I have developed a very soft spot for the City of Syracuse, but something terrible happened to the city, probably in the 1970s and probably having to do with rt.81 which cuts through the city on an overpass. They filled in the Eerie Canal, ripped up what was once a beautiful 19th century town, and replaced it with the worst type of modern/modernist urban blight.
For anyone interested to urban development and preservation issues in Syracuse and Central New York, particularly as they relate to historical synagogues, I’d recommend you to Sam Gruber.
My slideshow is not intended to be anything like an exhaustive review of downtown Syracuse City scenes. I wanted to capture both some of the blight and the fierce and fantastic art-deco angel over at Niagara Mohawk. The City of Syracuse is a complex urban place — tough, sad, and graceful.
