DeWitt -suburban Syracuse Pictures (New York, Cortland: insurance, how much, houses)

[bellafinzi]

DeWitt is an eastern suburb of Syracuse, NY. Since DeWitt is the closest suburb to Syracuse University and the Hospitals, it is populated with many Professors and Doctors living in upscale housing developments. The school district - Jamesville DeWitt is great. Lots of retail on Erie Blvd since it is the major shopping corridor for the city and for the eastern suburbs. The flat northern part of DeWitt is the major business district for the region with many Office Parks, and factories. The southern part of DeWitt is very hilly and its mostly residential neighborhoods.

Population of DeWitt is about 25,000

The photo tour starts in the south and heads north

























The DeWitt Wegmans is the largest Wegmans in the country AND is the largest Supermarket in the Country at 141,000 square feet















Shoppingtown Mall, its one of the three major indoor malls in the Syracuse area

























DeWitt Town Hall





Hope you liked my tour!

[bellafinzi]

Just a heads up for those thinking about moving to DeWitt. Not sure how much pollution these plants produce...


DeWitt eyed for huge energy plant
Coal-to-gas facility proposed at old cement factory near Jamesville. It would employ up to 150 people.

Sunday, December 17, 2006
By Tim Knauss

At a 126-acre site in DeWitt, energy entrepreneur Adam Victor plans to build a facility capable of transforming 10,000 tons of coal per day into natural gas for use in homes, businesses or power plants.

Victor said he has an option to buy the former Alpha Cement factory site south of Rock Cut Road, between Jamesville Quarry and Clark Reservation State Park, where he intends to build a $1.3 billion coal gasification facility.
Moderator cut: copyrighted material

[bellafinzi]

Update: That Coal-to-gas facility is now proposed for a community in Oswego County...about 45 minutes away from Syracuse. Many DeWitt residents and town leaders opposed the power plant.

[bellafinzi]

Good news for DeWitt, bad news for downtown....

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Excellus to move 850 workers from downtown to DeWitt

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Rick Moriarty July 23, 2007 4:48PM

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Excellus BlueCross BlueShield announced today that it will move 850 employees from downtown Syracuse to the former Agway building in DeWitt in mid-2008.

The insurance company said it expects to realize savings of several million dollars by moving into the building.....

Excellus to move 850 workers from downtown to DeWitt - News from The Post-Standard on Syracuse.com
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I blame the City's inept economic development policies. Excellus told the city....like 5 years ago .... it needed more parking for the Excellus employees or else they will be forced to find a new location.

[bellafinzi]

6 month old news about ShoppingTown Mall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxK1zX0Z0c8

Basically this video shows off a small part of DeWitt, NY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJGZ_1y6m4E

[ckhthankgod]

Actually, the Northern portion of the town is in the East Syracuse-Minoa school district and the village of East Syracuse is within the town limits.

[acknight]

The super-massive Wegmans recently completed an expansion and now sits at 160,000+ sq. ft.

[proulxfamily]

Bellafinzi - I love your pics all over but I really am chuckling at just about all of them. Your camera seems to only take pictures of new housing developments and the signs of big stores, not the quaintness and character of each place. Dewitt has so many beautiful, old neighborhoods - Orvilton area, for one. What about the synagogue? St. Mary's impressive new structure and the picuresque, mountain of a landscaped cemetery behind it? The Main St. that is Erie Boulevard East? The new firehouse? LeMoyne College and the Seminary? The windy, hilly, upscale areas near it? Woodchuck Hill Road's breathtaking mansions and preserved museum-farms? The park and Erie Canal trails by the Dewitt police station? Hanlon Park? Hofmann's Hot Haus? Good and bad, right?

Housing developments can be seen in any builder's catalog in the country. It's nothing special.

And I really do LOVE your pics of the countryside... but could you maybe capture the character of the area, rather than the construction?

[bellafinzi]

Thanks proulxfamily!

One thing I learned only after going away to college was that downstaters and much of the rest of the country think of Syracuse as a small, rust-belt decaying, college town without any nice areas.

I went to college with many kids who thought of Syracuse as a little hick town without any growing suburbs (like much of Upstate). They thought of our city as only the size of small cities like Cortland, Olean and Oneonta. It was real annoying how other parts of the State view the Syracuse area.

After college, I was determined to take photos of the growing suburbs of Syracuse and put them out on the internet so everyone can see that there's much more to the area than decaying inner city neighborhoods, a college (SU) and rusting old factories.

You'd be surprised how many people from the New York City area have a very negative, very warped image of Syracuse as an abandoned rust-belt town near the artic circle!

In a perfect world, I'd love to take more photos of all the charming things about DeWitt and the Syracuse area, but I only have so much of me to go around. I was hoping that my photos would inspire others to take many more quality digital photos of the Syracuse area on a nice summer day (as opposed to all the blizzard photos people love to take locally) and upload them to this site, but it still hasn't happened in almost 3 years. If one person from every town and neighborhood took a few dozen photos of their local suburb on a sunny summer weekend day in July, then we'd have many different view points of the Syracuse area to show the world. My view is only one (my interest and goal was capturing the new construction).

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by bellafinzi

Thanks proulxfamily!

One thing I learned only after going away to college was that downstaters and much of the rest of the country think of Syracuse as a small, rust-belt decaying, college town without any nice areas.

I went to college with many kids who thought of Syracuse as a little hick town without any growing suburbs (like much of Upstate). They thought of our city as only the size of small cities like Cortland, Olean and Oneonta. It was real annoying how other parts of the State view the Syracuse area.

After college, I was determined to take photos of the growing suburbs of Syracuse and put them out on the internet so everyone can see that there's much more to the area than decaying inner city neighborhoods, a college (SU) and rusting old factories.

You'd be surprised how many people from the New York City area have a very negative, very warped image of Syracuse as an abandoned rust-belt town near the artic circle!

In a perfect world, I'd love to take more photos of all the charming things about DeWitt and the Syracuse area, but I only have so much of me to go around. I was hoping that my photos would inspire others to take many more quality digital photos of the Syracuse area on a nice summer day (as opposed to all the blizzard photos people love to take locally) and upload them to this site, but it still hasn't happened in almost 3 years. If one person from every town and neighborhood took a few dozen photos of their local suburb on a sunny summer weekend day in July, then we'd have many different view points of the Syracuse area to show the world. My view is only one (my interest and goal was capturing the new construction).

Actually, I've showed pictures of some of the city neighborhoods like Strathmore, Sedgwick, Berkeley Park and some houses in other neighborhoods and the people were amazed at what kind of house you can get for an affordable price. So, that's not the general consensus for everyone.