January, 2012

To the editor of the Post-Standard:

In regards to the much talked-about war memorial, I would like to say, like all other projects in the city, I am afraid it is going to be too small. It may be alright for the city of today, but 20 years from today it will be like the U.S. Post Office built 20 years or more ago, too small.

Look around at some of our buildings in recent years, MacArthur Stadium, too small; post office, too small; NY Central Station, too small; State Tower Building, too small, and a lot of other projects which were big enough when built, but too small now. 

Now, 9,000 seats are too small for boxing. I saw a few boxing matches at the ball park last summer, and they say the ball park seats 12,000. Well, I had to sit on the concrete steps, because I could not get a seat. That would give you an idea just how many seats you would need if let’s say, DeJohn fought some top flight boxer like Tony Zale or Marcel Cerdan and others. Why, you have to turn them away.

While we are at it, let’s build it big enough, or let’s not build it at all....Syracuse is going to be a pretty big city in a few years to come, and a small coliseum is going to be just too bad.
…Anyway, in conclusion, I will say here’s for a bigger coliseum, one that you will not have to try to make larger later.

William J. Ganeau, Syracuse February 17, 1949

Post-Standard, April 23, 1976

What was that I wrote in my last entry about “back to school, back to work, back to activities and appointments that often seem to continue non-stop through year’s end”?

Yes, this blog has been on the quiet side, but Sean Kirst’s article about the musical history of the War Memorial inspired me to revisit the archives. To be honest, I haven’t been inside the War Memorial in over thirty years, and the closest I’ve come to a rock concert at the venue is a clown parade at the Shrine Circus. But as the article made clear, most War Memorial memories are well entrenched in the past, leading many commenters to debate the future of the facility:

johnsyracuse: Sorry guys....I am a veteran myself...but the War Memorial is a sh##hole. It's a building, like many before it and many after it whose designed function has gone the way of the dinosaur. Replacing it no way disrespects our veterans. In fact; I think it is more disrespectful NOT to replace it. That being said...who wants to pay for it? The state needs to focus on the infrastructures that benefit everyone for the right reasons; not rebuild a worn out building. Syracuse has not been a mecca for rock bands for a long time. I travel to Rochester and near Albany to hear anything relevent. Seems unnecessary to me.

Michelle Klukiewicz: totally disagree John....I think if the War Memorial is spruced up a bit, many of the bands today that I am sure are fans of the past bands that graced the stage at the WM, would be honored to play in the same place....I would LOVE to attend a show there...somethings are sacred and should be treated as such..it honors the Veterans as well as the music that in my opinion..keeps us all sane..." let the music keep our spirits high"....

The conflict is obvious: the War Memorial has a dated form tied to timeless function. Yet why had such a decision been made during a time when obsolescence was linked with progress?

“The pace of obsolescence is growing more rapid,” Mr. Grimm said. “We must make things more susceptible to obsolescence in order to make way for progress. If dresses were designed to so that women wore them until they fell apart, the dress industry would die. There will be more acceleration in change of design." (Post-Standard, February 26, 1955)

If city leaders envisioned a 21st century downtown Syracuse with "modern structures of glass and steel," then why did they decide upon the construction of an arena as a war memorial, which would certainly be a target for demolition as it aged? Is this another case of the post-WWII generation fulfilling an immediate need—much like the highways and suburbs—and leaving future generations to sort out the inevitable conflict of interest? Or were there Syracusans who foresaw these 2012 comments in their own impassioned letters over 60 years ago?

To the editor of the Post-Standard:

Will Syracuse ever get out of the one-horse town class?

Imagine a city the size of Syracuse thinking of building an auditorium that will only seat 8,800 maximum!

That is what you would look for in a village the size of Baldwinsville.

Don’t they ever expect to have any large conventions in Syracuse?

Maybe they are only planning on a peanut vendors’ convention.

It looks as if the major veteran organizations will never be able to hold another convention in Syracuse. What they have planned now is not suitable to veterans and the whole of Syracuse.

What a war service memorial!

Why not get smart and put up a memorial everyone will be proud of and not ashamed of.

Why not go two or three levels underground if they want a squatty building, and have the entire main floor for an auditorium only, with offices, meeting rooms, etc. on the floors above?

It might be well for some people to get out and visit other cities and see what is needed in such a building. Let’s not throw our money away on something that will be useless!

Member of VFW and American Legion
Marietta
March 12, 1948

Economy had been essential during the World War II years, so not surprisingly the War Service Memorial committee saw a multi-use memorial as a most ideal solution:

For some time prior to the appointment on January 10, 1945, of the original six members of the Onondaga County War Service Memorial Committee by [Onondaga County Board of Supervisors chairman] Mr. [Edward] Yackel and Thomas E. Kennedy, then mayor of Syracuse, there had developed considerable sentiment and need for a civic center. This sentiment and this need were promptly visualized by the committee as the ideal solution to the primary problem of what type of memorial should be adopted. 

We saw and grasped the opportunity to realize in one move two long-hoped-for ambitions...a fitting war memorial and a community center with unlimited possibilites for general public use. Having reached this decision we began planning for the time when the citizens of the city and the county would have their own civic center adequate for any social, cultural or athletic indoor activity, and simultaneously, a memorial to those who gave their lives, those who served in the armed forces and those who served on the home front. (from War Memorial Progress Report given by Hurlbut W. Smith, chairman of the Onondaga County War Service Memorial, Inc. to Onondaga County Board of Supervisors chairman Edward O.Yackel and Frank J. Costello, Syracuse mayor, on February 15, 1947, reprinted in Syracuse Herald-American, February 16, 1947)

Yet it quickly became clear to the parties involved that one building could not be all things to all people:

“A sports arena, and a music hall, and theater can never under any architectural plan be housed in the same hall. Love of theater, music, dance or beauty must not come in a poor second again when a civic enterprise is under consideration. Whatever the final decision, it should be representative of both athletic and cultural groups. Perhaps the amount should be increased so that the plans might include two complete and separate units under one roof. If it is impossible to raise such an amount, let’s do one or the other and create a memorial of which we we all may be proud for many years.—Dorothy Kelly Carr, Mary F. Lynch, Marydee Richards, directors of Children’s Theater group of the Museum of Fine Arts

“The civic center should be in two complete units, one as an auditorium to seat about 3500 in permanent designed seating, including all necesssary facilities for stage—the other an arena type for sporting events, conventions and the like. Each unit could then operate independently of the other. To us, the idea that one auditorium could be used for a hockey match one night and a symphony concert the next in the same hall seems highly impractical. It is up to the people to see that one center is built to satisfy the needs of the various civic enterprises, even if necessary to allot more money in bonds. It must be built right to serve many years.”—David B. Salmon of Dave Salmon, Inc.

(as quoted in Syracuse Herald-Journal, March 11, 1947)

A year earlier, the War Memorial commission had plans for such a “2-in-1” building, and retained L. Andrew Reinhard, an architect who worked on Rockefeller Center, to design a building with “two separate areas, one a music hall, one a sports arena,” and left the decision to Reinhard to “put both under one roof or erect them separately” (Post Standard, March 23, 1946) Yet as there was only a limited amount of land for the building, sports enthusiasts quickly saw the flaws in this proposal:

Here we go again on the proposed sports arena. The county memorial committee has revised its plans again, this time to evolve some method of satisfying both the sports fans and the so-called cultural group. I would like, at this time, to emphasize again that the plans better be good....

It is my personal opinion that the Putnam school site for the proposed memorial building or buildings isn’t big enough for two auditoriums, providing the sports arena, which would be part of the building, is to be big enough for profitable operation. …

Many fans want more than 7,500 seats for sports events , but any rate, that should be the minimum, and worthwhile promotions could not be attracted to Syracuse if the seating capacity were less. (“Keeping Posted with Bill Reddy,” Post-Standard, March 23, 1946)

To the editor of the Post-Standard:
Bill Reddy is right (Keeping Posted, March 23) and more power to him! The county war service memorial committee can’t please everyone, but if this is to be a war memorial, let’s have what the veterans want, a first class sports arena.

...If it is to be a war memorial and the money is to be raised by public subscription, let’s give the veterans what they want and not camouflage about it. The veterans want to be entertained, they don’t want to be “cultured.”

If those who want an auditorium for conventions and a music hall are in earnest, let them go out and raise money independently for it, and not try to ride in on the backs of the veterans.

There’s only one location in the city that would be big enough for a sports arena with an eye to the future when Syracuse will be much larger. That is the old New York Central railroad station property. Close up that one-block extension of West Washington Street and use the entire space and then a sports arena seating 12,000 to 15,000 could be erected.

Let’s either drop the whole thing or give the veterans what they want. Ask them, they’ll tell you quickly enough, you memorial committee members.
Peter Piper
Syracuse
(March 26, 1946)

Not only was lack of space a concern, but lack of budget as well. An initial shortage of building materials in the years immediately following the war led to higher costs, which led some to question whether a more substantial arena could be built if the project was held off for a few years:

While a large number of veterans are pressing for action, others are said to be taking the same view the board has taken thus far, that it would be unwise to undertake erection of the building under present conditions.

Because of the prohibitive cost of materials and labor and difficulties in procuring many items at any price, it is said if a decision to begin this year should be reached, it will not be possible to carry out the plans, for the sort of memorial building that has been proposed. There is fear that if a building of the sort that could be built is erected, regrets are likely to be heard a few years hence. (Post-Standard, January 28, 1948)

This point became further emphasized one year later, when none of the construction bids submitted to committee came within the 3.5 million dollars appropriated for the project:

Since the bids were opened, architects and engineers have been figuring substitutes and alternatives and otherwise wearing out their pencils in an effort to make $3,680,000, plus architects’ fees, plus extras not included in the contracts go into $3,500,000.…

How far the architects and engineers can go in recommending substitutions is another question. The memorial has been “sold” to the public on the basis of the plans and specifications on which bids were submitted, and to cheapen it to a point where the public might suspect that a “shoddy” memorial to the county’s war heroes would eventuate could result in trouble, a possible situation that board members are keeping in mind. (Post-Standard, July 24, 1949)

By the time construction began in late 1949, nearly every facet of the building had come under criticism. Ninety-two Syracuse University Architecture students signed a petition calling the auditorium’s design by Edgarton & Edgarton “a disgrace to any progressive city...with all of its superfluous ornament resembles a colossal wedding cake.” (Post-Standard, March 10, 1948).  Several Post-Standard editorials lamented the lack of dedicated theater space, and worried that Syracuse would always lose valuable performances to other upstate cities:

Recently many of  the city's music lovers went to Rochester for an opera performance with the famous tenor Tagliavini. Many more will go to Utica on the first of April for another opera with this famous tenor.

It is always away from the  city— never here that we can attend and enjoy events of this kind.


While Syracuse certainly is not as much of a musical city as Rochester, it seems pathetic, to say the least, that Utlca could get the drop on us and take its place as a Central New York gathering place  for the many people who like the opera and the legitimate stage.


The proposed sum to be spent on the county war memorial will do very well for a sports arena.  But we might as well forget about a theater thrown in to boot. It would take more than that for a suitable theater alone. By suitable we mean a permanent theater seating at least 3,000 in comfort, acoustic excellence  with a perfect view of the stage from every seat in the house, the very best in all stage  technical requirements, and a simple and dignified exterior. That names a few of the specifications in  general.
…


If people in this area are going to listen to opera and orchestral music, and maintain a love for the legitimate stage, they are going where those needs in their lives are available.  If they can't come here, they will go to them.

Is Syracuse going to admit defeat in this matter, or is it capable of taking the bull by the horns? (Post-Standard, March 23, 1948)

And the complaint as old as downtown and cars themselves, parking:

The question is, of course—where are those 8,000 or more persons going to park around the proposed sports arena, provided it is located on the site given out in the elaborate publicity.

Your paper editorially and otherwise, and committees concerned with parking facilities in Syracuse, have been asking the same question over and over again—where are people going to park?  (from a letter to the editor signed “Curious,” Post-Standard, March 13, 1948)

from Post-Standard, August 7, 1949.
"Death of a Landmark: Written by Progress and Staged in Syracuse...
these four photos trace the destruction of the old Syracuse post office
and the transition of the historic site into a parking area."] 

Planners actually had considered the downtown parking shortage, and had an inspired solution: tear down buildings!

"Unusual measures" will have to be taken to get smooth operation of traffic in Syracuse, with prewar conditions soon to be reached and passed, worsening due to increases in large trucks and semi-trailers, William F. Kavanaugh, city lighting-traffic engineer warned as a highlight of his 1945 annual report released yesterday.
…Buildings will either have to be removed or remodeled if parking space convenient to the retail center is to be acquired. Old New York Central terminal site and old West Shore site at E. Belden Ave. and N. Salina Street suggested “for serious consideration.” The Hills Bldg. block (S. State, E. Washington, Montgomery and E. Fayette Sts.), if closed, would not interfere seriously with traffic and would also eliminate a bad five-point intersection. [Plan called for “abandonment of all the rest of the Hills Bldg. Block to provide multi-deck parking space.”] (Post-Standard, January 27, 1946)

Post-Standard, Decemeber 31, 1950

Which is to say, perhaps this is why, at a time when the landscape of downtown was about to undergo its most radical transformation, city and county leaders planned for a living war memorial. There’s a fine line between history and nostalgia, but neither had saved the vaudeville theaters and movie houses, the homes of prominent figures or countless other buildings that faced the wrecking ball as the city viewed its “scaffolding-scarred face...the mirror of prosperity” (Post-Standard, December 31, 1950).  Yet by establishing their arena as a living memorial, the War Service Memorial Commission could possibly ensure that the War Memorial would be spared in the future precisely because it would have the ability to evolve. As a Post-Standard editorial noted on the day of the building’s groundbreaking, the War Memorial “will not be a statue or primarily any object of art for all to look upon and pass by. It will be a living part of the community’s life...it will not have the quality of a museum, but a home—a county community home where we can enjoy ourselves as each of us sees fit.” The editorial continued:

The dead no longer care what we think about them. That would be impossible in the face of that vision of eternity which they now contemplate. But we are living and bounded by the finite world of human emotion, idea and thought. We cannot escape reacting in that sphere. (October 22, 1949)

Considering the outpouring of letters and comments that always accompany any discussion about the War Memorial and its future, this element of the building's history appears to be the most timeless of all.

September 2011

September—always a jolt to the system. After a month with a calendar so empty that its very existence has been questioned, September is back to school, back to work, back to activities and appointments that often seem to continue non-stop through year’s end.


Unless you were the top city and business leaders in urban renewal-era Syracuse, when September meant three-week vacations "oblications" to Europe! 

Forty-two Syracusans will leave Hancock Airport at 4 p.m. today for a three-week trip to Europe where they will study urban development programs in four countries.  The group, participating in a tour sponsored by the Metropolitan Development Association (MDA), will visit Denmark, Sweden, Finland and England to see new town developments and other urban development programs. (Post-Standard, September 9, 1970)

Wanna get away? Post-Standard, September 28, 1963

In the days before Google street view, or, apparently, access to the New York Times, city leaders routinely browsed European countries in person for inspiration for Downtown Syracuse. Between 1963 and 1974, the MDA arranged four European tours, each trip lasting between 16-20 days. The first trip, in October 1963, brought Mayor William Walsh, 18 city notables and their wives to England, France, Germany and Amsterdam: 

Old World hospitality was the fare for members of the Metropolitan Association's European tour when the Burgothe Burgomaster of Rotterdam, hosted a state luncheon in the great banquet hall.  Women members of the tour agree that this was a high point of the entire trip. There were 60 seated at the table where footmen waited on the assembly. Five thousand chrysanthemums were used in riotous colors, an organ was played during the luncheon and all present toasted the Queen of the Netherlands and the President of the United States. While the Rotterdam occasion was an outstanding event, Mrs. William F. Walsh, wife of Syracuse's mayor, also remembered another state luncheon in London, where she had a British Peer Lord Farrington sitting beside her. As in Rotterdam, the Lord Mayor of London feted the American visitors at a formal luncheon.  "We weren't entertained by royalty, but we certainly were accorded the royal treatment by every city visited on the tour," Mrs. Charles N. Howard was quick to report. (Post-Standard, October 24, 1963)

Almost 50 years later, this still seems outrageous. No, not because took first trip at same time the city was torn up by the tearing down of the 15th Ward,  or that six years later, when the city had suffered even greater decline due to this decision, the focus of the trip had shifted from downtown observations to “gather ideas for the new town being constructed near Baldwinsville by the MDA and the State Urban Development Corp.,” (September 9, 1970), or that the city paid $1,100 ($8,114 in 2011 dollars) for Mayor Walsh’s trip (other members paid for themselves, with the mayor’s wife travel “privately financed” (Post-Standard, September 22, 1963)).  Rather, after spending a total of 78 days abroad, in cities such as London, Coventry, Rotterdam, Bonn, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin, Zurich, Vienna, Budapest, Salzburg, Munich, Copenhagen, Bergen, Oslo, and Brussels, where is the European influence in post-urban renewal Syracuse?

Because of her position as councilwoman, Maria (Mrs. Richard) Farr played sort of a “divided role” on the European trip. Despite her businesslike interest in slum clearance, rebuilding of war-torn cities and attendance at all the briefing sessions and lectures, Mrs. Farr evinced a very feminine interest in shopping centers—”malls,” as they are called. “They really are a shoppers paradise,” she said. (Post-Standard, October 24, 1963)

***

While American cities are synchronizing green lights to improve traffic flow and offering apps to help drivers find parking, many European cities are doing the opposite: creating environments openly hostile to cars. The methods vary, but the mission is clear — to make car use expensive and just plain miserable enough to tilt drivers toward more environmentally friendly modes of transportation. Cities including Vienna to Munich and Copenhagen have closed vast swaths of streets to car traffic. Barcelona and Paris have had car lanes eroded by popular bike-sharing programs. Drivers in London and Stockholm pay hefty congestion charges just for entering the heart of the city. And over the past two years, dozens of German cities have joined a national network of “environmental zones” where only cars with low carbon dioxide emissions may enter. (New York Times, June 26, 2011)

Clearly, when it comes to transit, few similarities exist between European cities and Syracuse today. Yet even back in 1963, Mayor Walsh could not envision a city not shaped by cars and interstates:

The mayor reported an amazing thing was that 22,000 of the workers [at Philips Electric Company in Eindhoven, Holland] ride bicycles. It was a sight he confessed he had never seen the equal of when these workers left the plant.  He remarked to one of the officials what the situation would be like when eventually the workers put aside their bikes and drive cars to and from their work. (Post-Standard, October 12, 1963)

While some of these Philips’ jobs disappeared in the late 1970s and 1980s when production moved to Asia, the bicycles did not. Eindhoven currently has “140 km (87 miles) of cycle paths and many additional km of cycle lanes.”

Meanwhile, by year’s end, Syracuse should have its first half-mile “cycle track”!

While in Königswinter, Germany, MDA President Kenneth Bartlett wrote a 14-page letter to the Post-Standard, reprinted in the newspaper over the course of two days. At its conclusion, Bartlett highlighted key observations that he thought could be of great service to developing downtown. 48 years later, these ideas are still discussed as mere possibilities—if that— in Syracuse:

We have, of course, seen only 'the best,' " Dean Bartlett continues in discussing the rebuilding of several European cities. "But even from it, some conclusions may be drawn:

The European city values land so highly that it places the most severe limitation on the development...Simply because a man owns land is no reason why he should be allowed to desecrate a city that will live a thousand years.

The planner holds a position of high regard, at least he is not thought of as a bureaucrat whose motive is to slow up growth. The planners we have met are men with vision, courage and the ability to articulate their plans. In Coventry, for example, they showed what they were doing by maps that showed, separately, (a) a schematic theme or principle; (b) pedestrian traffic; (c) car park; (d) roads, and finally (e) a model. Anyone may see it, it is on permanent display. 

Eindhoven is one of the few cities where we were told they want not new industry, and, further, they want no new suburbs—preferring to develop ‘a totality.' The latter term is, in fact, one heard many times. 

Flowers are everywhere. One really can not sense how barren our downtown is until one sees for himself the flower boxes in London, in Rotterdam, Coventry, Amsterdam and Utrich. (Post-Standard, October 21, 1963)

Then again, some observations were taken to heart immediately:

They also will see a town in Gothenburg, Sweden...Gothenburg contains the largest enclosed shopping center in western Europe. (Post-Standard, September 9, 1970)

***


In 1974, after returning from a 20-day MDA trip, William G. Morton, chairman of the Onondaga Savings Bank, “gushed images of the places he’d seen”: 

The group arrived in Bergen on Constitution Day to  find a riotous celebration going on in the square outside their hotel, Morton remembered. 

Food and paper had been mashed by hundreds of feet so that it coated the street. 

Morton rose early the next morning to find the square spotless. He said he noticed the same concern for appearance everywhere in Europe. 

"I don't know how you can transfer it here," he said.

"Education?" he asked, then let the question alone. (Post-Standard, June 8, 1974)

In this same edition of the June 8, 1974 Post-Standard, there was an educational lesson of a different sort:

South Salina Street between Water and Onondaga streets has seldom looked worse than it did yesterday afternoon. 

The messiest block yesterday was that, between Fayette and Jefferson, where both sides of the street are lined with big new planters, set up in former bus lanes. 

Sidewalks on each side were littered with trash, including a considerable pile of cigarette butts in front of Woolworths, which had been there for at least 24 hours. Apparently some oblivious citizen had emptied the ashtray of his car on the sidewalk beside one of the planters. 

Out on the street, buses were weaving in and out of traffic, with several cars parked double in the second lane beside the planters, drivers gone. Other cars were tucked into curb areas between planters, all apparently immune to parking violation tickets. 

Incidentally, when we got back to the office we had a telephone call from a former president of MDA who had returned Thursday evening from a 20-day MDA trip to Europe. He was shocked at the appearance of Salina Street and had some blunt comments about the planters blocking traffic. 

It would seem our local planners and beautifiers are still a long way from transforming Syracuse's Downtown in the European pattern. (Post-Standard, June 8, 1974)

The following September, the MDA stayed home, using their newfound knowledge of European government to help aid the city, albeit New York City (in the New York Times, which by then must have become available in Syracuse!). However, a grad student at SUNY-ESF arranged a far more productive tour: studying how outsiders view downtown Syracuse.

Some of downtown's finer spots to people watch were given the once over by a group of urban scientists, city planners, managers and designers the other day. 

By the time participants had filled out the 10-page questionnaire and finished the tour with lunch at a local restaurant, the Everson, MONY Plaza, Plymouth Square, Salina Street, Lincoln Plaza, Vanderbilt Square, Clinton Square and Hanover Square, in that order, had been scrutinized by experts from across the U.S. and Canada. (Syracuse Herald-Journal, September 8, 1975)

The tour members—” a meteorologist from Washington, D.C., a professor from University of Toronto's faculty of forestry, a member of Syracuse City Planning Commission,  and an  internationally recognized ecologist from University of Quebec”—were not as enthusiastic about the city as their counterparts had been in Europe. Regarding Lincoln Plaza:

"Bank windows reduce sense of privacy. Too busy. Too much going on in the immediate area," one questionnaire said. 

"Too much heat source. Concrete paving," another participant wrote. 

"Sitting near the art form, it feels warm and somewhat uncomfortable," said another questionnaire. "Aware of high noise levels," another respondent wrote.

MONY Plaza:

"Too much money has gone into pavement patterns, too little money into human needs. No congregating areas have been provided for outside the building," one participant commented.

"No place to sit except for seats in the front of the plaza placed unaccountable to people," another said. 

"The plaza is quite large—does not encourage the average person to enter the complex," was the comment of the third participant.

Also as part of the study (and a slightly distasteful way to force tourist dollars in downtown), participants were “instructed by their questionnaire to buy something for someone on the tour along South Salina Street”:

Among gift items exchanged were a pair of ladies bikini briefs, a bag of mixed nuts, a book called "The Art of Living," a key chain, a bandana and a pot holder.

Save for the keychain, none of these items could probably be purchased today on South Salina Street.

You could, however, buy them at Syracuse’s lasting European tour souvenir: the mall.