What does it take to save a neighborhood?
That’s the question residents of Syracuse’s Near Westside are asking themselves.
Crossing under the railroad bridges that mark the entrance of the Near Westside, visitors quickly realize the neighborhood really is on the wrong side of the tracks.
The area’s abandoned homes and factories sit in stark contrast to its bordering middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods.
One in three people live below the federal poverty line here, a rate three times higher than the national average. Half of the neighborhood’s residents never completed high school.
According to city police, the neighborhood accounts for only six percent of Syracuse’s population, but more than 20 percent of all reported gunfire, as well as more than 10 percent of all violent felonies in 2010.
But now community members, business leaders, nonprofit organizations and Syracuse University have joined together to help breathe new life into the neighborhood. With a budget of $44 million from a variety of local state and federal and nongovernmental sources, the coalition hopes to transform the economically depressed area into a hub for art and culture in Central New York and beyond.
These are people working to make that change possible.
The Man Behind the S.A.L.T. District
Maarten Jacobs walked into the 100-year-old Lincoln Supply Building, at 109 Otisco St., pleased with what was in front of him.
“It looked a lot different before,” Jacobs said as he opened the door to the building’s model apartment. “I could show you a picture right now, and you wouldn’t believe you were in the same place.”
A few years ago, this four-story red brick former factory was one of several vacant industrial buildings in the Near Westside. But after a $4 million overhaul, it now serves as an example of what Jacobs hopes the neighborhood can become.
Jacobs is the director of the Near Westside Initiative, a non-profit spearheaded by SU, Central New York’s Gifford Foundation and Syracuse’s Center of Excellence.
Founded in 2007, the organization’s mission is to develop the S.A.L.T. District (Syracuse Art Life and Technology District), a section of the neighborhood focused on combining “art, technology and innovation with neighborhood values and culture to revitalize Syracuse’s Near West Side neighborhood,” according to the group’s website.
Projects like the Lincoln Supply Building renovation are just part of their effort. The group’s real goal is to help the people already living there to become self-sufficient.
“We’re here to revitalize from the ground up,” said Jacobs. “We’re working closely with residents, organizations and business within the community to grow the area forward and to help provide a new opportunity. “
“It’s a neighborhood in transition,” he said. “Every day you see a little bit more progress.”
Across from Lincoln Supply’s parking lot sits the sandy-brown two-story home of the Near Westside’s Artist in Residence, Juan Cruz.
“That should do it,” he said, as he dabbed blue paint onto the canvas displayed in his second-floor living room. “I think this one is going to turn out nice.”
Cruz was a 28-year resident of the Near Westside, until the early 2000s, when he moved back to his native Puerto Rico.
In 2008, the 69-year-old Cruz returned to retouch one of his “masterpieces,” a giant mural displayed across the outside walls Onondaga Commons, on Shonnard Street, less than a mile from his current home.
According to Cruz, it was during this massive summer 2008 project that he reconnected with the neighborhood he once called home.
Shortly after, the Near Westside Initiative approached him to become the neighborhood’s first Artist in Residence to help spearhead the artistic rebirth the initiative was trying to bring to the community.
“I wanted to get out of Puerto Rico. Too hot,” he explained. “They asked me to come here to be the neighborhood’s Artist in Residence; how could I refuse?”
Now, finally moved into the renovated former bar that he calls home, Cruz plans on fulfilling his five-year pledge to the community by opening up an art, music and fashion school in his first floor workspace.
“It’s all about the kids,” Cruz said. “That is the real future of this neighborhood. We need to teach them to do something other than roam the streets.”
When the Delavan Art Gallery closed in May 2010, its curator, Caroline Szozda-McGowan, was out of a job.
Her solution, to open her own gallery in the same location, so this time she’d not only be in charge, but would also be able to help change the struggling neighborhood around her.
“I’m 99 percent sure I could have found a better location for Szozda Gallaery,” she said as she sat in the corner of her 800-square-foot gallery. “But I feel strongly about certain things. And where I am now, can have an influence.”
Szozda-McGowan first began working five years ago alongside the dozens of shops, businesses and artist spaces housed in the Delavan Center, the Near Westside was a very different place.
“I was constantly getting the question, ‘Is it safe? Is it safe to go down there?’” she said. “People felt uncomfortable coming down here.”
But now, according to Szozda, that perception is slowly beginning to change as the neighborhood begins to transform.
“I don’t get those questions so much anymore. People are noticing how it’s getting better, and feel like it’s a safer neighborhood,” she said.
“A lot of people are dedicated to growing and revitalizing this area,” Szozda-McGowan continued. “In the last 20 years, this was one of the most poverty stricken areas in the United States. I know it still has a long way to go, but it’s so exciting to see it change.”
Helping struggling families get a new start in life might be too much for the average 20-year-old, but not for Forrest Williams.
“I help families get back on their feet and pursue their goals by developing an action plan,” said Williams, who is working with 15 families at P.E.A.C.E., Inc., an umbrella community action agency. “Some are looking for jobs. Some want to back to school and get their GED. Whatever they need, I try to do for them.”
Williams knows this neighborhood. It’s been his home all his life, and to him outside views of his neighborhood are mostly hype.
“It’s not really that different here than in the suburbs,” he said. “It’s just in the inner city, stuff gets more publicized. We’re more under a magnifying glass because we live in the city and people expect us to be bad.”
Whether he’s helping a father find a job, tutoring a child in math or playing basketball with his friends at Skiddy Park, Williams knows the Near Westside is where he wants to spend the rest of his life, especially, according to him, after the revitalization is complete.
“I think the neighborhood is going to look beautiful when the revitalization is finished,” he said. “More people are going to want to call it home.”
Comments
Fab Job on this one. :)
Post new comment