These Evolving Times

On January 18, 2013, the Syracuse Media Group, the company that produces syracuse.com and The Post-Standard, announced its new headquarters at Merchants Commons, a refurbished complex at 220 S. Warren Street.

The shift will move about 150 people to a glass-lined, street-level office on the corner of Warren and Fayette streets once renovations are complete in April. Company support services and human resources departments will remain at the Post-Standard building at Clinton Square. Once the Syracuse Media Group moves out of Clinton Square, it will empty about 25,000 square feet of space which the company plans to lease out.

There's a few major points to dissect here. The first one: Technology.

Just in case you're unaware, The Post-Standard plans to scale back its production of newspapers by only offering home delivery service for three days out of the week (beginning in February of '13). A continuing trend with many of the Newhouse-owned newspapers around the country. The Post-Standard will continue to print smaller editions of its newspaper within Onondaga County on non-delivery days.

I think when news broke about this late last year, a lot of people freaked out. And it's undertandable. Central New York is fairly rooted in its own ideals, life, and habits, and getting that daily dose of news in the morning, maybe talking with strangers at diners about the day's hot topics, reading the obituaries and Op-Ed sections, et al, are all things that people here have made a comfortable, daily life out of for decades. The thing is... times are changing. And technology is making information incredibly accelerated - to the point where society can only play catch-up. And for most people over the age of say... 45, having a physical newspaper delivered to their homes only 3 days out of the week is a very hard pill to swallow and maybe even a bit of culture-shock to their daily life.

As we all know, it can be easy to pick on Syracuse. It's easy to bring in hyperbole and knee-jerk reactions into a discussion like this. "Syracuse is going downhill!", "Pretty soon there will be no paper at all!"... Those are easy reactions. But if you take a look at the big picture of everything that has happened over the last several years - not just here, but practically everywhere - technology is changing our lives. It's changed how we communicate, how we present ourselves, how we find new restaurants, how we meet, how we date, and it's definitely changed how we get our news.

The Syracuse Media Group plans to evolve with the times. It will offer a digital-first focus, completely (at least in their mission) to redefine the way we receive news and information in Syracuse. Is it a risk? You bet'cha. Can it work? Maybe. Was it the right move? Probably. Is it needed for the growth of the city? Yes.

To say it like it is, people in our generation do not get our news on a daily basis. We get it on an hourly, minute, and sometimes second basis (I kid you not if you're addicted to Twitter). And the lone media giant in our region has to evolve with the times. It's very sad and unfortunate that people have to loose their jobs and careers over a transition like this, but on the other hand, I do applaud the company for taking the initiative - and not just taking the initiative because they went bankrupt, for instance. It's a gamble and I'm sure a lot of people will be watching not only on their smart phones and iPads over these next several weeks, but as a collective whole to see if this thing can actually take-off and work correctly.

The second: Warren Street.

As I've written about before, Warren Street is my favorite street in Downtown Syracuse. It has such a large amount of potential and neglect. So much so that it's almost impossible not to root for it. I've been extremely passionate about how this street gets handled as we progress forward and how it gets perceived (sometimes incorrectly by local leaders). The fact that this entire digital endeavor is being spearheaded at the nexus of Warren and Fayette streets is extremely encouraging. When I first read about construction plans and viewed renderings of the Merchants Commons online, my initial reaction was for a major retailer to move in and with apartments above it; thereby giving some much-needed, daily life to Warren Street and this area of Downtown. Finding out that a media company will be moving in to occupy both the first and second floors did not sit well with me at first. If Warren Street is going to wake up from its long nap, the last thing is needs is for a long-awaited addition to be full of nothing but people driving away from it at 5 PM, Monday through Friday. Essentially, more neglect. The street needs life from individuals outside of this timeframe. So, needless to say, I was not pleased.

But check out these renderings and current construction pictures.

It's not too shabby. The building is close and open to the street, it has a trendy, new, and sleek interior, flat-screens and computers will display the news and videos at all hours of the day, walk-ins will be welcome, and the employees will be seated a mixed-use collaborative space that will operate longer than the traditional 9-to-5 workday (so I'm told).

It's hard to argue with the positives that could transpire for the life of the street. It could very well be the shot in the arm that Warren Street has been needing all these decades.

That being said, I'll be curious as to not only what will transpire with this entire process, but what will happen to the leased-out section of the Post-Standard building at Clinton Square. I'm generally not a fan of the building or its interaction with the neighborhood. I'd have no qualms with demolition and redevelopment. I would, however, have qualms about a potential grocery store; a topic and aspect of Downtown living that has been gaining momentum lately as the entire neighborhood continues move forward. I'll tackle that beast very soon as I have a ton of thoughts on grocery shopping as a Downtown resident over these last 6 years.

For now, let's sit back and watch the changes as they unfold over the next couple months. I hope things go well for the new company, their employees, and its new headquarters on Warren Street. A street that desperately needs activity and life.

Sticking Up for Downtown and its Parking (Re: "Mayor Miner, tear down those buildings")

This is a tad overdue, but none the less, a response to Maureen Green's column, "Mayor Miner, tear down those buildings" [1], from the March 3rd, 2012 edition of the Post-Standard.

I won't try to summarize the column all too much, as I encourage you to read the whole thing first to get a sense for what's being suggested, but the gist of which is that the city should demolish its post-World War II buildings along Warren Street to build parking lots and garages.

Without getting right into it, I'll first unravel a truth about Syracuse that I've come to realize after living here for most of my life and specifically in and around Downtown over these last 5 years.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that there is one, and only one, true problem with all of Downtown Syracuse, the City of Syracuse, as well as Central New York. I call it "The Suburban and Urban Divide" (which has initial subcategories of education, housing, tax revenue, and crime; each of which have subcategories of quality of life, parking, personal space, and safety; and each of those have subcategories of elitism, defeatism, classism, racism, basic human psychology, and preconceived perceptions about reality).

It's as if you discuss any one of these subcategories with anyone, suddenly one feeds directly into a neighboring one or vice versa. They may not all be linked, but find a problem with one and there's a good chance that another one of them right beside it along the same spectrum. The thing is they all seem to come back to The Suburban and Urban Divide.

It's way too broad and time-consuming of a topic for me to fully dive into; especially because I don't get paid in beer or tacos to write blog posts. But I feel as if I could publish an entire book if I really had to. Mrs. Green's column specifically deals with parking so I'll do my best to stay within that realm as well as venture out into several other aspects that center around it.

Warren Street (Part I)

If I could have one goal for this blog, it would be to reshape perception about Warren Street. In my opinion, it's Downtown's most neglected and overlooked street and what I believe to be the next domino that needs to fall in regards to restoring Downtown's vibrancy: Armory Square got redeveloped, now it's Salina Street's turn, and hopefully the positive effects will trickle out into Warren Street. I have a lot of ideas and thoughts about the street and I'm sure I'll dive into them on this blog in due time. It's one of my favorite streets in Downtown and one that I feel has the most potential for rebirth.

I randomly found this newspaper clipping as I was clearing out papers in hopes of getting my tax stuff ready for 2012. It's a few paragraphs about M Lemp Park, an open lot that sits at the corner of S Warren Street and E Fayette St, that I submitted as a letter to the Editor in the Sunday, January 16, 2011 edition of the Post-Standard.

Just for a quick history recap of M Lemp Park: a couple of buildings were demolished around the 321 S Warren St area in early 2009. Soon after, a "pocket park" was created by former mayor, Matt Driscoll, and designed to be temporary until a developer could be found to redevelop the site. In the Post-Standard article, "A new place to 'park it' on Warren Street", the previous mayor was quoted in regards to the new open space: "...Warren Street is a cold, dark, narrow, concrete canyon and I think that's one of the problems with it. As we talk to the state and developers about coming up with a plan to spruce up the infrastructure of Warren Street, I think it is important to think about opening it up a bit, letting more light in, creating some green spaces like the one we'll be building.". About a year later, Dick Case took suggestions on not only dedicating a plaque to local volunteers, but also naming the area M Lemp Park as a kind of homage to M Lemp Jewelers that sits directly across the street. The name was soon adopted by the owners, the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency, and now even appears on official Downtown Syracuse brochures.

Here were my thoughts from earlier this year...

* * *

City’s M. Lemp Park not planned for permanence
To The Editor:

In response to Dick Case’s Jan. 13 column, “Under the snow, Syracuse’s downtown shows some signs of life”:

While the idea of using a park as a place to honor volunteers is a good one, the southeast corner of Warren and Fayette streets is the wrong location to do so.

The original design concept for M. Lemp Park was that it serve as a temporary park and lead to construction of a new building in its place, thereby restoring continuity of the streetscape, solidifying the corner and making Warren Street look like it no longer has a blatant missing tooth. Naming a park and building a memorial garden is a great idea, but to do it for an area that only functions for workers during lunch breaks is extremely shortsighted and only assures that the park is going to be around longer than it should be.

The idea of bringing more greenery downtown is good, but it should not be done at the expense of sacrificing character or restricting any potential for real development. As one of our most unique streets, Warren Street’s charm is that it’s laid out to feel condensed, narrow and enclosed (similar to New York City’s Prince Street). These aspects are dissolved when you hastily construct a large, flat green lot and plop it on the corner of a very dense urban street.

If M. Lemp Park really is a park, it looks very much out of place, is too large to be reserved for something that acts more like an open-air cafeteria, and doesn’t offer anything of real value to downtown residents.

If the city wants to add a true downtown park, it should figure out locations that function correctly, can be used by all demographics and construct them with proper design aspects. Until then, it should not be figuring out how to add remembrances of volunteers, but focusing on constructing a new building in its place, thereby giving Warren Street back its real potential.

Josef Lorenz
Syracuse

* * *

I still feel very strongly about this subject and the negative impacts of what it can do to such a condensed urban area. I'm pleased I was able to word my thoughts the way I did (it's tricky to get your thoughts across in as few words as possible sometimes), but am not pleased with the way that this corner's fate has unfolded. The series of events that took place since the buildings were demolished are kind of absurd. The park's naming, design, and energy seem to be entirely spearheaded by the Post-Standard and most specifically by Dick Case, who has written (at least from what I was able to find) four different articles about the area within a year's time: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3, and Example 4. And more effort has clearly been done to add benches, signs, flowers, names, and remembrances, when the real goal should be to re-establish the continuity of the streetscape.

It would be one thing if the park was designed correctly, not located on a corner lot, not located in an area that's supposed to feel enclosed, and felt like a valuable place to be, but as it stands today, it doesn't do any of those. And, as I've mentioned several times on this blog already, why is this even needed when Clinton Square is 2 blocks away?

This is a prime example of suburbanizing Downtown. If history is any indication, my fear is that it sits here for decades because of an empty promise and because a few people wanted to dedicate an empty lot to somebody else just to feel good about themselves. Though, it is nice to know that there are fresh faces in our local government since 2009. I truly hope that this area gets redeveloped correctly and we don't get stuck with an open lot with grass on it because a few people liked the idea of "light" and "open space".

I'll leave this post at that for now and I'll dive into thoughts on the park and about Warrren Street again soon. Hence, Part I.