Lonnie July 27th, 2009
When you stack Syracuse up against other cities, you actually end up with a lot of reasons to be cheerful about living here. Yeah, we get into our scraps about what’s the best way to improve it. But at least people really care! Listening to people who have lived elsewhere is often enlightening:
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.
Lonnie April 18th, 2009
I’ll admit it. I’m a coffee nut. So I emailed my neighborhood coffee roaster to see what was going to be available this week. The answer: the usual great selection, plus a Kenya Chania Estate organic. This one is roasted to a full city roast, which works well in my antique vacuum pot. The label on the bag tells me what’s inside. The aroma: lemon, berry. Taste: papaya, spice. Body: medium. Aftertaste: milk chocolate.
Lonnie April 17th, 2009
FOR PUBLICATION FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 2009
PUBLIC NOTICE
CITY OF SYRACUSE
CITY PLANNING COMMISSIONNOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that a public hearing will be held Monday, April 27, 2009, at 6:00 p.m. in the Common Council Chambers, City Hall, Syracuse, New York to consider in full or in part the following applications:
. . . . . .
7) Application No. AS-08-33, for a Sign Waiver of area, type, and number, on property situated at 2327 James Street, owned by Five Point Development Grant, zoned Local Business, Class A, pursuant to Part C, Section X, of the City of Syracuse Zoning Rules and Regulations, as amended.
(See notification of complete meeting HERE.)
Look familiar?
Lonnie March 23rd, 2009
When people drive into Eastwood from downtown Syracuse, the first thing to greet them at the gateway to our “village” has been this, the Veterans’ Monument. It is in an area that is 50% residential. We finish our Memorial Day parade there, where we gather for speeches and silent contemplation.
The proposed “monument sign” makes our gateway all about Walgreens instead:
Lonnie February 28th, 2009
With the economy tanking, one begins to think about things even more elemental than whether a business district is built for humans or for cars. (I can hear a few developers breathing a sigh of relief…) Yeah, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to grow food. We already know, thanks to Karen, that it’s possible to grow a lot of food in Eastwood.
Lonnie March 3rd, 2008
Take a drive down West Onondaga Street and notice the amazing architecture. One mansion after another, some in great shape, but far too many broken up into apartments, turned into slums. At one time, these were the McMansions of their time. The same holds true for much of James St. Think this couldn’t happen out in suburbia? Think again.
No less a prestigious periodical than the Atlantic Monthly has published an article, “The Next Slum?“, outlining the kinds of changes that are already positively affecting our cities and threatening the vast rolling hills of McMansions. You know where they are in the Syracuse area – out beyond the villages that surround the heart of Central New York, on land that you may remember for its dairy farms and corn fields. When you walk into one of these houses, look up. You’ll see where all the (expensive) heat is rising to – wasted space in cathedral ceilings. Count the number of square feet per person living there – by international standards, it borders on obscene. Look around and notice the large lawns requiring much mowing and many chemicals to maintain. Take a walk and notice the distinct lack of humans. No human interaction to speak of, just a lot of cars pulling into and out of the driveways. The garages are not “a pair of parking spaces” but rather car parks vaster than the average family home in most countries in the world.
Contrast this to our “village within the city” of Eastwood. We have a mix of homes, with many two- and three-family homes mixed in with the single-family variety. We even still have our James St. mansions. People from all walks of life are found on our streets and in our cafes, actually meeting and even greeting each other, especially in the good weather.
We are a five-minute drive from the urban center, where apartments are renting for twice what they rent for in Eastwood. We have many community groups, grassroots activists, people who have lived here their entire lives and people who have moved in from the suburbs. Things are getting visibly better in Eastwood. The phrase “Eastwood renaissance” is being used and correctly so.
Here’s a bit from that Atlantic article that forecasts what we in Eastwood can look forward to (bold font mine):
Twenty years ago, urban housing was a bargain in most central cities. Today, it carries an enormous price premium. Per square foot, urban residential neighborhood space goes for 40 percent to 200 percent more than traditional suburban space in areas as diverse as New York City; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; and Washington, D.C.
It’s crucial to note that these premiums have arisen not only in central cities, but also in suburban towns that have walkable urban centers offering a mix of residential and commercial development. For instance, luxury single-family homes in suburban Westchester County, just north of New York City, sell for $375 a square foot. A luxury condo in downtown White Plains, the county’s biggest suburban city, can cost you $750 a square foot. This same pattern can be seen in the suburbs of Detroit, or outside Seattle. People are being drawn to the convenience and culture of walkable urban neighborhoods across the country—even when those neighborhoods are small.
Given this, is not Eastwood currently the bargain of the century? Don’t you wish you’d bought a building in Armory Square in the early ’90’s? Well, Eastwood is still undervalued but on the rise. While the rest of the country frets about recession, Syracuse does what it seems to do best – moves slowly, carefully, without the big booms and busts that plague many other parts of the country. The cost of living is still low here, while the simple pleasures that make life worth living – people to enjoy, recreation, sports, cultural events, good food and plenty of water (and wine and beer!) – are here in abundance.
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 »
Lonnie April 9th, 2007
Yard waste and construction debris in Eastwood will be picked up by the City of Syracuse six more times this year. You are allowed to put yard waste and construction debris between the sidewalk and curb, not in the street, on the weekends listed below ONLY:
May 5-6, June 2-3, June 30-July 1, August 4-5, September 1-2, and October 6-7
