Downtown Syracuse

Photowalk Saturday...started at the Erie Canal Museum, where I learned exciting stuff about Syracuse's place in history--the shot clock, traffic light, and Brannock Device were all invented here. Jokes aside, it's a lovely little museum--they have a nice exhibit of antique postcards of the canal, paintings by local artists, a replica barge, and a nice children's activity area.

Then a long walk around part of downtown (the parts not blocked off for the Blues Festival, which was fun until the thunderstorms), with some urban decay, some contemporary bizarro crap, and some fabulous preserved/restored Victorian building frosting, including gargoyles.

While researching some of the buildings, I came across the "Yestercuse" website, which chronicles how the 'cuse used to be a real city, and then it all went to hell starting in the 1960s, much like all the (one-party-controlled) high-tax government-strangled cities along the Great Lakes. Kind of confirming everything I've pieced together over the past three months:

Marvel at the glory that was Syracuse in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mourn for the treasures lost over the decades to neglect, corruption, waste, incompetence and indifference.