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Apr 28 Those people winPosted by wshepperd | 04/28/09
It was mid-evening Friday and tables were out on Hanover Square. There had been notice of some activity in the space vacated by Manhattan’s and some talk of club activity developing where Quigley’s used to be, but the tables were concentrated on the north side of the Square. Samadee sat for awhile at Bull and Bear, relieved to be back in touch with the whispers of history from those people who worked the canal and the railroad. But the Square didn’t look, and certainly didn’t feel the same from the north side. He moved over to Wild Will’s, where the tables stretched up Warren Street to the end of the block, but the view of the Square was obstructed, focusing visual perspective mostly on the faces in car windows paused for the light at Water Street...
CATEGORY: Commentary & Debate
TAGS: black lites,syracuse,city scuffle,Hanover Square,Dean Mark Robbins,SU architecture,Juneteenth Apr 21 Conjuring a Westcott NationPosted by wshepperd | 04/21/09
In 1968 a small band of pioneers moved the focus of their activities from Marshall Street on the SU campus to the corner of Trinity and Beech, just off Westcott Street on the east side of Thornden Park. They brought with them the underground Nickel Review, setting up shop in a former dentist office in a house not intended as a commune, but which often functioned like one. Joe Leonard, manager of the headline band Jam Factory, and crafter Bill McDowell, who would later play an urban pioneering role in Armory Square, took a corner storefront to create the Dragon’s Emporium. The store’s remodeling constituted McDowell’s senior design project for SU. He got an A...
CATEGORY: General Society
TAGS: Joe Leonard,Jam Factory,Bill McDowell,Larry Hoyt ,Abdo,Thornden Park,Real Food Co-op,Euclid and Westcott,Recess Café,Jeff Davies,Dennis Riley,Carl Mellor Apr 17 Gentrification war ragesPosted by wshepperd | 04/17/09
Samadee stood in Hanover Square to celebrate Spring. There was no place to sit, since the April (snow) showers had dampened the park benches, and although the City, in its infinite wisdom, had moved up the outdoor table date from the 15th to the lst of the month, the wind and freezing temperatures kept the tables and chairs on the Northside of the Square from being unstacked. There were no chairs on the Southside of the Square to be unstacked, since the three institutions on that stretch providing pause for outdoor reflection and refreshment had fallen to the onslaught of the War for Gentrification. Samadee was attempting to distribute t-shirts, buttons and bumper stickers with the slogan “Proud to be one of Those People...
CATEGORY: General Society
TAGS: Samadee,Hanover Square,Ed Koolakian,Atlas,stroke,syracuse,Gentrification war, Mark Bullis,owner,Bull and Bear,Under the Gun Mar 30 It started at Liquor SquarePosted by wshepperd | 03/30/09
In town for a brief visit, Ken Simon paused for reflection on his 1969 founding of the Syracuse New Times, known in the issues of its early infancy as the Orange Pennysaver. “I had noticed that the Daily Orange didn’t have many advertisements at the time,” he recalled, “which I thought was odd since everything I was experiencing personally and the stuff I was reading pointed to a huge, exploding market. I was a great fan of the nation’s undergrounds, loved the Village Voice and read the Nickel Review. Since I was basically broke at the time, I thought in my fuzzy 21-year-old way that I could maybe raise working capital through front-loading the paper with essentially nothing but ads...
CATEGORY: News & Media
TAGS: New times,Liquor Square,PBS,SImon,Walt Shepperd,art zimmer,Nickel Review,Village Voice Mar 18 State of contemplationPosted by wshepperd | 03/18/09 It wasn’t Bret Farve, retiring, pondering, posturing, pronouncing, playing hard to get when the getter wasn’t going for it anyway. It was Matt Driscoll, and he wasn’t getting another season no matter how much he, his teammates or the voterfans wanted him to have one. Matt was eight and done, like the amended Charter say. Only fools would approach the once and soon past Mayor with the I-know-just-how-you-feel prattle. But somewhere Tom Young is nodding his head, knowing just how much more another four years would have nurtured, sprouted and blossomed so many of the seeds he had planted during his eight. Some withered, some never saw any more light, some were racked over or even swept aside. Tom knows how Matt is feeling... CATEGORY: General Society
TAGS: Say Yes,Syracuse,state of the city,Syracuse Hotel Grand Ballroom,mayor tom young,Matt Driscoll,Archimedes Russell, Crouse College,Marcia Hagen Mar 13 Harm's Festival promotes excellencePosted by wshepperd | 03/13/09
Teen performers and technicians will compete for more than $4,000 in scholarships this weekend at the Michael Harms Theater Festival in the Carrier Theater at the John H. Mulroy Civic Center. And while the competitive spirit among the seven participating high school and community-based creative cadres will be fierce for the 33rd edition of the annual event, so too will be the respect and appreciation the young folks show with ovations for each other’s efforts. In a televised interview for the teen-produced Rough Times Live, festival director Bob Dwyer recalled that former Cultural Resources Council Executive Director Joe Golden and CRC staffers Gloria Romeo and Carol Jeske had staged the first fete when the building which has hosted every year was brand new...
CATEGORY: Performing Arts
TAGS: harms,media unit,theater,teens,Excellence Award,Neil Novelli,Lauren Unbekant,Len Fonte,Nottingham High School,Joe Golden,Syracuse CRC,Gloria Romeo,Carol Jeske Mar 05 Car 'cuse quest for squirrelPosted by wshepperd | 03/05/09
Samadee had let his driver’s license expire before global warming set in. Lady Green had received wise counsel never to apply for one, as long as the reasons were not made public. Together for a decade, they rode buses and walked. Over that time, however, groceries had become a recurring major issue. Heavy snows could stretch the trek with a four wheel collapsible shopping cart to 23 minutes from the heart of downtown to Nojaim’s, where a range of selections from Goya to Sylvia’s to Dinasour BarBQ spiced up each morning’s omelettes. But both agreed that nowhere downtown could the fixin’s be found for their Sunday brunch favorite, Slum-Gullion Squirrel Perlow, which Ernest Matthew Mickler’s White Trash Cooking insists goes great with a Grape NeHi...
CATEGORY: General Society
TAGS: City hall cafe,Cusecar,car,Carcuse quest for squirrel,lady Green,Samadee,SUNY ESF,Dinasour BarBQ 
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City ScuffleWalt Shepperd is a veteran of Central New York's political scuffle, having covered government and politics in Syracuse for nearly four decades. Shepperd's column appears each week in the City Eagle.SubscribeEmail Archives |
