge Irving G. Vann at the Chamber of Commerce banquet Saturday evening that the time is at hand when definite steps should be taken to secure the removal of the railroad tracks from the business center of Syracuse. (Post-Standard, March 22, 1910).

Not much had changed regarding grade crossing elimination since McGuire’s time: the grade crossing act required the railroad to pay for fifty percent of the solution, with the state and city covering the remaining half evenly. Of course, the cost of project had been revised, with the estimate increased to $4 million. Mayor Schoeneck felt “as much as Syracuse desired the removal of steam railway traffic from its streets, the city was neither able nor willing to assume a bonded debt of $1,000,000 to bring about the results” (Post-Standard, July 30, 1910).

Post-Standard, May 15, 1907

Another difference since McGuire’s time were the scores of additional injuries and deaths that continued to be caused by grade crossings. Although the New York Central Railroad had earlier insisted they were not contractually obligated to take any action on the Washington Street tracks until 1917, repeated headlines about amputated fingers and crushed legs could be considered as bad for the corporate brand. When Schoeneck met with New York Central President W.C. Brown in April 1910, he found the railroad chief to be more “liberal” towards the grade crossing situation:

“President Brown showed a disposition to treat the matter in a broad and liberal spirit,” said the Mayor yesterday. “From his attitude I feel confident that we will be able to solve the grade crossing problem satisfactorily without recourse to the grade crossing act.” (Mayor Schoeneck, quoted in Post-Standard, April 4, 1910).

Brown and Schoeneck discussed alternative means of reimbursement for Syracuse’s share of expenses, including allowing the New York Central to buy a franchise of streetcars which would operate on East Washington Street, absolution of any costs incurred by the city associated with street closings during construction, and “the remission to the New York Central of taxes which would accrue to Syracuse as a result of the increased taxable valuation of its property here, incidental to the construction of a new station, the elevation of its tracks and other betterments and improvements.” (Post-Standard, July 30, 1910).

But it wasn’t only the expense of the project that caused unease for the Syracuse city leaders:

It was learned that the construction of an elevated structure by the West Shore route was the basis of discussion. City Engineer [Henry] Allen, it was ascertained later, impressed upon President Brown that the street crossings, particularly at North Salina Street, must be built to mar the street as little as possible and to avoid damaging adjacent property.
It was pointed out that in the case of recent elimination of grade crossings in Schenectady, that State Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, had suffered severely in its most important part. There, the heavy, closely built elevated structure practically shuts off all overhead light from the underlying street. These points, it is understood, were made note of by Mr. Brown, who gave his assurance that the cross streets would be marred in no way by the change. (Post-Standard, April 2, 1910).

Almost a year after Mayor Schoeneck first met with the New York Central, the city announced that two plans that had been submitted to the railroad for consideration—essentially the same two plans that been considered twelve years earlier. The Post-Standard expected the possibility of elevated tracks might cause a “warm controversy”:

A decision on the two plans to be offered will be reached only after a warm controversy. Opposition to the elevation of the West Shore tracks has already been voiced by the First and Second Wards Citizen Improvement Association and the North Side Citizens Association.
...
Residents of the North Side have taken the position that elevated tracks along the West Shore route would be unsightly, and that they would form a wall dividing the city into two parts more effectually than does the Erie canal. The division, they contend, being farther to the north than the canal, would be detrimental to the development of the North Side. (Post-Standard, February 17, 1911).


former Schoeneck residence, 500 North McBride Street

The issue may have been particularly sensitive to Schoeneck, a resident of North McBride Street. Endorsement of elevation would not only alienate constituents, but his own neighbors. As the election year continued (at the time, mayors served 2-year terms), grade crossing elimination had become the most unique of political issues: while the progress Schoeneck had made with the New York Central railroad had been the most substantial in twenty years, any public support of the West Shore Elevation plan could lose potential voters. Schoeneck, perhaps sensing this precarious position, asked the Common Council to approve the creation of a Grade Crossing Commission:

The five men who form the Grade Crossing Commission, which the Common Council authorized Mayor Schoeneck to appoint, are Alan C. Fobes, former mayor of the city; Henry H.S. Handy, president of the Chamber of Commerce; Alexander T. Brown, manufacturer, capitalist and inventor; Albert J. Will, manufacturer, and John T. O’Brien, labor representative.
The commission, under the ordinance that the Common Council adopted, authorizing its appointment by the mayor, is directed to investigate not only the physical plan of doing away with the crossings at grade, but also to take into consideration the question of the financing of the project. The commission has no authority under the ordinance to bind the city, but is directed to investigate and make report of its investigations to the Common Council (Syracuse Herald, October 18, 1911).

from Schoeneck campaign ad, Syracuse Herald, October 31, 1911

Democratic Aldermen in the Common Council voted against the ordinance to create the commission, as the Schoeneck-named commission could be in place for years. However, Alderman Patrick Cawley of the First Ward (residing at 617 Bear Street) had his own reasons for voting no:

“It is said that it is an absolute fact,” Cawley declared, “that Mayor Schoeneck and the New York Central have entered into an agreement by which the tracks of the West Shore railroad will be elevated and will in consequence, greatly damage the principal streets of the city.”
He said he understood that the plan that had been agreed on would damage James and Salina street and would cut the city in two. He referred to the elevation in Rochester as an argument against the same procedure in the city. “I am against any ordinance that is going to damage Syracuse and divide the North and the South side. We want a united city. We don’t want an elevated road over the main streets.” (Syracuse Herald, October 10, 1911)

From Ludington campaign ad, Syracuse Herald, November 2, 1911

Democratic mayoral challenger James Ludington contended that the Commission was a political maneuver to avoid a public statement on the elevation issue:

“If it is true that the plans for the elimination of the grade crossings have been practically agreed on, as they say they have, you have a right to know now before election what the plans are. If he has a plan that will divide the North side and the South side you have a right to know.” (Ludington, at an speech at Hoffman Hall, 303 North Salina Street, quoted in Syracuse Herald, November 1, 1911)

Schoeneck won re-election, serving a second term as mayor until 1913 (and later as lieutenant governor of New York from 1915-1919). By the time of the election for Syracuse’s next mayor, the issue of grade crossing elimination—more specifically, track elevation—had progressed from a “warm controversy” to “the hottest municipal row in the history of Syracuse” (Syracuse Herald, March 11, 1914) . And not only would the next mayor state his opinion on the matter for the public record, he would turn the cause into a battle for Syracuse’s future.

February 1901

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In all my trip in the West I saw no city situated as is Syracuse is in the matter of railroads. The railroads invariably along the line of the Southern Pacific, where the towns are new and the railroad controls the town, either did not go into the heart of the city or were raised or depressed. (Mayor James McGuire, quoted in Post-Standard, May 6, 1901)

Grade Crossing Elimination in Rochester, Sunday Herald, April 23, 1899

While Syracuse has been known for having some staggeringly long lead times for its municipal projects, perhaps none quite matches grade crossing elimination. By 1900, Syracuse had managed to build miles of sewers and paved roads, but could not remove grade crossings in the city, most notably on Washington Street. As pictures and postcards of the era captured, the New York Central Railroad ran down the center of Washington Street, sharing the road over the years with streetcars, horses, wagons, buses, autos and pedestrians. Syracuse wasn't alone as a city with dangerous grade crossings, but some of these other upstate cities, such as Rochester, had elevated their rail tracks by the turn of the century. Mayor James McGuire, referred to as "The Boy Mayor" due to being only 27 years old at the time of his election in 1896, made grade crossing elimination a priority. In 1899, the city hired a renowned engineer, Henry B. Seaman, to propose a solution to the city's grade crossing problem. In April 1899, the Evening Herald announced the news that Seaman had arrived at a solution for the abolition of grade crossings:

Engineer Seaman has proposed two plans after the exhaustive study of the conditions. One of these, which he regards as the most desirable, is known as the West Shore plan, because, while it sends no freight trains through the city, it contemplates the elevation of the West Shore tracks for the use of the passenger trains of the Central, the West Shore and the Chenango Valley roads. The other plan, which is based on the suggestion of William R. Hill, Chief Engineer and Superintendent of the Water Department, contemplates the bringing of the passenger trains of these roads, like those of the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburgh road, into the city, from the north and the northwest by means of a loop from tracks north of the city, the West Shore tracks, as well as the Central tracks in Washington Street, being abandoned.

drawing from Henry B. Seaman's plan, Evening Herald, April 10, 1899

Granted, this would be no small undertaking:

The plans presented provide for a stupendous public improvement, and the accompanying estimates show the cost will be two and a half millions of dollars [sic]. According to the State law, one half of the expense of abolishing grade crossings is borne by the railroad companies, one-fourth by the State, and one-fourth by the city. (Evening Herald, April 10, 1899)

Although Mayor McGuire mentioned the elimination of grade crossings in his speech accepting the Democratic nomination for re-election six months later, by 1901, not only had no progress been made, but the state proclaimed that it only had $100,000 to contribute to Syracuse for such a project:

The words of the annual report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of New York State, as made public yesterday, are important in the grade crossing discussion. Referring to Syracuse, the report says:

The subject of the abolishment of grade crossings of the railroads in the city of Syracuse has been under consideration in that city. The board has had some correspondence with the city on this subject, and has had filed with it a general plan for the work.

It is evident, however, that the cost will be so great that the appropriation made by the State [$100,000], even though it were entirely apportioned to the city of Syracuse, would not be sufficient in any one year to pay the State’s proportion of the expenses. (Post-Standard, January 16, 1901)

One week later, when a Post-Standard reporter asked Edgar Van Etten, Superintendent of the New York Central Railroad, about the railroad’s assistance in grade crossing elimination in Syracuse, Van Etten asked why the railroad should even consider such a question:

“In the first place,” said Mr. Van Etten, “there is little reason why we should take active steps in this matter and spend millions of dollars as long as we have the right of way through Washington Street for nearly twenty-five years more. It will be remembered that not many years ago the New York Central paved and reconstructed its tracks from Pine Street to the station at Franklin Street. In round numbers this work cost about $150,000 and the new station which was constructed about the same time cost not less than $270,000.

I know of no corporation that is fond of spending this amount of money and then do the work all over again in the course of a few years at a still greater expense. When we placed the street in its present condition there was a contract drawn up giving us the right of way for twenty-five years.” (Post-Standard, January 24, 1901)

Mayor McGuire appeared undaunted by this revelation, still hoping to enlist the assistance of the New York Central in the grade crossing elimination project. This brief one-sentence news item appeared in the Feb. 3, 1901 edition of the Post-Standard:

Mayor Inquires About Grade Crossings
The Mayor has again written to S.R. Callaway of the New York Central to see if the Central is going to act in the matter of abolishing grade crossings.

One week later, the Mayor received his reply:

New York, Februrary 7, 1901

Honorable James K. McGuire, Mayor of Syracuse, N.Y.:

Dear Sir—I am in receipt of your favor of the 31st ultimo, with reference to grade crossings in your city. My absence from the city has prevented an earlier reply.

This company is extremely anxious to abolish all dangerous grade crossings as rapidly as possible and is constantly spending large sums of money for that purpose. The plans of the Board of Railroad Commissioners have uniformly had our approval and active-cooperation. We have also gladly united with municipalities for the same purpose in any improvement which could be made on fair terms, as in the case of Albany, to which you refer.

I have every reason to believe that the directors would authorize a similar course in Syracuse, but the expense would be so large as to constitute a considerable burden upon the city as well as a much larger one upon the company.

I therefore asked you, at the conference which I had with yourself and other representatives of Syracuse, to advise me what share of the cost, in your city, the city would consent to bear. I understand that you expected to take this inquiry under consideration and give me an answer, but I have not yet received one.

The answer to this inquiry is especially pertinent and important because the company has so recently incurred a large expense in satisfying what it believed to be the wishes of the people of your city.

Callaway continues on, explaining the right-of-way contract that had never been mentioned at the time of the 1899 Seaman plans, despite being signed only seven years earlier:

As you are aware, the right to use Washington Street was granted to the predecessors of this company many years ago. The meaning of some expressions in the grant was at times the subject of some contention between the city and the company, and as lately as 1892, when the city was desirous of having Washington Street repaved and the freight facilities of the company increased and a new passenger station built, the city and company, after much deliberation, entered into an agreement under which it paved Washington Street with first class stone pavement on a concrete foundation, according to the plans of your City Engineer, laid a new rail in the same street and agreed in the future to remove all snow and ice from its tracks so that the street should not be obstructed.

It also agreed to enlarge its freight facilities and within two years to construct a new passenger station suitable to the needs of the city. It has carried out this agreement in good faith and your people expressed their approval of the plans of the station which was soon after completed.

In consideration of this action on the part of the company, the rights of the company in the street were confirmed and continued and it was relieved from all obligation in reference to paving for the ensuing twenty-five years.

In these circumstances, if we consent, after a lapse of less than nine of the twenty-five years, to take up the question of eliminating the grade crossings, the expense of the change should be divided between the public and the company upon some fair terms, and I shall be glad to have you indicate what portion of the cost the city would be willing to bear. You are, of course, aware that under the State law, the company bears one-half, the municipality one-quarter and the state one-quarter.

As a matter of fact, the accidents on Washington Street have been very few, and are confined almost wholly to cases where people have attempted to jump on the trains.

Yours truly,
S.R. Callaway
(Post-Standard, Feb. 10, 1901)

The situation proved to be quite baffling. Had Syracuse really entered into such a contract in 1892, a full decade after Rochester had eliminated their grade crossings by elevation? Would Syracuse be stuck with a train running through the center of its city until 1917, at the earliest? Mayor Jacob Amos, who had entered the contract with the railroad, wrote an article for the Post-Standard one month later on March 17, 1901, explaining how the deal came to be:

It has been customary for the different city administrations for a good many years to antagonize the New York Central Railroad Company and try to compel it to do certain things in a way that did not bring good results. They tried, even, to have the company plank between its tracks east of State Street, which it absolutely refused to do.
…
I discovered that we could not compel the company to make any improvements, as under its franchise we could only compel it to keep the street in proper repair. The phase “proper repair” is a misnomer and means practically nothing. That is a construction that was given to it in the high courts.
…
Mr. Vanderbilt and Dr. Depew came here on a special train to see me and I asked them not only to pave Washington Street to State Street, but to do so for the entire length of the street, also to erect a new station and make improvements in their freight yard and in their freight house.

After consulting with them a number of times, they agreed to comply with all these requests if we would release them from further paving the street for a term of twenty years, they to repair any part of the pavement that they might destroy. This I considered a good contract since we could not compel them to pave the street.

While Mayor Amos had accomplished much during his two terms as mayor, including completing the municipal water system (started under Mayor Kirk) and introducing a new sewer system into the city, his negotiating power could never have matched the first tycoon, Cornelius Vanderbilt. Yet this may very well have been a good contract in Mayor Amos’ view, as his main concern was paving Washington street, and not grade crossing elimination:

In relation to eliminating the crossings in the central part of the city, I do not think at this time there is any very great demand from the citizens of Syracuse to do away with the tracks and also with the new station. Attention has been called to that improvement, and I have no doubt in time it will be done, but how soon I cannot say.

He also, perhaps, did not want to be the mayor associated with elevation:

There is quite a question in my mind if the citizens of Syracuse would like an overhead structure over James Street that would last us practically during this whole generation. They might want to have that changed again in ten or fifteen years.

Mayor Amos concluded his editorial by informing the citizens of Syracuse that they were essentially powerless in the face of the relatively new entities of corporations:

I have come in contact in the past few years with very large corporations, and it has been my observation that little is to be gained by trying to force these large companies when the matter is beyond your control, as is the case with the New York Central.

As a citizen I take just as much interest in any improvements for Syracuse as I did when I had more authority. To use a homely expression, “You can catch more flies with molasses than you can with vinegar.” In this case, the New York Central cannot be compelled to do away with its grade crossings unless the city and state carry out their part as laid down by law.

The idea that the city could “catch more flies with molasses” led to slippery slope between acceptance and accommodation, as this editorial by Milton H. Northrup, former Syracuse postmaster and editor of the Syracuse Courier, clearly demonstrates:

The Central-Hudson Railroad owes much to Syracuse, it is true; but what does the city owe to the railroads which center here? What built up Syracuse to a city of an eighth of a million inhabitants at the close of its first half century? Was it the Erie Canal? If so, why do our citizens look with such complacency to the proposition to deprive us of the canal altogether, moving its line miles to the north?...Was it the salt works? They, too, were important factors but they have ceased to be regarded as essential to the city’s life and growth. Take them away altogether, along with the canal, and Syracuse would go on just the same.
But suppose the cities were to be stripped of its railroads: Suppose we had but one within ten miles, where would Syracuse be then? The railroads were the pioneers of our civilization and progress. They are the pillars on which our growth and prosperity rest. We can no more afford to antagonize them than could the members of the body, as described by Esop of old, afford to rebel against the stomach. The obligations are reciprocal, and no horseplay to the galleries should be permitted to array the two in hostility.
…
Some will ask what all this has to do with the change of grade of the Central-Hudson tracks, by elevation or depression. Nothing, I grant. That is a question sooner or later to be met—grade crossings must be abolished. But this will not be brought about by a policy of bulldozing or bluff. Whatever right to our streets comes by priority of possession belongs to the railroad corporation and not to the city. The railroad came first, and when the city came later it found the tracks already down and trains running over them. Under such conditions the Mayor’s policy of coercion seems unlikely to win. An appeal to the company’s sense of justice and good will might bring better results. (Post Standard,March 3, 1901)

While Mr. Northrup argued for the importance of railroads based on the obsolescence of earlier markers of Syracuse history, he failed to comprehend the same could be true for railroads in the future. If the corporate railroads were the pillars of Syracuse, once they disappeared, Syracuse would be left with, well, pillars. (Or, in a related scenario, concrete bunkers attached to malls.)

***

Shortly after Mayor McGuire received his reply from the New York Central Railroad, he took a two-month leave of absence due to his health:

Mayor McGuire said last night that he would probably leave Sunday for Las Vegas hot springs, New Mexico where he will remain two months for his health. The trip is being taken by the advice of his physician. The Mayor says he has never fully recovered from the illness he contracted while he was in the South. (Post Standard, February 22, 1901)

McGuire returned nine and a half weeks later (during which time, the president of the common council, Martin Yann, acted as interim mayor) and completed his term, but lost a re-election campaign to Jay Kline. Sadly, the “Boy Mayor” died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1923, with grade crossing elimination still more than a decade away.

January 16, 1922

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"Syracuse is one, division lines are done!"—Official Proclamation, October 23, 1924

The recent passing of former Mayor William Walsh once again brings up a defining issue of post-WWII Syracuse: urban renewal. While the history of that time period will forever be subject to interpretation (and now even more so, as many of the figures responsible for the decisions made during these years are no longer with us), one truth is certain: Syracuse has been a city divided since Walsh's time as mayor.

Of course, Syracuse had also been a divided city under Mayor Henninger: the elevated railroad (later I-690) had been bisecting the city during his leadership, as well as the Mead, Corcoran, Kennedy and Marvin administrations. Mayors Baldwin, Leavenworth, Hovey et al. also governed a split community, with the Erie Canal separating north and south at the heart of the city. Since its founding to present, Syracuse has been a "city united" only under two mayors, over almost ninety years ago. And much like the roaring twenties themselves, the celebration would be over by decade's end.

Official application will be filed with the State Department of Public Works at once by George E. Scherrer, commissioner of public works, for the abandonment of the Erie Canal through this city.

One of the first things Commissioner Scherrer will endeavor to accomplish will be the establishment of an automobile parking station in the bed of the abandoned canal through a section of the heart of the city. (Syracuse Herald, January 16, 1922)

from Syracuse Herald, April 16, 1923

As recently unearthed canals are now the focal point of activity in some communities, planning a week-long jubilee to commemorate the removal of a city's centerpiece in favor of a parking lot is disheartening from a current perspective. But for a city that was expanding rapidly—not to mention with a train running straight through the center—road and pavement held far more promise for the future growth of Syracuse than an abandoned waterway. Far from picturesque, the unused portion of canal became a frequent site of drownings and health hazards:

The Erie Canal between Salina and Clinton streets appears to be a favorite gathering place for scum and refuse. The wind sweeps papers, boxes, pieces of wood and other rubbish into this cove and leaves it there. The wind tends to clear the main channel of the canal of such rubbish, but does not affect such secluded places.

Weeds from the bottom of the canal have grown to the surface and add to the general unsightly collection. They gather the other refuse and aid in giving the canal the general appearance of a dumping place. Tuesday morning there was such a heap of rubbish just east of the Salina Street bridge that the railing was crowded with spectators.

The refuse remains—a menace to public health. (Syracuse Herald, July 13, 1921)

The canal also acted as a physical and psychological barrier to downtown shoppers. Dispelling the notion that streetcar era pedestrians were more inclined to walk a few blocks than today's drivers, merchants located in the 100 and 200 blocks of North Salina Street had to create a marketing campaign to lure potential customers from South Salina Street to their stores on the other side of the canal bridge:

"Shop on the North Side."

This will be the slogan of a campaign to be started immediately by the North Side merchants who have a definite project in mind to make the North Side as much of a business district as that south of the Erie Canal.

The North Salina Street businesses made what might have been the first specific appeal to suburban shoppers to come downtown:

Particular efforts will be made to attract buyers from the rural districts north of the city and adjacent suburban villages. Special inducements will be made to shoppers from Liverpool, Baldwinsville, Cicero, North Syracuse, Kirkville and other nearby places not to cross the canal on their shopping trips in Syracuse. (Syracuse Herald, July 28, 1921)

Though the villages of Salina and Syracuse had merged in 1848 to form the City of Syracuse, the canal remained a dividing line between north and south. Therefore, when the first handful of dirt was thrown into the abandoned Erie Canal on June 23, 1923, residents came together to witness "a day that will have a place among the important dates in the community's history":

A few pounds of earth, shoveled into the historical canal basin at Clinton Square by Dr. Frederick W. Betts, representing the South Side, and John Gang, representing the North Side, served to mark the high spot in the crowded afternoon's program. It symbolized, as Mayor John H. Walrath pointed out, "the erasure of a line that has divided the community and hindered its progress almost from the beginning."

"This," he said, "is an historic moment. The city has at last secured the possession of the old Erie Canal which has split the city in two so harmfully.

"We are today erasing a dividing line, imaginary as though it may be, which has impeded and obstructed the growth and cooperation of the community for many, many years. Today, on our municipal holiday, we hold it fitting to call upon a representative of the South Side and of the North Side to begin the work of blotting out this line.

"They are beginning an improvement which I promise you will progress as rapidly as is humanly possible." (Syracuse Herald, June 24, 1923)

Syracuse Herald, October 28, 1924

As the filling of the canal neared completion, the 100-200 block North Salina Street Merchants once again banded together in an advertising campaign:

The Wonderful Club is organized. It is composed of merchants and others doing business in the 100 and 200 blocks of North Salina Street and its tributaries.

The idea originated when a group of these merchants met the other day for luncheon. Nicholas M. Peters was elected chairman, George T. Schieder, vice-chairman, Wesley Markson, secretary, and W.W. Plumb, treasurer. (Syracuse Herald, October 24, 1924)

Syracuse Herald, May 11, 1924

The final step towards unification came on October 28, 1924, when the Salina Street bridge was removed. The historic occasion merited a mayoral proclamation:

WHEREAS, To show their appreciation for the filling of the canal, the removal of the historic Salina Street bridge over the canal, the installation of the new street lighting system, and particularly the passing of the old line of demarcation between the North and South Sides of our city, merchants of North Salina Street plan a notable observance of the week of October 27 to November 1; and
WHEREAS, They have adopted as their slogan, "Salina Street is now complete" and "Syracuse is One, Division Lines are Done"—two rallying cries of undoubted appeal in view of the realization of the dreams of years; and
WHEREAS, they seek by elaborate decorations, receptions in their stores and a commemoratory parade on Tuesday evening, Oct. 28, to make the celebration all it should be—a demonstration that the city is in fact "One and Division Lines are Done"; and
WHEREAS, The event is one of even more than city-wide importance in which the co-operating business men, with a fine civic pride, want the entire community to participate; therefore,
I, John Walrath, as Mayor of Syracuse, officially proclaim the week of Oct. 27 to Nov. 1 as "All-Syracuse-for-One-Syracuse Week," and urge all our people to join fully and enthusiastically in the demonstration to mark this epoch in our city's progress. (Syracuse Herald, October 26, 1924)

Syracuse Herald, October 28, 1924

and a week-long celebration and parade, organized by the Wonderful Club:

It's gone forever.

The gash that severed the heart of Syracuse for 100 years is healed.

Even the bandage has been removed.

North and south are one.

Tonight, Syracuse merchants, north and south of what was once the Erie Canal join in celebrating the unification of a city divided psychologically by a ditch that brought prosperity, then natural barriers.

Nobody regrets the digging of the canal. Everybody rejoices at its passing. (Nicholas M. Peters, Syracuse Herald, October 28, 1924)

Syracuse Herald, October 28, 1924

Yet even while the city celebrated the canal being "gone forever," community members knew the unification between north and south could be short-lived, as discussions were already underway about building an elevated railroad through the city:

CONSIDER THIS, SYRACUSANS

Today, for the second time, THE HERALD expresses its satisfaction over the disappearance of the ancient canal boundary between the North and South Sides of Syracuse, which will be signalized by a big celebration and parade tonight.

In the course of our article on the subject in Saturday's issue we said:

Reflection on the situation which has been brought about by this improvement will bring a better realization of the present benefit and an estimate of that which accrues through ensuing years. With what might be termed a physical barrier eliminated there will come a rapid knitting together of what were essentially parts of the municipality. The process of unification, political, social and commercial, will be advanced naturally as the people of the city gradually adopt the new thought of unity.

We repeat these earnest words for the purpose of pointing a moral.

It seems incredible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that while our people are preparing for a carnival of jubilation over the reunion of North and South Syracuse, through the refilling of the canal and the removal of its bridges, certain citizens, led by the Grade Crossing Commission and the local attorney of the New York Central Railroad, are planning for another dividing city barrier far more formidable and forbidding than the old waterway.

Then we should have not only a North Syracuse and a South Syracuse, but also an East Syracuse and a West Syracuse, separated, one from the other, by a monstrous railroad barrier which would outlive the youngest of our inhabitants.

And this is the third decade of the Twentieth Century!

Just imagine what the people of other sane cities will think of Syracuse when they realize that we are actually debating the question of substituting a monumental and permanent nuisance and encumbrance for a lesser one from which we have now been happily delivered.

The public of our threatened city is informed that the matter will actually be submitted to the Syracuse Common Council at an early day. That it can ever go through is unbelievable, unless a majority of the Aldermen have gone daft. Heaven help the officials of our municipality who have anything to do with the appalling proposal! (Syracuse Herald editorial, October 28, 1924)

The Wonderful Club saw that their mission was not over:

The Wonderful Club is now a permanent organization. Hereafter it is to be considered whenever anything comes up that affects the interests of the merchants and businessmen in the district immediately north of where the Salina Street bridge formerly spanned the old canal.

The club objects to the elevation of railroad tracks through the heart of Syracuse. Its members voted at the organization meeting in Turn Hall last night that elevation of the tracks would be worse than the bridge that is now gone forever.

Nothing is to be retained that will indicate the existence of a "North Side" or a "South Side," if the Wonderful Club can prevent it. (Syracuse Herald, November 11, 1924)

Syracuse Herald, November 11, 1924

Some individuals in Wonderful Club became also became the force behind the Future Syracuse Committee, a group that advocated for the "northern route" for the railroad, which would avoid elevated structures in the city. When Mayor Charles Hanna (who defeated John Walrath in 1926 by 887 votes) called for the matter to be put to a public vote in 1927, the two sides debated each other in a series of newspaper editorials and advertisements, with the fight for elevation being taken up by the former mayor who three years earlier had "set fire to an improvised barrier [to] signify the passing of the city's demarcation forever" (Syracuse Herald, October 28, 1924), John Walrath.

"I feel and I think a vast majority of the people feel with me, that the construction of an elevated route through the heart of Syracuse would be a calamity—a calamity that would only be fully understood in the years to come." —Mayor Harry H. Farmer, Syracuse Herald, December 7, 1920

In discussions about the current I-81 controversy, the focus is often on post-WWII Syracuse development: the flight to the suburbs, urban renewal projects such as Upstate Medical and Presidential Plaza, the destruction of the 15th Ward. While these events provide relevant background for I-81 specifically, perhaps the more significant history to discuss in regards to an elevated highway is this: a divided city landscape has been an issue in Syracuse for 163 years. Elevated structures have been part of the conversation for nearly a century. The debate should be as much a part of Syracuse's collective psyche as snow. Yet what has slipped our memory are the leaders who were among the first to speak of these dividing barriers as not only the political matter of the day, but as a defining issue of Syracuse's future. Perhaps this is because these early 20th-century mayors passed away just as the city began to confront the post-war planning issues that led in part to the construction of the elevated I-81. Upon his death in 1957, Mayor Farmer's obituary barely made mention of his time as mayor, focusing instead on his military service and post-mayor career as Syracuse's first Traffic Court judge. But his words about elevated structures could not have been more prescient, as evidenced by a headline just a few inches below his death notice:

Post-Standard, May 2, 1957

***

Syracuse Herald-American, August 17, 1975

Oddly enough, just as the North Salina Street merchants formed a committee to save their businesses as downtown retailers would do thirty-five years later, they were also the first to experience urban renewal-like devastation. At the same time the monorail ran through Edwards, providing children with lasting memories that are now turned to as some sort of guiding force for downtown revitalization, the shops located in the 100-200 block of North Salina Street stared at a fenced-in, empty lot. The Empire House fire wiped out the west side of the 100 block in 1942, resulting in a vacant site until the Atlantic Building opened in 1950 (and then demolished in late 1960s to make way for the Syracuse Newspapers building). Many of the founders of the Wonderful Club had died by this time as well, with their stores going out of business or change of ownership shortly thereafter (although one original Wonderful Club merchant has survived both the Empire House fire and family generations, albeit now in a different location). In the early 1970s, two separate fires ravaged several of the remaining buildings in the 100-block. And in August 1975, an explosion and fire leveled the entire 200-block on North Salina & East Willow Street. The blast occurred the same week as the first SyracUSA festival, a week-long celebration that aimed to bring shoppers to South Salina Street. However, many of the attendees were drawn northward, to view the smoldering remains of the North Salina stores that had planned a similar event for their side of the street nearly fifty years earlier.

When it comes to historical dividing lines, we seem to think of downtown Syracuse as either the fabled glory days of yesteryear or the more recent decades characterized by misguided attempts to recapture that former magic. But we rarely revisit this unique period in Syracuse history: a time when downtown Syracuse was most unified, and yet most divided about its future. The lessons they offer are probably among the most relevant in Syracuse's history, as the city center stood at a crossroads while the (streetcar) suburbs expanded rapidly (with their promises to be located "away from confusion, noise and congestion of the city"), and a decision about an elevated structure that both sides knew would alter the landscape and the city's entire future.

January 1, 1882

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In late 1880, the Sunday Herald began a series entitled "The Roads of the City of Syracuse." Written by "A Veteran Syracusan," the weekly column shared—in great detail—the history of all matters related to the Syracuse streets:

STREET SIGN BOARDS.
In the month of April 1839, an order was passed directing that the names of the several streets in the village should be placed on the corners, and this order was soon afterward executed. If present complaints are well founded, a supplementary order of this kind is now greatly needed, not only by strangers, but citizens also. (No. 17 in series, Sunday Herald, February 6, 1881).

In the young, growing city, the "Roads of Syracuse" may as well have been the Page Six of its day, naming the who's who of Syracuse in matters both "~~concrete~~" "macadam":

The last assessment ordered by the trustees [in 1847] for work done on the streets of the village, was that for paving Salina Street between Church Street and the Oswego Canal. The parties assessed were Joseph Bouielle, Thomas George, Henry S. Green, Grove Lawrence, Cornelius Lynch, Alexander McKinstry, James McBride, Sidney Stanton, John Townsend, John H. Tomlinson, George B. Walter, Doctor Yates, Congdon & Cary, the County of Onondaga, and the village of Syracuse—the latter for a lot occupied by a hook and ladder house. (No. 18 in series, Sunday Herald, February 13, 1881)

and fanciful:

A REVOLT AVERTED
On April 27th, 1846, the trustees passed an ordinance on petition of John Wilkinson and others, designating that part of Salina Street south of the Erie Canal as Main Street, and all that part of Genesee Street lying north of the canal as "Broadway," and also giving name to Butternut Street. The passage of this ordinance, so far as it related to Salina and Genesee Streets, created much feeling, and was derided as an act of folly, and at the end of two weeks the ordinance was rescinded, and a revolt averted. (Sunday Herald, February 13, 1881)

By early 1882, the "Veteran" had turned his attention to the history of the names of the streets themselves. On January 1, 1882, the 64th column in the series began to relate the stories behind the well-traveled streets in Syracuse. For the next several weeks, the author shared his knowledge of the Syracuse map, providing newcomers with a sense of place, and perhaps for the other "veteran Syracusans," nostalgia. Yet even as he detailed the shifting boundaries and markers of the city—a city that, in many ways, would become unrecognizable in another fifty years' time—the Veteran realized the permanence of the street names:

While the ancient name [of Delhi and Delphi Streets] [have been] applied to modern towns and hamlets, this fact affords no warrant for their introduction into street nomenclature here or elsewhere. It is a serious question whether in such cases as this the Council should not interfere and correct the errors of individuals who persist in giving to streets names that have neither significance or beauty. (Sunday Herald, February 5, 1882).

These streets have gone through many transformations in the 129 years since the publication of this series, but the names bestowed upon them provide lasting reminders of the history of Syracuse.

Click on the Google Map below to read the histories of the streets of Syracuse, as offered by the "Veteran Syracusan" in the Sunday Herald, January-February, 1882.

View The Streets of Syracuse in a larger map

(All information from Syracuse Sunday Herald: January 1, 1882, January 15, 1882, January 22, 1882, January 29, 1882, February 5, 1882, February 12, 1882, February 19, 1882)

October 15, 1987

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As well reported and celebrated, twenty years ago, on October 15, 1990, Carousel Center opened its doors and changed the shopping landscape of Syracuse forever. Not surprising, another landscape-altering mall's October 15 birthday passed with no fanfare, much like it has for the past 23 years.

August 30, 2010

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(Continued from Part 1)

"Some years ago the center of the city, namely Clinton Square, was devoted to the parking of cars and the appearance of the city at that place where it should look best to the person driving through was a mess. Now after creating a thing of beauty there to eliminate that horrible mess, our elected officials again want to mess up that spot just to park a measly 60 cars. How thrilling! Just think, all of sixty cars; not a drop in the bucket. It shows a great deal of advancement. Actually, it shows the thinking of small children." (excerpt from a letter to the editor written by Merritt G. Curtis, Syracuse, Syracuse Herald-Journal, June 20, 1950)

In the late 1940s, the Parking Authority made small gains in their parking mission. In 1949, municipal parking lots opened on the northern and southern edges of downtown, at the corner of Oswego Boulevard and North Salina Street and Oneida and West Adams Streets. Each lot offered approximately 200 spaces. But as the Post-Standard had predicted several years earlier, the number of cars on the streets of Syracuse was increasing exponentially. Furthermore, building materials were no longer in short supply as they had been in the years immediately following WWII, resulting in a burst of suburban home and business construction. Yet despite this rapid growth, the Parking Authority's 1950 proposed parking site was decidedly retro:

Despite being shot down for a similar proposal two years earlier, the Parking Authority resurrected their wish to use Clinton Square for parking, though this time around they added Forman Park to the mix as well. According to a June 21, 1950 Post-Standard article, the authority had "abandoned all thoughts suggested last year of double- and triple-decker parking facilities preferring to use street level accommodations solely." In other words, perhaps in an effort to mimic the suburban parking lots, the parking authority sought open land where there was none. As the Post-Standard realized, "Fayette and Columbus parks and other similar spots of green in the community appear in danger of elimination to serve as space for cars."

Granted, Syracusans may have loved their cars, but they didn't want "the sight of 62 cars, even though all are of the latest model" taking over the downtown parks (from letter to the editor, Post-Standard, June 20, 1950). Residents took up their pens in protest:

To the Herald Journal:

A characteristic nibble at the edge of a big problem is the plan to turn Clinton Square into a parking lot. Syracuse is still trying to run a big city on a country village level.

The Square, which is not only a welcome spot of beauty in a rushing downtown section, but is supposed to have some memorial significance, will park a few cars, true. But it will certainly not improve the beauty of our city, which the planners praise about, when it is turned into a car lot.

Syracuse is still living down the reputation as the town where "the trains run through the streets." Now it can build up another as the city which uses its Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Square for a parking lot. (from a letter signed Cross-Town Pedestrian, June 20, 1950)

To the editor of the Post-Standard:

The following is a letter I have sent to Mayor Corcoran:

As a descendant of two of the pioneers of Syracuse, I wish to add my protest to the many others you have received, against the destroying of two of the few remaining beauty spots now left in downtown Syracuse: namely, the fountain in Clinton Square and Forman Park, established in honor of another of the founders of our city.

My ancestor, Oliver Teall, was one of the engineers instrumental in building the Erie Canal through this area.

My father, Timothy H. Teall, exhibited the first electric light in Syracuse.

It will take a lot of parking revenue to reimburse the taxpayers for the cost of the Clinton Square fountain, as was reported in this week's paper. Then, too, we will not have a little place for our municipal Christmas tree, which is one of the pleasant items in a cold winter. Don't sacrifice everything for a little more money.

Also, have you the legal right to destroy our property?

(from a letter signed H.L. Teall, Post-Standard, June 27, 1950 - also printed in Syracuse Herald-Journal, June 28, 1950)

Letters appeared daily on the editorial pages, as well as editorials from both the Post-Standard and Herald-Journal condemning the decision. Initially, even in the face of this opposition, Mayor Thomas Corcoran "sided with the authority, declaring parking space is more necessary than beauty, especially when it will produce revenue from parking meters." (Post-Standard, June 22, 1950). But exactly one week after the triumphant headlines, the Sunday paper carried far different news:

From Syracuse Herald-American, June 25, 1950

The following week, the paper once again confirmed the news, stating that "the Parking Authority will meet Thursday to reject the proposal for converting Clinton Square and Forman Park into municipal parking lots" (Syracuse Herald-American, July 2, 1950). When you consider this swift reconsideration by the city after the overwhelming protest by Syracuse residents, you can't help but wonder if the razing of buildings that occurred during the urban renewal years would have had a different outcome had there been similar unified outrage. Unfortunately, the answer can be found within the same letters and editorials:

The city has broached the idea of turning Forman Park and part of Clinton Square into parking areas.

It is simply an admission of defeat.

There are plenty of ramshackle old buildings that could be torn down in congested areas and the sites turned into parking spaces, without turning to the few bits of nature that Syracuse owns. (from Post-Standard editorial, June 20, 1950)

To the editor of the Post-Standard:

I wish to protest against the plans of the city to use part of Clinton Square and Forman Park for parking lots. Why couldn't some of the old unsightly buildings in the downtown area be condemned and torn down and the land used for parking areas, thereby improving the community. (from letter signed J.B., Post-Standard, June 25, 1950)

To the Herald-Journal:

Why don't we tear down some of the ramshackle old buildings around town and build a real building for parking of cars instead of making an ugly blot out of that little beauty spot and putting us back in the horse and buggy era. (from a letter signed Isha, Herald-Journal, June 24, 1950)

***

By 1953, the downtown parking situation had become so dire that a 15-part (yes, fifteen part) series about the problem was published in the Post-Standard. In Part 1, reporter Luther Bliven summarized the problem quite succinctly:

The average driver is an eternal optimist, certain that if he keeps circling long enough he will find a parking space reasonably near where he wants to go. If parking is completely prohibited in the area of his destination, he may have a passenger go in and do his errand. Meanwhile he circles the block until the errand is completed. Both maneuvers produce more traffic congestion.

...

Unless the people can enter and leave the central business district without being unduly delayed by traffic congestion, and can find a place to park reasonably near their destination, they will purchase merchandise and commercial and professional services elsewhere, usually in suburban shopping centers. (Post-Standard, April 19, 1953)

Unfortuntately for Mr. Bliven and the Post-Standard, the next 14 articles in the series weren't devoted to reimagining downtown as an alternative to the suburbs, but rather, the hopeless cause of trying to compete with suburban parking. Certainly, Bliven engaged in an extensive amount of research:

During his preparation of the series, Mr. Bliven compared the Syracuse situation with that of 15 other cities from coast to coast; analyzed reports on the problem prepared by Syracuse and other cities; held personal interviews with more than 30 Syracusans closely acquainted with the parking and traffic needs of the city.

He also consulted at length with two nationally-recognized authorities on the subject; interviewed 23 persons in Allentown and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; corresponded with municipal, chamber of commerce and merchants' parking group authorities in 12 other cities; studied articles dealing with the subject in such magazines as Architectural Forum, Life, Collier's and other publications; conferred with many persons who have called in with suggestions since the series started. (Post-Standard, May 3, 1953)

Bliven's final recommendation? "Private individuals—investors, bankers or real estate men—should promote construction of one or two ramp garages to accommodate 800 cars." (Post-Standard, May 3, 1953) 15 articles and countless hours of interviews and research, and Bliven thought the problem could be solved with an 800-car garage? Six months earlier, an A&P had opened at the new Valley Plaza, highlighting its 800-car parking lot:

Post-Standard, December 3, 1952

Suburban supermarkets and shopping centers routinely advertised the availability of free parking, almost mocking the downtown situation:

from A&P ad, Post-Standard, December 3, 1952

Granted, 800 cars probably never parked at Valley Plaza, and an 800-car garage downtown would have gone a long way to alleviating the parking shortage for shoppers and workers. But drivers weren't relating to numbers, but promises:

Syracuse Herald-Journal, February 14, 1951

800 or 8,000 car garage: the numbers made no difference. Downtown could never guarantee a parking spot steps from the store as the suburbs could. Bliven concluded as much in Part 2:

The city's parking shortage and traffic congestion problems are compounded by the fact that 70 percent of more than 30,000 drivers who enter the main business area daily insist on parking at the curb where only about one-seventh of the total downtown parking space is available.

Many who would gloss over the knotty problem maintain, "the parker must learn to walk a few blocks farther." Extensive studies in Syracuse, and many other cities, show he is not inclined." (Post-Standard, April 20, 1953)

The knotty problem still remains, as "lack of parking" continues as a reason to avoid downtown to this day, despite the fact that no one has ever seemed to skip a concert or celebrating in Armory Square for lack of a parking spot (except perhaps the 30 O'Brien & Gere employees who had never been downtown, who really need a 15-part series of their own). Yet now as downtown starts to show new signs of life, the parking excuse may start to hold some truth.

Although one of O'Brien & Gere's "downtown orientation sessions" focused on Centro and bike commuting, one would surmise that the majority of the 350 employees of O'Brien & Gere will drive downtown. Winter snow and ice would sideline all but the most experienced bike riders, and Centro—like most city bus systems—limits its riders to schedule and routes. Similarly, one would assume that the majority—if not all—of the condo dwellers downtown also own cars, as the act of buying groceries seems difficult otherwise. As more buildings are converted to condos, and more businesses move downtown, how will this be sustainable? With no convenient alternative means of transportation to and from downtown, how is this any different than sixty years ago?

The recent Post-Standard article about the new O'Brien & Gere downtown office offers walkability as a motive for relocation:

A new generation of employees wants something else, said Dot Hall, a senior manager. Surveying college graduates who declined O’Brien & Gere job offers, Hall learned they wanted to work in cities where they can walk to restaurants, shops and entertainment.

What is unclear, however, is where this walkability begins and ends. Should Downtown merely be a driving destination that is walkable? Or should it be more reflective of its heyday, when downtown was the crossroads of a city connected by streetcar lines? While there seems to be great excitement into turning Downtown into a full-fledged neighborhood (complete with proposed grocery store in the old Dey's building), how would a Downtown dweller travel to any other neighborhood in the Syracuse area without his/her car? Should the "50 to 70 [O'Brien & Gere] visitors a day — customers and out-of-town employees" be required to rent cars or take taxis? And in these respects, how would a revived downtown be any different than a thriving suburb?

***

In the years immediately following WWII, Syracuse couldn't consider city planning without cars as the central focus, as doing so would be a step away from a culture fixated on the future. Technology had won the war; how could it not solve a simple problem like parking? Thus the Strand Theater demolition for a mechanical parking garage, never giving thought to the simple problem that if everyone left an event at the same time, waiting for your car to arrive via elevator might be inconvenient. When the elevated portion of the "modern expressway" finally materialized, city leaders seemed more enamored with the availability of parking underneath. And in the throwback to the war years, when factories were converted for use towards the war effort, a 1974 proposal to build a new library to house a parking garage:

The math has never worked on downtown parking because cars were never meant to be part of the downtown equation. Downtowns have tried to adapt, with parking garages and lots, but what results is a confused hybrid of suburban shopping center and downtown, or more appropriately, a city that can't pinpoint its soul. After suffering from this stigma for decades, downtown is now considered "poised" for a comeback. But for all the new development, if the answer to this one old piece of business isn't thoroughly discussed, that little park at Fayette and West street might become "a gathering point" for a revitalized city center...as downtown's newest parking lot.

August 14, 1945

2010-08-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

"You've lost. You just don't know it."
"I've lost? Look at the board."
"I have."

—scene from the film Searching for Bobby Fischer

On August 14, 1945, upon the news of Japan's surrender in World War II, "crowds of persons streamed downtown as if pushed by an avalanche":

Post-Standard, August 15, 1945

Downtown Syracuse was the centerpiece of a celebration, not only of the end of the war but of the prosperity to follow: one year earlier, General Electric announced the construction of Electronics Park, the main manufacturing center of the General Electric electronics department. The 10 million dollar project covering 155 acres and 1 million square feet of floor space was so massive that "nothing in Syracuse [could] touch it for size and modernity." (Syracuse Herald-American, September 23, 1945). On June 23, 1945, a Syracuse Herald-Journal editorial addressed the "bright days ahead for our city":

Remarks of District Manager Mason of the War Production Board in his address before the Advertising Club are profoundly encouraging from the standpoint of all citizens interested in postwar prosperity for Syracuse.
...
Not only are some of our largest industries planning broad expansion but new industries promise beneficent results from the standpoint of the community as a whole. For example, the General Electric Electronics Park development, which promises to become the world center of the electronics industry, will mean employment for thousands in postwar years.

These are bright days ahead for Syracuse.

Yet on the very same page, one column to the right, another Herald-Journal editorial glimpsed a possible shadow on this glowing future:

In planning for the postwar progress and prosperity of Syracuse, thoughtful consideration must be given to the problem of providing more adequate parking facilities in or near the business heart of the city.
...
The parking situation undoubtedly will grow progressively worse as more gasoline becomes available and new cars come into the market.

In its report covering the Central District of Syracuse, the Syracuse-Onondaga Postwar Planning Council remarked that "assurance of ample parking facilities is a matter of public responsibility. It does not make sense to provide public highways and streets for moving vehicles and make no provision for them at rest..."
...
We are aware, of course, that the parking problem is present in exaggerated form in practically every American city. Syracuse is not unique in that respect: it is in the same class as the majority of American municipalities.

But if we could solve this problem, it would be a momentous development from the standpoint of the city's future. Then we would be unique among American cities.

They most certainly would be unique among American cities, as they would be achieving the impossible: fitting thousands of cars within steps-only walking distance of every downtown shop, while still trying to maintain the existence of downtown. By the mid-1940s, editorial writers realized that that even the high-tech innovations of Electronics Park couldn't solve the low-tech issue of downtown parking:

There is not much use in trying to find more parking space at curbs in the business section of the city. There are five cars now for every space (at 45-minute intervals) and before long there will be 10 of them.

They also glimpsed what the success and growth of post-WWII Syracuse could mean for downtown:

The traffic laws are badly misused. But we should realize, too, that it is largely a result of desperation. There are many more cars than there are parking spaces.

If we do not solve the problem, we'll have stores scattering to different parts of the city. We'll lose heavily. (Post-Standard editorial, February 20, 1946)

In the years and decades ahead, downtown would experience that loss: loss of business, loss of buildings, loss of the very institutions—the grand movie palaces and theaters—that could have offered the city center a competitive edge over the suburbs. Indeed, when we think of what could have been, it's easy to imagine touring Broadway shows at RKO Keith's or the Strand Theater, drawing Wicked-sized crowds to Downtown on a monthly basis. But just think: there may also have been no Connective Corridor or Clinton Square fountain use to debate; no Urban Outfitters or O'Brien & Gere grand openings to gush over. Not because downtown would have been such a glittering jewel that we wouldn't need year-long orientation sessions for its newest employees, but rather, had certain Syracuse citizens not been victorious in their own personal battles for downtown, Forman Park, Clinton Square and Armory Square today would be supersized parking lots.

***

On nearly every street in the business section of Syracuse there are vacant lots once occupied by business blocks that are now torn down. These are mostly used as parking lots.
...
All over the city the same condition prevails. At the rate business buildings are being torn down, it will not be long before the entire downtown district will be one vast parking lot. (from a letter to the editor, Syracuse Herald-Journal, May 5, 1944)

In 1947, Mayor Frank Costello named a five-member commission (Charles Chappell, Henry Menopace, president of the Syracuse Real Estate Board, Frederick Norton, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce, Jerome Rusterholtz, automobile dealer, and G. Frank Wallace, businessman and former state senator) to solve the city's parking problem. The announcement of the new authority came in conjunction with the release of a report of an off-street parking program prepared by the City Planning Commission, which made several suggestions for permanent parking facilities:

View 1947 Parking Solutions in a larger map

Although subterranean parking lots were then being constructed in other cities, the report declared the proposal of building garages under streets or parks downtown "impractical." Yet, really, none of the suggestions in the report could be considered practical, as the city had neither means nor method for advancing this plan. After a year of much talk and no action, perhaps the Syracuse Herald-American could be forgiven for not believing the Authority's announcement of a new potential solution as particularly newsworthy:

"Parking may replace park." January 18, 1948

Clinton Square had once before been used solely for parking, in the years immediately following the paving-over of the Erie Canal. In 1933, the city embarked upon the "beautification of Clinton Square," based on plans submitted by architect Dwight Baum:

Perhaps it is easier to understand how the Strand Theater and similar historic landmarks could be sacrificed in the 1950s when you read that a mere decade after this landscaping makeover, Clinton Square was offered up for an 62-car parking lot. Sensing a battle, neighborhood garden clubs immediately voiced their disapproval:

To the Editor of the Post-Standard:

Enclosed is a letter sent to Mayor Costello.

Alan F. Burgess (President, Garden Center Association)

Recently some publicity has been given to a proposal to convert the southern half of Clinton Square to a parking lot, as a partial solution to the need for off-the-street parking.

I wish to inform you that at its regular monthly meeting today, the Garden Center Association, which represents 27 Garden Clubs in Syracuse and Central New York, voted unanimously to go on record as opposing this proposal, and to inform you of its action.

While we realize the need for increased parking space in downtown Syracuse, we believe that the proposed change in Clinton Square would actually provide space for a mere handful of cars, while detracting considerably from the appearance of this park, in the heart of our city.

There are already too many unattractive areas in Syracuse, without creating one more where thousands of tourists pass through annually.

(Post-Standard, January 25, 1948)

The Syracuse Society of Architects protested the proposal, declaring the scheme "inadequate and would only serve to increase the traffic problem downtown and destroy one of the most prominent aesthetic areas of the city." (Post-Standard, January 30, 1948) Even a Post-Standard editorial decried the plan:

The garden clubs of Syracuse are right in fighting a proposal to give Clinton Square over to off-street parking.

We can't afford to give away any beauty.

Such a proposal is an admission of defeat. There are, or ought to be, plenty of other places to park cars. It is a question of going ahead and doing the thing right. (Post-Standard, January 22, 1948)

Within six months, the Parking Authority seemed to lose interest in Clinton Square, as they had arrived at at new possibility: razing a full city block to build a giant parking garage:

The new Syracuse Parking Authority is seriously considering purchase of the block bounded by S. Clinton, S. Franklin, Walton and W. Jefferson Streets as a parking lot.

The authority met yesterday afternoon and afterward (authority chairman) G. Frank Wallace said that if this plan proves successful a building of several stories to provide parking may be erected on the lot. The proposal would involve razing all buildings in the block excepting the Jefferson-Clinton Hotel. (Syracuse Herald-Journal, June 19, 1948).

Post-Standard, June 21, 1948

While the Jefferson-Clinton Hotel would be spared, other buildings—occupied with tenants—would be condemned and demolished for the structure, which offered the promise of being one block away South Salina Street:

The proposal was termed "ridiculous" by Charles H. Kaletzki, Syracuse advertising man and owner of the Bohanon Company, an occupant of Wood's building.

Kaletzki said the frontage was valuable and questioned the advisability of ripping out a revenue-producing building for the comparatively small revenue that would be produced by a parking lot. (Post-Standard, June 21, 1948)

On July 8, the Syracuse Parking Authority stated that in "about two weeks" they would take "concrete action to acquire the property and demolish buildings." (Post-Standard, July 8, 1948). One week later, the property formerly housing the St. Vincent Orphanage at Madison and Montgomery Streets, was offered to the city for purchase for a parking lot. Thus ended the plan to bulldoze this particular block, though once again the news was buried on the inside pages:

But when the Parking Authority announced their next proposed site, the plan sounded so audacious—or inept—that headlines would be splashed across the front page of the Sunday paper.

Coming soon: Part 2
The Post-WWII Emerald City: Razing parks but recycling ideas!

July 7, 1940

2010-07-25T11:58:00.000-07:00

Yes, the blog has been on a bit of a summer break. I haven't taken any major summer vacations myself, although earlier this month I did travel to Syracuse for a weekend for the 75th Anniversary Celebration of my alma mater school district. While I always anticipate a visit to Wegmans on a return trip home, it seems Syracuse is currently enamored with the business just across the Fairmount Wegmans parking lot: Five Guys.

I am not in the Five Guys target market (neither having lived in Syracuse nor eaten a hamburger for almost two decades), but I nevertheless read the Store Front blog extensive coverage of Five Guys recent opening with great fascination. Even more astonishing were the pictures of Black Friday-length lines for the opening of Cici's Pizza in DeWitt. Although some of the fastest-growing franchises choosing Syracuse suggests confidence in the area as a consumer market, what does it mean when the area's landscape is chained to establishments that can be found in any city in the country?

Certainly, a Faimount-based Five Guys is convenient if you live in the area and have a hunger for a 920-calorie bacon cheeseburger. But celebrating—even championing—the arrival of a chain restaurant operating 250 locations in 19 states also seems somewhat reminiscent of the Herald-Journal’s 1940 search for Syracuse’s most typical family:

Will you help us find the most typical family in Central New York?

Maybe it is yours?

At any rate once this family is discovered, the father, mother and two children will be treated to the finest vacation you could possibly imagine—and the entire trip will not cost them one penny.

The opportunity for entrance in this unique contest will be over at midnight next Saturday so if you have a family that you think is average in this section of the state, enter it today! (Syracuse Herald-Journal, June 22, 1940).

Ninety-five families wrote letters to the paper in this competition of commonplace. A panel of five judges, including T. Aaron Levy, Reverends Walter D. Cavert and J. James Bannon, Welfare Department Commissioner Leon Abbott and Syracuse University professor Dr. Frances Markey Dwyer, sought to find the most ordinary, conventional family to represent Syracuse in a national competition of "the All-American Family," to be held at the 1939-40 World’s Fair in New York:

No one knows exactly what an average Central New York family should be. That will be the duty of the committee to decide. But if a family far from average in one or two respects and near average in all their other qualifications, the sum total of all their qualities would approximate the normal living standard of this section of the State and they might be chosen as the winning family.

Don't forget that the family that comes closest to what the judges believe is normal for this section of the State will be awarded the free trip to the fair. (Syracuse Herald-Journal, June 26, 1940)

Thirty-one families were chosen via similar newspaper contests around the country, and all winners were treated to a prize vacation:

As soon as the lucky family has been named by the contest committee plans will be made for a glorious week's vacation free at the World's Fair for the typical Central New York family.

A new Ford car and chauffeur will roll up to their doorstep a week from tomorrow and transport them leisurely to New York City and their FHA home residence on the fairgrounds.

The family will be the guests of the Ford Motor Company to and from the fair and will be guests of the exhibition management during their week's stay.

Early next week they will be taken to Sears Roebuck Company where they will be allowed to select $100 worth of clothing for their vacation. Sears Roebuck furnished the model home in which the family will reside at the Fair, and the local retail store will supply the typical family with vacation clothing.

Every penny of expense on the entire trip will be paid so the family will be able to enjoy a grand vacation free from any money worries.

At the Fair the family will be free to choose its own amusements and plan its own itinerary. No stiff luncheons or formal dinners are slated for the typical Central New York family who will enjoy themselves as they would on any private vacation jaunt. (Syracuse Herald-Journal, July 6, 1940)

Being as families have humiliated themselves on reality shows in recent years and not won prizes this substantial, one can only imagine how valuable this opportunity sounded to Central New York families at the end of the Depression. So the Cramer family of 302 Dewitt Road strove to sound as simple as can be:

"A quiet evening at home with the family grouped about the fireplace, the children playing on the floor with their dog, Freckles, Dad reading his favorite magazine, mother sewing, each of us with a dish of popcorn and the radio playing in the background is our idea of the perfect winter evening. We also like to play a family game of Chinese checkers, parcheesi or rummy. Once a week we try to go to a good movie. Sundays, after church and Sunday school, we plan a picnic or an outing in the family car, perhaps to grandma's or the airport, which the children enjoy.

As we are buying our home, there isn't much extra money for luxuries and expensive entertainment, so we have built our life around our home and each other and as parents, hope we can always share the confidence and companionship of our children." (excerpt from letter written by Alice Cramer, in Syracuse Herald-American, July 7, 1940)

Seventy years later, Alice Cramer's words seem to reflect the enduring image of families from that era. While they may have been considered most typical at the time, the winning Cramer family was far from ordinary: Husband Kenneth Cramer co-owned a turkey farm in Baldwinsville, where wife Alice managed the bookkeeping. Kenneth's brother Leonard was a well-known pilot who, in August 1940, traveled to Britain "to train youthful British fliers for the anticipated German blitzkrieg upon England" (Syracuse Herald-Journal, August 7, 1940). Uncle Peter Cramer "passed nine years and six days in [a] trip around the globe traveling principally as a fireman or oiler on freighters...ranched in Australia and the West, been in the crew of fishing vessels off the Russian Arctic coast months at a stretch out of sight of land, seen Hawaii, England, Ireland, Italy, France, Germany, Russia, Mexico and [had] a new home under construction in California having lost his last in a flood" (Syracuse Herald-American, September 15, 1940). But for the World's Fair, conceived in part as an opportunity for corporations to present domestic-related products to a specific audience, individual achievements mattered less than ideal consumers. For fair sponsors, who wished to sell cars and washing machines to a newly emerging middle class, the "typical families" of the United States all looked exactly the same:


Winning West Texas family, from Big Spring Daily Herald, May 13, 1940


Winning Florida family, from Syracuse Herald-Journal, June 20, 1940

The Cramer family, from Syracuse Herald-Journal, July 7, 1940

Not unlike, say, chain restaurants.

***

While home in Syracuse, I saw a commercial for the Creative Core air repeatedly on local stations. After each viewing, I found myself more confused as to the point of the ad. Initially I thought the ad was promoting tourism and/or relocation, but if so, why the repeat local airings? Or is it solely a local ad, presenting a new outlook/brand for the region to those who already live there?

Perhaps my confusion is the same when I read the store front blog with its frequent excitement for chain restaurants locating in the Syracuse area. Is this enthusiasm simply about eliminating a road trip to get that chain's signature meal? Or is there the hope that tourists and new residents will now flock to Syracuse? And if they do, what will they see when they arrive? In the week prior to my visit to Syracuse, I took day trips to Foxborough, Massachusetts and New York City, where I also spotted Five Guys locations. Walk out of Five Guys on Bleecker Street and find yourself in the West Village; Five Guys in Patriot Place is steps away from Gillette Stadium. Exit the Creative Core Five Guys and enjoy...the equally-celebrated chain Panera Bread?

But where else would Five Guys be in the Syracuse area? Not downtown, with Five Guys real estate requirements of "minimum 35 dedicated parking spaces (if not a high pedestrian area)" and avoidance of co-tenants such as "low-volume retail and businesses that close on the evenings and weekends." Olive Garden? 7,500 – 8,500 building square footage, 1.7-2.4 acres of land, and 125-145 parking spaces. Longhorn Steakhouse and Bahama Breeze, two restaurants on syracuse.com commenters' wishlist to replace the vacant Hooters space at Carousel Center? 5550 building square footage, 1.38+ acres, 116+ parking spaces and 7000 building square footage, 1.9 acres and 140-160 parking spaces, respectively. And Panera Bread?

• 3,500– 4,500 square feet of mostly rectangular vanilla box
space plus patio area for 35 + seats
• Proximity to morning, afternoon and evening traffic generators
• Prefer high visibility in-line or end cap locations in shopping centers or malls, free standing or pad site locations
• Traffic count of 20,000 cars per day
• 10,000 people within one mile ring
• 30,000 people within two mile ring
• 40 feet of visible store frontage
• 50,000 people within three mile ring
• One parking space per 3 chairs, a minimum of 70 spaces
• Minimum of 110 seats
• 70% of population within one and two mile rings within the top 1/3 Prizm clusters
• Ten year primary term with three five year options
• Convenient ingress and egress
• Business employment count of 10,000 within one-mile ring and 20,000 within two mile ring
• Visibility from all directions
• Median household income of $ 50,000

Celebrating the arrival of more chain restaurants in the Syracuse region may confirm that the area has the population and median income requirements—a worthy distinction—but also perpetuates the pattern of suburban growth presented at the World's Fair seven decades ago.

When this future(ama) came to pass, city centers (in Syracuse and elsewhere) attempted to recreate themselves in the pattern of suburbs. Now, as Downtown Syracuse continues its revitalization efforts from this mistake, it too has seen a recent spate of restaurant openings. However, in a step away from suburban development, the new downtown restaurants are independently owned. These establishments, as well as the many other non-chain restaurants in Syracuse and surrounding areas, are the unique institutions that must come to typically define Syracuse.

Just some locally-grown food for thought.

May 25, 1974

2010-06-22T09:14:00.000-07:00

Continued from Part One

By the 1960s, the city of Syracuse had dismantled much of what had been built in the 1920s: Strand Theater, RKO Keith's, and the May 15, 1923 Syracuse Herald editorial declaration of the "hope that the city has now heard the last proposal from any source for the erection on our park lands of structures that have no place there." (In 1961, city leaders and residents debated building the new Southwest High School (Corcoran) in Onondaga or Kirk Park.) By the 1970s, the city of Syracuse had dismantled much of what had been built in the 1960s: Strand Parking Garage, every memory of the Corcoran/Onondaga Park controversy (in 1971, the Syracuse Board of Education declared Burnet Park an ideal site for Fowler High School), and the Texture Program.

The Texture Program, which suggested focusing on "small-in-themselves" projects for downtown Syracuse, soon became a major component of 1960s city planning. In July 1963, Texture committee members traveled to Ottawa with Mayor Walsh and city council members to view the Sparks Street Mall (Post-Standard, July 28, 1963). At the height of the protests regarding the 15th Ward destruction in October 1963, the Texture Committee tagged along with Mayor Walsh (in a travel party totaling "33 strong") on a "town-planning fact-finding mission to Europe" (Post-Standard, October 11, 1963). It's not quite clear what texture the Texture Committee added to the city during the decade, other than "MDA Texture Committee chairman Winston Rodormer's progress report point[ing] to tree planting and placing of seats in Vanderbilt Square between S. Salina and S. Warren Streets and construction of a courtyard and park of the northeast corner of the Hotel Syracuse" (Post-Standard, December 28, 1963) and hard feelings.

Mentions of the Texture Committee disappeared from newspapers by late 1960s, much like the shoppers in downtown Syracuse itself. After spending a decade in rebuilding mode only to end up in further decline, the city found itself in full-blown panic mode. As their veteran players left to join up the suburban competition, the next quick-fix plan seemed obvious:

In the late 1950s, then-Mayor Anthony Henninger...recommended Salina Street be turned into a mall, with grass and trees and walkways.

Merchants were chilly to the idea. "No grass or trees on Salina Street" was their near-unanimous response.

Lacking excitement, the street slowly decayed—and with it, the city.
...
And then a few years ago, Salina Street merchants awoke one morning and saw rusty nails being driven into the coffin that was their street.
...
Now downtown merchants don't object to trees or grass being planted on Salina Street. Many are proponents of the mall Mayor Henninger proposed in the 1950s.

"If that mall won't be in our future, we'll be in trouble," argued [Malcolm] Sutton.

(Post-Standard, April 26, 1973)

The mall Mayor Henninger proposed in the 1950s sounds very much like a replica of the then-brand new Fairmount Fair mall:

via NYCO

By 1973, Fairmount Fair barely resembled this photograph, as it had been fully enclosed. One year later, an enclosed Fayetteville Mall was preparing for its August 1974 grand opening, and Shoppingtown would soon become an "air-conditioned garden mall with live trees and live flowers." (Syracuse Herald-American, August 31, 1975) True to their suburban copycat schedule, by advocating an outdoor pedestrian mall with trees and grass, downtown leaders and merchants were pursuing a shopping mall model outdated by twenty-five years. Granted, in some respects, the outdoor mall could also have been considered visionary, as the open-air "lifestyle center" would rise to popularity in another 25 years. But city leaders had neither the time nor the funds to create the pedestrian mall experience they had seen in Ottawa a decade earlier:

"Sparks Street Mall, Ottawa in the 1960s," via reinap on flickr

What they decided upon was perhaps the most unabashed—and unsuccessful—quick-fix solutions in downtown Syracuse history: a DIY pedestrian mall.

from Post-Standard, May 25, 1974 (notes added)

from Post-Standard, July 16, 1974

In downtown Syracuse federal and state urban renewal funds are being utilized to install "planters" containing trees and bushes in South Salina Street—making it narrower and posing potential driving hazards.

Costing about $52,000, the project is under the direction of Commissioner of Urban Improvement David S. Michel.

It involves placing 44 "planters" ranging in size from four feet square, upwards, and of varying height, right in the street proper. The "planters" are filled with trees and bushes.

The objective, he said, is to beautify Downtown Syracuse in the hope of attracting more people downtown. The project was approved on a 60-day trial basis by the Common Council, Michel asserted.

Multiple planters of varying sizes are grouped together in clusters, and placed in the curb on both sides of the street. This effectively reduces the driving area in the streets by two lanes.
...
Michel said each planter costs about $1,000, and the trees used in them $150 each. That produces, he said, a total cost of about $52,000, which, he stated, is all federal and state money, with no city funds involved. The trees used in the planters, he said, are mainly crab apple and hawthorn and juniper bushes. (Post-Standard, May 25, 1974)

The real shame of this "famous failure" (as so noted in an August 17, 1987 Post-Standard article) was not that City Council member Ronald Monsour was actually in the minority opinion (only 2 voted against) when he stated "I don't think trees should be placed in the streets" (Post-Standard, May 7, 1974), not that a city plagued by litter problems would add 44 new receptacles to "become a catch-all for cigarette butts and debris" (Councilman-at-large James Tormey, Jr.—the other dissenting vote—quoted in Post-Standard, July 4, 1974), not that the planters were installed in bus lanes, "effectively prohibit[ing] extensive bus use of the curb traffic lanes," (Post-Standard, May 25, 1974), not David Michel stating "he does not regard the planters—even though they are in the street—as a traffic hazard...the only real danger, as Michel sees it, is someone, who has had too much to drink, driving down South Salina Street in in the predawn hours and not seeing the planters" (Post-Standard, May 25, 1974), not that Dan Sutton, president of Sutton Real Estate, acknowledged "the controversy of the planters, if nothing else, has brought many people into downtown to observe them and business has benefited" (Post-Standard, July 16, 1974), not that city council voted 5-4 to keep the planters after an initial 60-day trial period, not that seven blue-domed kiosks for posters and flyers (i.e. sources of additional litter) were installed on the sidewalk to join the planters in a "street furniture" program, despite "no one is sure who will take care of them" (Post-Standard, June 12, 1974), not that the Downtown Promotion Committee requested that during the holiday season, the planters be moved from the sides of South Salina Street and lined up down the center of the street, "with evergreens and decorated appropriately for the Christmas season" (Post-Standard, October 12, 1974), not that the City Council had to be told by Fire Chief Thomas O'Hanlon that doing so would be a fire hazard, not that they were hauled to "urban renewal-owned land at South Salina Street and West Onondaga Streets" shortly thereafter, never to be heard of again, but that the core idea behind the project was absolutely correct: Syracuse needed a beautification project.

Forget the litter or landscaping, the beautification that Syracuse required then—as now—involves a massive closet cleaning of the quick-fix plans and outdated ideas that have been hoarded for decades. Thirty years after skybridges failed to revitalize downtown, why are some still considering pairing "an enclosed glass walkway above the sidewalk" with the convention center or a (potentially) restored Hotel Syracuse? Have we held on to the 1970s skybridge plan because we think it will come back into style? Look great on Syracuse once downtown gets in shape? When the skybridge project was first announced back in early 1976, the Post-Standard editorial board admitted skepticism, but figured it couldn't be worse than the previous downtown innovation:

The Post-Standard is all in favor of making the central business district the most attractive shopping center in Central New York. The latest plan is far better than the flower planters which once obstructed traffic and much more attractive than than the ugly concrete cones now smeared with aging posters flapping in the wind. (April 2, 1976)

Based on the tone of this editorial, skybridges sound as if they were purchased off the final clearance rack of one of the downtown department stores fleeing for the suburbs. If we are going to dig out advice from the '70s collection to try on for size, how about this Syracuse Herald-American column by Mario Rossi from December 18, 1977?

Somewhere along the line maybe it will begin to dawn on some of our city fathers and civic leaders that if downtown Syracuse is really to be fully revitalized, the principal ingredient of many that will be needed in the formula will be imagination.

Or creativity, if you will.

The old hackneyed ideas no longer will work. The stop gap measures won't either. And the half-way approaches will prove as useless as they have in the past.

We need something dramatic, far-reaching, exciting—something that will literally captivate shoppers and tourists and make them want to come to downtown—in droves.

Unfortunately, this commentary from the year of leisure suits is still current today. But one hopes that with over three decades to contemplate the problem, the answer will never again come in the form of a quick-fix solution.