Sunday Evening Strolls

Lonnie June 14th, 2009

Here in Eastwood we like to walk… as if you couldn’t tell. Given that, and in order to more easily meet our neighbors, we’re proposing folks take a walk at a particular time each week: Sunday evenings between 6:30 and 7:30.

If you don’t want to walk, you can just sit out on your porch or front steps or in your front yard at that time so we can meet each other. Got some baked goods or fresh veggies from your garden to share? Bring ‘em on out!

If we focus on including a certain couple of blocks in our walks, we’re more likely to bump into some of our neighbors. So here’s the line-up for this summer.

Update: All walks indicating two street names include James Street between those two streets.

June 14: Teall to Peck/Cook
June 21: Hillsdale to Midler (Laci’s Burger Joint and Cafe)
June 28: top-o-the-hill in Sunnycrest Park
July 5: Homecroft to Plymouth
July 12: Plymouth to Eastwood Plaza (OIP)
July 19: Sheridan Park (Nichols near Burnet)
July 26: Peck/Cook to Grant
August 2: Forest Hill to S. Collingwood (Laci’s)
August 9: Midler to Homecroft (Golden Crown Chicken)
August 16: Grant to Forest Hill
August 23: top-o-the-hill at the old Eastwood High (Sunnycrest and Mosley)

If you’re looking for a more serious work-out, just try this walking route through Sunnycrest Park. The basic idea is to walk up and down every set of stairs you find, then walk on to the next one.

Easter egg hunt at Sunnycrest Park

Sean Kirst: “Neighbors step up for emergency”

Lonnie July 8th, 2008

Sean Kirst, a columnist and blogger at the Post-Standard, has written great columns about various aspects of Eastwood. This is one you won’t want to miss, as it exemplifies what urban living in a close-knit community looks and acts like: people who care for each other.

Neighbors step up for emergency

Support the Mia Sgroi Education Fund

Lonnie June 24th, 2008

In memory of Joe-joe and Julia Sgroi

The tragic fire suffered by our neighbors some weeks ago will affect its survivors for the rest of their lives. So that they might be assured of our care for them, we ask that you go out of your way to buy as many of these bracelets as you can in support of the Mia Sgroi Education Fund.

Bracelets are $2 (or more if you like) and can be purchased at the Palace Theatre or at Sacred Melody Bookstore in the Eastwood Plaza. Each bracelet has both children’s names on it:

Neighbors come together at scene of fire

Lonnie May 22nd, 2008

Eastwood is a tight knit community and there’s no greater evidence of this than when folks need support. Early this evening we walked the few blocks in a cold, penetrating rain from our house to 272 Burns Ave. Well before we got to that block we saw cars lining the streets, a few families walking toward us, and a couple news trucks. As we passed a damp mother and her preschool-age children, we heard a a sob. Continue Reading »

Eastwood mourns the loss of three neighbors

Lonnie May 21st, 2008

A terrible fire has claimed the lives of three of our neighbors, Lisa Epolito and her children, Joseph and Julia Sgroi. Our hearts go out to their family, especially to Lisa’s daughter Mia Sgroi and Lisa’s boyfriend, Sean Chetney, who were hospitalized but released. Continue Reading »

Two fighters from Eastwood

Lonnie May 4th, 2008

Do any Walkable Eastwood readers remember Cliff Hart? The “Blond Bomber Boxer”? Golden Gloves champ? Maybe this bit about the Eastern Golden Gloves Finals from a New York Times article (March 7, 1946) will stir your memory, or at least your soul: Continue Reading »

Where food comes from

Lonnie April 27th, 2008

We’re avid readers of Anthony Bourdain’s books. Two of them have impacted our family somewhat dramatically. The first was Kitchen Confidential. Aside from being just a great read, it was also the third book our then-early-adolescent son read. He read it cover to cover, but it was at the third chapter that he came running to announce that he wanted to be a chef. Why? He pointed to the title of Chapter 3: “Food is Sex”. That did it. A couple culinary degrees under his belt, he’s now in charge of the mignardises in a restaurant in New York.

But the book that continues to inspire me is A Cook’s Tour, and specifically the chapter, “Where Food Comes From“. Read it, and you’ll understand why he says that where our food comes from is not always pretty. But it’s the larger concept behind that chapter that makes me think a lot and sometimes do strange things.

Strange thing #1: I make coffee in a 70-year-old vacuum coffee pot.

Continue Reading »

Please come: important TNT meeting Jan. 28

Lonnie January 14th, 2008

Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today (TNT)
Huntington School (at Sunnycrest and Forest Hill)
Monday, 1/28/08 at 7pm
Discussion: Neighborhoods of Choice. Continue Reading »

Syracuse: nationally known for environmental racism

Lonnie December 7th, 2007

No-one creates a blog like this one if they don’t love the city in which they live. But not all the news is good. Syracuse is being used, fairly, as an example of environmental racism. Did you know that we were featured in Ms. Magazine last spring? Take a look. From that article:

The civic leaders of Syracuse, like those in other places, put sewage and water-treatment plants, along with numerous other environmental hazards, within or very close to the city’s poor communities. Not surprisingly, the health problems experienced by residents of those communities as a result of the pollutants are tremendous. To take just one measure, the asthma rate of the predominately African American community situated on the edge of Syracuse’s industrialized area and the interstate is 13 times higher than in the rest of Onondaga County. Women and children in particular bear the brunt of the health problems.

I don’t know about you, but I find this appalling. Continue Reading »

Memorial Day Parade 2007

Lonnie May 17th, 2007

Last year, a few of your fun-loving neighbors marched in the Eastwood Memorial Day Parade under the auspices of Eastwood Neighborhood Watch Groups (NWG) and had a g-r-e-a-t time! Along with carrying the NWG banner, they wore and carried signs with the NWG logo, wore funny and not-so-funny hats, filled the air with bubbles, and played kazoos! A classic yellow Checker cab and green punch buggy rode with our group, as well. (Check us out here and click on “Slide show of Memorial Day Parade 2006”)

We have a spot in the 2007 parade and invite you to put the baby in the stroller, the grandkids in the little red wagon, the dog on the leash, and join in the march! You’re sure to have a good time!

The Parade is on Monday, May 28th. Marchers meet at the American Legion on the corner of James and Nichols:
8:00 Coffee and donuts
8:30
Opening ceremony at the Legion
9:00
Line up and start

Our Neighborhood Watch Groups are something to be proud of, and visibility may encourage other blocks to form a group.

-Jim Crosby, coordinator of NWGS, will give us their banner: it’s long enough that it takes 3-4 people to carry it.
-The Yellow Checker Cab will join us again and probably the Green Bug.
-Jim will run the NWG logo on 8×11 size and make for wearing and carrying.
-Balloons, flags, streamers, hats, garb etc…anything to create color and attention would be great are encouraged.
- We have golden metal kazoos to loan out or sell to you at cost ($1). Tambourines, drums, or other instruments could work, as well.

Finally, there are now NWG hats and t-shirts for sale at $10 each. To order, contact your NWG director or buy them at special NWG events for members such as the upcoming “Light Up the Night” Picnic June 12 6:00-8:00 PM at The Syracuse Inner Harbor.

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A special thanks to Kathy Kennedy who essentially wrote this entire post. See if you can pick her out in the pictures from last year’s parade!

Gracious living

Lonnie April 23rd, 2007

The Perfect Weekend of 2007. It will be remembered, I’m sure, as that glorious two days that were the polar opposite of the previous weekend when fat, heavy snow stuck to every surface and piled up not as inches but as gallons of water content. On what other 75-degree day can you still walk past snow banks?

Continue Reading »

Neighborhood Watch Groups

Lonnie April 2nd, 2007

Eastwood has a lot of Neighborhood Watch Groups. Its’ a great way to meet your neighbors and work together to keep Eastwood a safe, enjoyable place to live.

The Neighborhood Watch Groups of Syracuse

Neighborhood Watch News – winter/spring 2007

Syracuse Police Department
Annual reports, crime maps, neighborhood statistics, and more!

Email our local officers:
Capt. Mark McArdle: mmcardle@syracusepolice.org
Officer Jim Saturno: jsaturno@syracusepolice.org

Upcoming Neighborhood Watch Group (NWG) meetings in Eastwood:

Nichols – Homecroft, meeting dates in 2007
May 22
July 24
Sept. 25
Nov 27

If you’re in an Eastwood NWG, please email me your meeting dates and I’ll post them here.