West Genesee Street Love, or How I Learned to Start Worrying and Question Onondaga County

As my dad says quite often, "Some change is good, Joey. But some change is not so good.".

It might come off as a bit Yoggi Berra-ish, but that statement echoed with me a lot last year as I looked from my apartment window onto West Genesee Street.

If you were around the city at all last year or even up until now, you probably noticed the above average amount of construction going on all over the place. Downtown and University Hill had a lot going on. Roads, bike lanes, new buildings, etc... A growing community is something to generally be proud of (when it's done correctly) but it can also make getting from point (a) to point (b) tricky on occasion. I won't dive into each and every project, but one of the construction zones that hits closer to home is the Save the Rain project along West Genesee Street; a program designed to help contain sewage overflow. The project is spearheaded by Onondaga County (with construction carried-out by an independent contractor). It was scheduled to finish in August of 2012, but the finish date ended up being closer to December of 2012. I only know this because of the constant drilling, pavement machines, beeping, and tree cutting that happened outside of my apartment building well into last winter.

Just to preface, I'm generally not one who gets behind the county on many decisions; for the main reason that, historically speaking, they tend to know very little on how to plan for an urban environment like Downtown. To use some examples, it's the same organization that wanted to build a sewage treatment plant next to Armory Square, liked the idea of putting a baseball stadium in the middle of nowhere, and recently passed a vote to suggest to the NY DOT that rebuilding I-81 through Downtown would be wonderful before doing any of their own cost analysis or interpretation of any design concepts. This project on West Genesee Street isn't quite as extreme as those examples. The end results of this project can go either way. There's good change and there's bad change.

On the one hand, it saves money, prevents sewage overflow, and its objectives seems to be clear: a safe, clean, and reliable solution for sewage run-off; all of which are difficult points to disagree on. However, my concern lies with its aesthetics and how they were overlooked or in some cases not even taken into consideration. And many of these details that fell by the wayside will end up having long-lasting effects on the overall character, feel, and function of the street. There are several areas to look into so let's get rollin'...

Robert R Haggart Memorial Park Update

It'll be interesting to see what the city does here; that is, if they do anything different at all. I will say this: it would've been nice for a little neighborhood input as to what local residents wanted at this spot. My uneducated guess is that there's somewhere between 10 to 20 people living on this block and within a few feet's walk of this corner. All of whom are within the age range of ~18 to ~40.

Instead of constructing it as a generic "green space" with benches, they could add some concrete or stone gaming tables (chess or checkers) as they'd be a nice addition to some of the more mundane pocket parks scattered around Downtown.

Or take it one step further and build a bocce court (they have these at Langone Park in Boston). Granted, I'm probably one of only a few people in the 'hood that would use that on the weekends in the summer, but at least it would demonstrate that Downtown has something else going on at its parks other than offering lunch-goers a place to sit for a few minutes on weekday afternoons.

PS: It's an old corner (and they're old streets) so it's interesting to see how deep that brick foundation went from the old building that was there. You can see right down into the basement.

Gritty Syracuse

I love Gritty Syracuse. This is an alley off of N Clinton St near the corner of W Genesee St. Some see blight, I see character.



It's too bad alleys have gotten such a bad rap on TV and in movies. Putting waste, recycling, and service vehicles here helps the public side of the street function easier. Though, the picture above is probably a bad example of that.

Below is Robert R. Haggart Memorial Park at the corner of Genesee and Clinton Streets.



So glad the city finally put this thing up to block it. After a sinkhole was discovered, it was roped off and barricaded. Soon after, people ignored the signage, garbage was tossed all over the place, the tape was ripped down, and the barricades were all scattered about. This gray wall quickly deterred it all.

I'm curious to see what kind of park improvements the city makes with this. I live nearby and haven't heard any construction equipment going on so I'm assuming this will stay boarded up until Spring '12.

Let the record show that I generally despise the term and entire idea of a "pocket park". I'd much rather see a thin, 2 or 3 story building constructed here over a tiny corner park that merely heightens the idiocy of putting two "green" areas kiddy-corner to one another. I'll dive more into this area at another time.

To be continued...