East Side of the City Pictures (Syracuse, Roosevelt: how much, houses, neighborhoods)

[beckyhuggs]

I wanted to start a thread showing pictures of the East side of the city. I started with pictures from a park but hope to take pictures of houses and neighborhoods the next time I'm back in Syracuse. If you have your own pics of the East side please feel free to post them.

The following pics are of Barry park. A friend took these photos and gave me permission to post them. I always loved this park because it makes a person feel like they are in the country. I grew up playing on the playground and feeding the ducks. Later as an adult I would jog on the path around the pond. On Sundays they block the road that divides the park so that kids and adults can bike, walk and play using the road. Also in the summers you can always see tons of kids playing soccer, basketball and other sports. Occasionally I would even see adults playing rugby or cricket which I always thought was fun since it's not something you usually see in Syracuse.

[beckyhuggs]

More of Barry Park

[ckhthankgod]

I was just there yesterday shooting hoops. It is a very nice park and you see mothers with their children at the playground, people walking or running and so on. Nice area in general and I think the pictures you posted are of the Meadowbrook Marsh area in the park.

[proulxfamily]

I've lived here my entire life and never even heard of this place? I'll have to google the location, thanks!

[acknight]

Originally Posted by proulxfamily

I've lived here my entire life and never even heard of this place? I'll have to google the location, thanks!

Meadowbrook Drive, just north of SU's South Campus up to Broad Street.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by proulxfamily

I've lived here my entire life and never even heard of this place? I'll have to google the location, thanks!

People would be surprised what is here. I sometimes just drive around and i end up finding things I didn't know existed in the area because of that.

[phaelon56]

Wow. Brings back memories. When I was a kid (1960's) it was called "Broad Street Park" because there was nothing there except the brick clubhouse, some swing sets, a slide and the big open field (there wasn't even a sign informing us that the park had a real name!). In the winter the City Parks Department would push snow out into a circle about 60 feet wide to form a ring and flood it with water to make a small neighborhood skating rink.

The retaining basin across the street was a wooded area with a few trails going through it (flat and no basin and no water) that was known by everyone as "The Woods". Kids... my friends and I included... would build little forts in there from to time and it was the place where teenagers often went to smoke cigarettes or pilfered booze.

We often found fairly old (e.g. 30's or even earlier) bottles or cans and other stray pieces of metal junk there. When I asked my mom about this the reasons became clear: Barry Park and the Meadowbrook Marsh area was one of the city dumps back in the 20's and 30's! She (my mom) grew up on Roosevelt Ave - just up the hill. She and all her siblings were strictly forbidden from playing near the dump but they all found way to sneak down there when word got out about a dump fire. In the days before radio, TV and video games a dump fire was quite the entertaining event for local kids to watch.

Most of the houses on Meadowbrook Drive were built from the late 1950's through the early 1960's. It was a marsh and never should have been used for residential development. During times of heavy rain the creek would rise to the top.... spread out all the way across both sides of the road up into people's yards... and when the storm sewers flooded the actual sewage sewers would back up into the basement of people's homes on both sides. Once every couple of years or even more often this would occur and the sight of yellow SFD mini-pumper trucks pumping out people's now immersed and fragrant basements became commonplace. The Meadowbrook Marsh is an overflow basin with a sluice gate that automatically diverts water from the creek into the pond when rains get heavy. I wasn't thrilled by the fact that massive amounts of taxpayer dollars were required when none of the developers ever had to pay a penny but the awareness of risk and regulation related to building in wetlands just didn't exist back then. Granted.... any builder worth his or her salt - even back then - knew that if you built a home with a basement next to a creek in an area that was swamp with fill.... you'd get flooding.

That said - it's very gratifying to see how much use the marsh area and the adjacent park get these days. It was all a grossly underutilized resource back then and is now a real asset to the east side.

[proulxfamily]

Ohhh- I think I've been there then but I didn't realize it had all of that nature preserved behind it. Is this the one that is pretty much the corner of Wescott and Meadowbrook (Near the southernmost block of Kensington Place) and winds along the river there? I used to run school 5Ks there when I was a kid.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by proulxfamily

Ohhh- I think I've been there then but I didn't realize it had all of that nature preserved behind it. Is this the one that is pretty much the corner of Wescott and Meadowbrook (Near the southernmost block of Kensington Place) and winds along the river there? I used to run school 5Ks there when I was a kid.

Yup....If you go behind the park, along Meadowbrook, you will see it.

[ckhthankgod]

Here's some information on some parts of the East side: Berkeley Park

Westcott

Westcott