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| Syracuse Driving Park looking north from drumlin (now Euclid Terrace). View from what is now Strong Avenue and Clarke Street. |
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| 1874 Map showing location of Driving Park |
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| 1892 map of Hillsdale Tract, formerly location of Driving Park |
Syracuse's Westcott Street was laid out and graded in the 1870s and 1880s as a straight north-south route from the Erie Canal into what was still partly undeveloped farmland, but which also included from 1868 until 1888 the Syracuse Driving Park set in the heart of what would become the Westcott Neighborhood.
The success of the racetrack and the subsequent residential neighborhood are both due to the expansion of the Genesee & Water Street Railway Company's streetcar line which began
operations in 1865. An 1877 map of Syracuse shows this line initially
forming a loop starting at the oblique angle of Water and Genesee Streets
near downtown, then extending east along Genesee Street to Beech Street, and then turning north on Beech Street. It crossed Fayette Street before returning west toward
downtown along Washington Street. By the 1880s the line had been extended east
to Westcott Street. In 1889, just when the racetrack was sold and demolished, the Railway Company was
poised to expand the line even further.The expansion of the streetcar and the decision to subdivide the racecourse into building sites is not coincidental. The expansion of the streetcar to serve the racetrack excited would be real estate developers who saw higher profit from land sales than horse race admissions and concession sales.
Because of its higher elevation in relation to the city and the Erie Canal, the Eastside was already favored for recreational outings by the mid-19th century. Oakwood Cemetery which also functioned unofficially as the city's first urban park, was opened in 1859. The area then gained public attention in the summer of 1868, when the Syracuse Driving Park opened for business. Built and operated by the Syracuse Driving Park Association, the Driving Park was a horse racing track built on land Herman H. Stanton had purchased from the State of New York in January 1865.
The driving course was laid out when
Stanton leased part of his farm to the Syracuse Driving Park
Association of which Richard W. Jones was the
president; Stanton served on the Driving Park Association’s Executive Board. The course consisted of a half-mile track with grandstand with
on-site stables and other outbuildings, at least some of which were designed by
leading architect Horatio Nelson White. The racing complex was located on the east side of what is now Westcott Street,
between what is now Clarke Street on the south and Harvard Place on the north. The track was a large oval located
between what is now Harvard Pl., Allen St., Clarke St., and Westcott St.
Hugh J. Yeman has posted several contemporary newspaper articles describing the opening events.
https://hughjyeman.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/the-history-of-the-syracuse-driving-park/
In 1872, the twenty-one acres containing the racing complex was deeded to the Driving Park Association. At this time, to raise capital for the enterprise, The New York Herald reported in April 1872 that a group of Syracusans had met and organized a “trotting club,” with capital stock of $12,000, in $100 shares. The officers were John J. Crouse, president; R. W. Jones, vice-president; E.P. Howlett, secretary; M.J. Myers, treasurer; and John J. Crouse, R. W. jones, C.C. Bradley, O.C. Potter, F.B. Klock, C.F. Herbst, O.F. Soule, J.P. Hier and F.W. Deez as directors. Races were already being run by September 1872 with reports in the New York papers.
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| he New York Herald, April 30, 1872 |
In 1872, Westcott Street was extended from Fayette Street to East Genesee Street and in the following decade as far south as the Driving Park. After the track opened in July 1868, the park eventually included a clubhouse, a grandstand, and a judges’ stand, all of which were designed by the Syracuse architect Horatio N. White.[1]
An article in the Syracuse Courier of July 18, 1868 related that:
“ladies who attended the opening race in July 1868 “stood on the balcony of the new Club House built by the Association, which by the way is a splendid affair and adds greatly to the convenience and comfort of the visitors. The Judges’ Stand is also a fine structure and worthy of imitation by the management of all racecourses in Central New York. They are generally built so frail and weak that a person should first see that his life is well insured before entering them as judges and reporters of races. Not so with the buildings erected.”
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| Syracuse Standard, Sept. 21, 1977. |
Races at the track were popular public events through the 1870s and 1880s, regularly attracting thousands of spectators each season for the frequent races which drew horses from throughout the northeast and spurred the development of a hotel and bar. Westcott Street was extended south to the driving park. The East Avenue Hotel opened at East Genesee and Lexington Ave. Its popular bar served the horse and betting crowd who congregated there before and after the races.
The End of the Races
Stephen Bastable bought the Driving Park property on April 4, 1881. Despite the track’s popularity, Bastable announced in June 1889 that he had sold the Driving Park to Leonardo D.V. Smith. Smith then announced that he intended to turn the park into building lots. The sale apparently also included portions of what became the Westminster Tract, immediately to the southwest of the Driving Park, as both were opened for development at the same time.
The final race at the Syracuse Driving Park was scheduled for October 1889, but Smith began work in September by removing the fence that surrounded the Driving Park. Work began in earnest immediately after the final race on October 12, 1889, and by October 20 the grandstand had been torn down and the streets were being graded.
A Syracuse Standard newspaper report of October 20, 1889, reported on the demolition of the driving park. Standard-Driving Park torn down.
“Great Transformation at the Syracuse Driving Park,”
“People who drive out Westcott St. this week will see a great change and decided improvement in the land formerly known as the Syracuse Driving Park. The high and unsightly fences and grandstand have been taken down and a large force of men and teams are at work grading streets and avenues. The beautiful row of shade trees on Westcott St. have so long been partly hidden by the high fence, now show off to good advantage. The Common Council have ordered Westcott St. graded in front of this property and present indications are that this will be among the most desirable building property in the Eighth ward. We notice also that the Helmer tract, opposite the driving park, has recently been wonderfully improved. The streets have been nicely graded and four large and handsome houses built. This is all beautiful property, and we congratulate Mssrs. s Paralee & Smith, the enterprising real estate agents, on having such desirable property on their hands. The driving park has been named Hillsdale and we expect soon to see it all built up with modern homes.”
The timing of the sale was remarkably convenient; it came just a month after the Genesee & Water Street Railroad announced plans to build a new streetcar line down Westcott Street and coincided with the grading of new access streets. By September 1889, Westcott Street had been extended to the south, while Croton Street (now Euclid Avenue) was opened from the west and Syracuse University.
A May 1889 newspaper article touted the expansion of Syracuse’s street railways, and included that “The Genesee & Water Street railroad people are busy with their proposed expansions in the Eighth ward... The main line will be extended from the corner of Lexington avenue and Westcott street directly south through Westcott street to the gates of the Syracuse Driving Park, a distance of half a mile.”[1] The extension was completed with new rails by the time of the Driving Park’s spring races in June, the least season of racing. Streetcars made the half-mile run south to the Driving Park every thirty minutes, and the existing line from Beech Street was also laid with new steel rails.[2] The streetcar was extended to bring thousands of spectators from the city to the racetrack, which was in use until 1888, and later this streetcar encouraged residential development.
At the time of the closing the Syracuse standard published “A Horseman’s Reminiscences: Recalling the Cracks Which Made Their Murk In Syracuse Driving Park,” (Syracuse Standard, October 20, 1889) as a d
sort of obituary for the Park.
."A person visiting the Syracuse Driving Park to-day would hardly recognize it as the place where only about a week ago the Association finished one of its most successful meetings," said a well-known horseman, who has spent the greater number of his years following up the races and keeping track of the trotters, to a STANDARD reporter last night. "The fences have all been taken down, the grandstand which has groaned under the weight of excited crowds has been removed and streets have already been laid out and workmen with horses and plows are rapidly grading them. It's all right, of course, for the city to grow and all that, but when they have completed the work of cutting up the park into building lots, they will have succeeded in wiping out of existence a track that has turned out more famous horses than any other track in the State.”
The East Avenue Hotel closed within a year of the Racing Park’s demise. In 1891 the East Presbyterian Church occupied the sites of stables (the then equivalent of a parking lot). The building itself was moved to another site in 1901 when the city bought the block to create Columbus Park (now Loguen Park).
With the two primary axis roads of Westcott Street and Euclid Avenue now connecting Genesee Street to the north and the University to the west, and with the streetcar providing access along Westcott Street and, soon, along Euclid Avenue, the area was ready for development, and by 1924 most of the building lots will filled in the area that we think of as the University and Westcott Neighborhoods.
The area of the Driving Park was divided into building lots as the Hillsdale tract. The name Hillsdale came from Wickliffe A. Hill who owned a 1/3 interest in the tract from 1889 to 1890. Contrary to common belief, Concord Place, with its unusual elongated oval form, is not a continuation of the driving course, though it does occupy part of the site.
My houses is on Clarke Street, built just at the southern end of the former Driving Park.
[1] “Rushing Railways, Improvements Being Made on Street Lines of This City,” Syracuse Herald, May 5, 1889, p. 5.
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