Grains of Salt (v48): Performance Park

I'm trying to catch up on posts I had in draft last month, from before and after vacation, so thanks for bearing with me.

I saw a post on the Facebook page of the Near West Side Initiative (NWSI) announcing something called Performance Park.

Just want to introduce everyone to Performance park. This is a multi-use space created to promote health, recreation, arts and parking. The parking spots are going to be wide and include outlets so the space can also be used for farmers markets and even food trucks as well as promoting local entrepreneurship. A cultural space that's for everyone, and accessible to the community. Its also an expansion of our indoor performance space (SALTspace). We are looking to make this a Mecca of performing arts for members of our communities. The park will include: 87 parking spaces, Athletic equipment and surface solar power, sight lighting and security, Performance Stage and Built in viewing/seating areas, Onondaga county/save the rain storm water retention systems, Trees and Landscaping, and Community Art. 

Intrigued, I started digging around to see what other information I could find on this project. Before we get into that, though, here's some background on the NWSI.

The not-for-profit group got its start under the 'scholarship in action' umbrella of former SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor (who listened to me once, much to my surprise). Cantor spearheaded a number of collaborative projects with the City of Syracuse, including the Connective Corridor, the Warehouse building at the edge of Armory Square, and more. SU provided staff, support, and financing for the NWSI and helped guide the group for the first ten years, before pulling back in 2017.  Other founding partners included the Gifford Foundation and Home Headquarters.

The organization focuses on arts, literacy and technology in what's called the SALT District, which is now home to WCNY, our local PBS TV station and a broadcast hub for several other affiliated stations, the Gear Factory and other studio space, Skiddy Park, and much more.

Performance Park, it seems, has been part of the vision for a while now.  Here's a link to a 2015 design plan for the project, created by Locus Design + Communications, showing  2018 construction date.  From the plan,

What do you do with 77,000 square feet of vacant land adjacent to one of the country’s most innovative public broadcasting stations within one of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods?

The Near West Side Initiative saw the potential for massive impact, but they needed a vision they could present to others.  A vision that showed a socially/culturally positive community asset that also generated revenue for the NWSI.  

LOCUS created a multifunctional urban space that supports economic development of local small businesses, provides a place for neighborhood kids to hang out, and establishes a permanent outdoor performance venue for the city’s many different theaters and performance groups. 

It's got solar -roofed market stalls, rainwater collection, play areas including chess and ping pong tables, parking, performance space - it's a pretty cool design.

I'm not sure why construction didn't start when the proposal thought it would, or whether it was held up waiting for it to be approved by the Common Council, which is was in April 2017 - but what is important is that construction is now underway, and we can look forward to the opening of this new, innovative space in the not too distant future.

Thank you, Nancy Cantor

Syracuse University photo

Syracuse University Chancellor Nancy Cantor announced this past Friday that she’ll be leaving SU at the end of her contract, which runs through the 2014 school year. 

Over the next several months, there will likely be countless articles on her tenure, some of them positive and some less so, depending on the perspective of the writer or the scope of the article.  Today, I want to share my one and only interaction with the Chancellor, one that I think speaks volumes about her.

Flash back to late October/early November2010, when  Syracuse was going through a bad stretch of violence, including, ironically, at a rally to stop the violence.

I had done a couple of posts on the violence (here and here), and then on Tuesday November 16th, I was sitting at home thinking about everything that was going on, and I had a hare-brained idea and decided to act on it. 

At 8:38 that night, I wrote an email to Chancellor Cantor and asked for her help.  Here are excerpts from that email:

Our city is currently in the midst of a horrible spate of violence, most of it violence by youth against youth... We had shootings on Halloween, we’ve had a murder caught on tape, we’ve had shots fired at a peaceful ‘stop the violence’ gathering. All of it is disturbing, all of it is frightening, and all of it is disheartening. Our city is better than this.

Police Chief Frank Fowler, Mayor Stephanie Miner, and community leaders such as Mary Nelson are reaching out in every way they can, trying to engage local pastors and local organizations, encouraging them to do what they can...in homes, in workplaces, on buses and shops all over town, people are talking, and thinking, and trying to come up with answers...

An idea that occurred to me was to ask members of the SU community...if they’d be willing to appear in short public service announcements calling for an end to the violence. We know that kids look up to famous people, and around here there aren’t a lot of folks more famous than the SU family, both those currently on the Hill and the alumni that we claim as our own.

Is this outside the realm of possibility? Is this something that could be undertaken by students at Newhouse, in cooperation with folks from Maxwell? Does this type of effort fit in with your vision of Scholarship in Action?

Thanks for listening, and thanks for anything you and the SU community can do to help us.

The next day, I received both an email and a voicemail from Henry Wildhack, then an Associate Athletic Director, who had been asked to contact me about my idea.  After a few phone conversations and email exchanges, there was a script in my hand for review - all within 48 hours of my initial email to Cantor. 

The gist of the message was that kids need to stop and think before they pick up the gun, before they get involved with a gang, before they make a mistake that may leave them “six feet under” or behind bars – and yes, those words and images were included in the end product, which was put together by Roger Springfield’s media team and included coaches and players from the football team and both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. The script and resulting video perfectly captured what I had hoped for, and was pretty powerful.

If you attended any games at the Carrier Dome that fall/winter, you may have seen my video on the big screen.  If you watched the news on local television during that time period, you may have seen my video, which ran as a PSA for a period of time on several stations.

I say 'my video' mostly in jest – sure, I had the idea, and planted a seed with Chancellor Cantor.  But she was the one who chose not to ignore the email, who handed it off to the people who could make it happen.  And she did it immediately, when we were still reeling from what was going on, and her team cam through in a big way.

Yes, there’ll be much said about Nancy Cantor and her time here in Syracuse. For her response to my idea back in 2010, I'd like to offer this belated thank you.