My attempt to help Syracuse (Rochester, Manlius: hotel, neighborhoods, construction)

[deno088]

Bellafinzi,

I would also include:
The village of Liverpool
The village of North Syracuse all the up Route 11 to Bear Rd
Westcott and the Euclid area
Seneca Knolls
The Valley all the way down to the Reservation
If you are going as far north as Lysander then you must include Baldwinsville.
Geddes and Camilus on Genesee St especially near the end where it meats Route 5.
Warners
Bridgeport
Van Buren
Brewerton
Phoenix
Lafayette
Minioa
Kirkville
The Village Jamesville
Town of Pompey

[mrkool]

Excellent, informative post..

Originally Posted by bellafinzi

Here is what I mean:

A map showing both Syracuse and Rochester.

Rochester on the left, Syracuse on the right. The red zones are the depressing parts of each respective city/metro. (Areas of each metro that are either ugly or run-down)



Notice that Rochester's "depressing" areas are limited to one area from Gates, southern Greece, southern Irondequoit, and "the Crescent".

Syracuse's depressing areas are much more encompassing...covering almost every place that visitors and outsiders see as they pass through the area, surrounding every major local attraction, and near all the major employers and universities.

Since I know Syracuse so well, I'll list all the depressing main roads in the area:

1) Erie Blvd East
2) Hiawatha Blvd
3) Thompson Road
4) East Molloy Road
5) Kirkville Road
6) Fly Road
7) Factory Ave
8) Northern Blvd
9) Burnet Ave
10) Midler Ave
11) Manlius Center Road
12) Bridge Street
13) Milton Ave
14) State Fair Blvd
15) East Taft Road

Since most people associate these roads and areas with their Syracuse experience, many people label Syracuse as a depressing city based on these areas. If you move to Syracuse or visit Syracuse, avoid these areas and you will like the area much better. I feel sorry for all the employees who have to work off roads like Erie Blvd east and East Molloy Road. If I owned a business there...like in East Syracuse or DeWitt, I'd move it to a more attractive, uplifting part of the region...like Clay, western Salina, or Lysander.

[twentyfour01]

Clay being an "uplifting" section, of course, is purely one person's subjective judgement. If you like suburban sprawl and flat terrain, it may be for you. Personally, I think the northern areas of Onondaga County have been overbuilt - such as Van Buren - (and, not surprisingly, it's where most suburban foreclosures in the county are happening, not that Onondaga County has been particularly blighted with that). This will become more apparent as time goes on. The newer homes are bigger than the local job market justifies; the age of the McMansion is over, and while I wouldn't say the houses in Clay are McMansions, they lean that way in rural Baldwinsville or Van Buren or even Camillus. Unless you work on the north side of the county, you're also going to be burning gas to get to your downtown job. Who really wants that?

Some people on this forum do a great job cheerleading for a certain way of life in Onondaga County that may be going out of fashion now that gas prices and heating fuel prices are going up. I don't know if the northern suburbs are going to keep doing well in this new climate. That said, city living is not for everyone... but there are in fact happy mediums (and some really pleasant older suburban tracts) in the nearer suburbs like Fairmount, Westvale, Dewitt, North Syracuse, etc. that ought to be considered.

Just doing my part to cheerlead for the older burbs with their reduced sprawl, more compact business districts, safe streets, shorter public transportation commutes, good schools, and more modest home square footage.

[ckhthankgod]

I disagree with some of that map. I think the East Syracuse area needs to be revised. Parts of that area are not bad at all like the Fremont area between the villages of East Syracuse and Minoa, the Franklin Park section which is north of the village of E. Syr.(west of Kinne, north of Kirkville Rd. and west of Fly Rd.) and actually the village of Minoa isn't bad at all, but is slightly gritty. It is a very safe village and is actually pretty rural once you leave it. I would agree with most of the village of East Syracuse though. Park Hill/Parkwood sections of that area isn't that bad either, but does have a house here and there that could be better kept. Those areas are north of the village of E. Syr., but west of Kinne and straddling Kirkville Rd. up to Thompson Rd.

[ckhthankgod]

I also take exception to Eastwood, for the most part as well. It's still a very livable area of the city, for the most part. Actually, the North side in the upper part of Butternut Street is still pretty nice too, along with the Sedgwick neighborhood nearby. Tipp Hill on the Western End of the city isn't too bad either. Lyncourt is a nice, little suburb for the most part as well.

[bellafinzi]

Originally Posted by ckhthankgod

I disagree with some of that map. I think the East Syracuse area needs to be revised. Parts of that area are not bad at all like the Fremont area between the villages of East Syracuse and Minoa, the Franklin Park section which is north of the village of E. Syr.(west of Kinne, north of Kirkville Rd. and west of Fly Rd.) and actually the village of Minoa isn't bad at all, but is slightly gritty. It is a very safe village and is actually pretty rural once you leave it. I would agree with most of the village of East Syracuse though. Park Hill/Parkwood sections of that area isn't that bad either, but does have a house here and there that could be better kept. Those areas are north of the village of E. Syr., but west of Kinne and straddling Kirkville Rd. up to Thompson Rd.

I know what you're saying.

My maps were very generalized. I was just trying to point out the large areas of Onondaga County I feel are the most depressing. My "depressing" zones encompass a few nice neighborhoods...like Franklin Park, Sedgwick, etc. but I also left out a few depressing pockets outside the areas I shaded on the map.

-So if the nice neighborhood was surrounded by a depressing area, I included it in the shaded area.

-If a depressing neighborhood is very small, but surrounded by a nice area, I did not include it in my map.

My reasoning for this is simple. If you can quickly drive out of a depressing neighborhood into nice ones very close by, then that general area isn't too depressing IMO. On the other hand, if you live in a nice neighborhood, but are surrounded by depressing areas, then that neighborhood where you live can seem quite depressing IMO.

[ckhthankgod]

I get what you are saying as you could have put say....Nedrow on the depressing list, according to some people, but it wasn't on the map. There are some nice Northside neighborhoods, but some of them are bordered by some of the rough parts of the Northside like the Lower Butternut(south of Grant Blvd.)/Lodi area. So, I get your point.

[kmbell]

Originally Posted by deno088

Bellafinzi,

I would also include:
The village of Liverpool
The village of North Syracuse all the up Route 11 to Bear Rd
Westcott and the Euclid area
Seneca Knolls
The Valley all the way down to the Reservation
If you are going as far north as Lysander then you must include Baldwinsville.
Geddes and Camilus on Genesee St especially near the end where it meats Route 5.
Warners
Bridgeport
Van Buren
Brewerton
Phoenix
Lafayette
Minioa
Kirkville
The Village Jamesville
Town of Pompey

What is this a list of exactly?

The Valley going down to the reservation has an amazing view, and there are nice wide-open areas with ball fields and a creek.

Westcott and Euclid are some of the youngest and most vibrant streets in the area. As a young person, that's what would attract me to the area. While too much rental property near the University is a double-edged sword, the houses in the neighborhood are old and mostly well-preserved.

Yes, Bridgeport is depressing, but I thought we were talking about Syracuse, not a out-of-the-way town 30 minutes away.

Also, Bellafinzi, James St., even if it isn't what it used to be, is an impressive stretch of big, fancy houses at least in parts.

[looking4home]

twentyfour01, that was a great post! You said something similar to what I had said earlier in the thread. Bellafinizi stated that the reason the older suburbs weren't attractive was because the homes were too small for today's families. But you are saying just the oppopsite - that we will all be forced to scale down, whether we like it or not because of economic factors, high gas/heating prices,etc. And while upstate NY may not have been hit hard by the real estate crisis, when I visited last year, I saw quite a bit of new home building, and the McMansions, as you put it. I'm just wondering if those people are over their head, mortgage-wise now. As you also mentioned, they may not have jobs with salaries comensurate with maintaining this type of lifestyle. I think city planners need to look at the older outlying suburbs. With some careful planning and rennovation, they might be very attractive, affordable places for young families to live.

[ckhthankgod]

Actually, my wife and I bought our house in Mattydale, a suburb that fits that description. We moved from out Liverpool apartment a year ago and everything has been fine thus far. My street is quiet and the houses are very affordable. It's in the North Syracuse SD too.