CNY Modernism: Post World War II Modern Religious Buildings in Syracuse

Syracuse, NY. Prince of Peace Baptist church (former First United Methodist Church of Syracuse). , archs. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014
 

Syracuse, NY., Our Lady of Pompeii convent. Cole and Cappuccilli, archs. (1960). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014

CNY Modernism:  Post World War II Modern Religious Buildings in Syracuse

by Samuel D. Gruber

Reading Jay M. Price's recent book, Temples of a Modern God: Religious Architecture in Postwar America (Oxford and NY: Oxford University Press, 2013), I was struck by his statement that “research and scholarship on postwar vernacular architecture have tended to be secular in focus, with great interest in gas stations, drive-ins, motels, and diners. Postwar religious buildings never quite had the popular support that other structures from the era enjoyed. Even at the time, they were controversial, and that lack of appreciation has probably contributed to a lack of appreciation of these structures in recent years.”

Price states that despite their ubiquity, we still know little about the thousands of post-World War II-era  churches that fill our cities and suburbs. They are among the least documented and  studied of any major group of American architecture. This may be understandable when the buildings are modest vernacular structures, but the neglect also holds true for more distinctive architect-designed buildings.

 
So let me draw attention to one of Syracuse's unsung cultural resources: the large assemblage of striking modern religious building erected across the city in the decades following World War II, before suburbanization radically altered urban demographics. This was a period when older (white) congregations were replacing outdated buildings, but they were still rebuilding within the city limits where, for the most part, their congregants still lived. Their older buildings were often sold to independent Black Protestant congregations.

Church commissions in the 1950s and 1960s allowed local architects, such as Anthony Cappuccilli and Gordon Schopfer, to be more adventurous in their use of the modern architectural vocabulary and new materials than in some other more mundane commercial commissions. Though budgets were often small, the results were often impressive.

 

Syracuse, NY. Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. Gordon Schopfer, arch. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014

The post-World War II years saw a building boom by religious communities in Central New York. Part of this was due to pent-up demand – there had been an almost complete stop to the building of churches in 1930, once the effects of the Great Depression became clear. Big projects that were underway came to a standstill.

For example, on the Westside, while the Lafayette Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church at Lafayette and Midland Avenues, designed by SU architecture professor and noted ecclesiastical designer Frederick Lear, broke ground in 1927 with the Parish House and Community Center and was eventually completed, the English Lutheran Church of Atonement at 1926 Midland Avenue, also designed in a Collegiate Gothic style by Frederick R. Lear, never got beyond its Parish House and Community Center, begun in 1927 and finished in 1928. Instead of building on to the old building in  the post-War era, the congregation began an entirely new modern church complex on  West Glen Avenue in the early 1960s. The sanctuary, designed by Edgarton & Edgarton, is worth a look. While it retains a traditional apsed-hall plan, it is a more bold and raw modern interpretation than big Catholic churches of the time.

Syracuse, NY. Former English Lutheran Church of Atonement (1926 Midland Avenue), Frederick R. Lear, arch. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2012.
 

Syracuse, NY. Lutheran Church of Atonement. Edgarton & Edgarton, archs (1962). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2012.
 

Some urban churches and synagogues stayed put and added on to their older sanctuaries. In 1930, Plymouth Congregational Church added a wing in the then popular Colonial Revival style to their older Victorian sanctuary. In the post-World War II period congregations often added more modern wings to their earlier buildings. for example, Temple Society of Concord, dedicated in 1911, added a new religious school building in 1960 designed by Edward G. Roock. Since the addition was to the rear of the historic Classical style sanctuary, it did not compete stylistically.
 
At the former Elmwood Presbyterian Church (recently sold to Mount Pleasant Missionary Baptist Church and now the Harvest Christian Center), however, a new modern wing was attached immediately next to the stripped-down Gothic style building designed by Melvin King and erected in 1917. Though similar materials were used in the addition – yellow brick and beige concrete or cut stone – the two wings visually compete to the detriment of each design.

Syracuse, NY. Former Elmwood Presbyterian Church. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014 

In 2014, my colleague Bruce Harvey I carried out a survey of religious properties in the City of Syracuse sponsored by the city and funded by Certified local Government grant from the state. We looked at over 120 structures including churches, synagogue, school and convents that were purpose built by and for religious congregations and communities. The earliest in the city are from the mid-19th century and we carried the work up until 1964, since fifty-year-old buildings are eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

I admit that I was surprised to find so many attractive and often imaginative churches in the city. Previously, I'd only paid attention to those few designed by nationally celebrated architects such as May Memorial church (designed by Pietro Belluschi) and Temple Adath Yeshurun (designed by Percival Goodman).

There is no single modernist path taken by church architects, though those working for the Roman Catholic church tended to adopt of more conservative style - combining traditional basilical forms with pre-WWII Art Deco related massing and decorative programs, but with the use material, too.

But even for the Catholic Diocese, which was the most active builder of modern churches, there could be a mix - as on the Northside, where Cole and Cappuccilli designed a  complex of buildings for Our Lady of Pompeii include the a stripped down modern version of a medieval basilica for the church, but strikingly modern assemblages for the church rectory, and the nearby school and convent.  Indeed, the Convent of Our Lady pf Pompeii should be ranked among the very best modern buildings in Syracuse.

In this post I'd like to give just a visual introduction to some of these religious buildings, and then in later posts I'll write about individual structures and architects at greater length.

In Eastwood, plans for an expansive Roman Catholic school and Church of the Blessed Sacrament were put on hold. The school, designed by Paul Hueber, was built in 1930, but the church was not erected until 1950, one of the first religious buildings erected in the city after the War. In form it recalls many churches of the interwar-period where medieval forms were stripped down to their basic geometry and decoration tended to be applied as flat relief.  A similar combination of old and new forms were common  interwar commercial architecture, which I elsewhere dubbed "Goth-Deco."

 

Syracuse, NY.  Church of the Blessed Sacrament. Paul Hueber, arch. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014
 

 

Syracuse, NY.  Church of the Blessed Sacrament. Paul Hueber, arch. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014

In the 1950s, the Catholic Diocese was the biggest builder of churches in the city, where new housing was filling open land in the last big residential building boom experienced in Syracuse. The church was also building schools, convents, care facilities and the campuses of Regina Salve Seminary and LeMoyne College.

Our Lady of Pompeii on the Northside became the religious center of the city’s large Italian immigrant population. The old church begin in 1924, which shared space with a school (cornerstone), was replaced with a new large church and rectory, begun 1951 (cornerstone), a large school expansion, and an architecturally striking convent, all designed by Cole and Cappuccilli. Together, this large program of church building created a striking modern insertion into an old and traditional neighborhood.

 

Syracuse, NY. Our Lady of Pompeii. Cole and Cappuccilli, archs. (1952-57).  Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014

Transfiguration Church, serving mostly the Polish-Catholic community, was built on Teall. Ave. from 1955-58. It is another exceptional example the Church’s melding of traditional forms with new style details. The tower carries into the 1950s something of the modern style of the 1930s.

 

Syracuse, NY Transfiguration Church. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014 

On the Southside the development of the Roman Catholic church and campus of St. James began in the early 1930s, when St. James Hall was completed. But most structures, including the church, were not built until the late 1950s, designed by Frank W. Brodrick. The general style for the church and the adjacent school, blends Romanesque medieval elements with a austere modern aesthetic.

 

 Syracuse, NY. St. James. Frank Brodrick, arch. (1959-60). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014

Our Lady of Solace on Salt Springs Road was built in the mid-1950s, designed by Pederson & Hueber. An essentially tradition gable-front hall plan church with side tower, the open space interior is notable for its stained glass window program created by the Henry Keck Studio. The relief panels flanking the entrance may be the work of great Croatian sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, who was teaching at Syracuse University at the time, and left for Notre Dame in 1955.  The attractive former Catholic school (Our Lady of Solace) across the street was apparently designed by Maurice Finnegan (Allen Kosoff source). 

Syracuse, NY. Former  Our Lady of Solace, Salt Springs Road. Pederson & Hueber, archs. (1950s), Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014.

Syracuse, NY. Former  Our Lady of Solace, tower entrance.  Pederson & Hueber, archs. (1950s), Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014.
 

 

Syracuse, NY. Former  Our Lady of Solace, Salt Springs Road. Stained glass by Henry Keck Studio, 1955, Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014.
 

Syracuse, NY. Former  Our Lady of Solace, Salt Springs Road. entrance relief possibly by Ivan Mestrovic, Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014.

A turn toward more toward more expressive modernism took place in the early 1960s when after a January 1957 devastating fire destroyed the First United Methodist Church of Syracuse (designed by Archimedes Russell and built on a prime site downtown on East Jefferson street in 1904, just across from where the new courthouse would be completed in 1906), the congregation decided to rebuild on the site, and in 1961 a new church designed by Clark Clark Millis & Gilson of Syracuse was dedicated. The area of the church was being considered for the new civic Center, and the architect decided on a “contemporary design, without being radical.”

 

“The result is a modern building that rounds the corner at the intersection of Jefferson and State Streets. It is organized around a small atrium that separates the rounded oblong sanctuary of the church from the church school. ..The exterior is faced with pink granite, buff brick, and limestone. A decorative band running around the structure symbolizes Christian community. Stained-glass windows are framed in bronze.” [Hardin, Syracuse Landmarks, p 94]

Syracuse, NY. Prince of Peace Baptist church (former First United Methodist Church of Syracuse). , archs. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014
 

Syracuse, NY. Prince of Peace Baptist church (former First United Methodist Church of Syracuse), archs. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014
 

This building  was one of the first of several striking non-recliner expressive modern design in the area, including St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Camillus (1957) and Temple Adath Yeshuran (see below) on Kimber Road on the city's eastern edge. Gordon Schopfer was one of the most innovative modernists in the Central New York, and his work included residences and a few small houses of worship. In the mid-1950s he designed the Young Israel Synagogue on East Genesee Street, as a small structure of distinct and multiple parts, each pertaining to specific function. The variety of shapes was further accentuated by the use a different surface treatments. When built this must have been one of the most forward-looking Jewish Orthodox synagogues in the country, though unfortunately the building has been much changed for its present non-religious use.

 Syracuse, NY. Congregation Young Israel, East Genesee and Allen Streets. Design. Gordon Schopfer, arch. Image from Empire State Architect,1955.

Syracuse, NY. Congregation Young Israel, as built, 1957. Gordon Schopfer, arch. Photo: From a minyan to a Community, p. 234.

On the Northside, off Grant Avenue near Shop City, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church was also designed by Schopfer and built between 1958 and 1961, and survives in good condition. It is a fine example of mid-century modernism, combining rationalist elements derived from the architecture of Mies van der Rohe, with more expressive features familiar in the designs of Columbia University architect and planner Percival Goodman.A more unusual design is for Schopfer's own congregation, the Reformed Church of Syracuse on Teall Avenue, where the unusual steeple is meant to recall an earlier church tower.

Syracuse, NY. Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church. Gordon Schopfer, arch. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014
 

 

Syracuse, NY. Reformed Church of Syracuse, Teall Ave. Gordon Schopfer, arch (1964). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2014

Goodman himself was engaged to design the new Temple Adath Yeshuran on Kimber Road in the 1960s, and created one of the region’s most expressive designs for a house of worship. This is one of Goodman’s last synagogue designs (of over 50) executed between 1945 and 1970.

Syracuse, NY. Temple Adath Yeshuran, Kimber Rd. Percival Goodman, arch. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013.

Syracuse, NY. Temple Adath Yeshuran, Kimber Rd. Percival Goodman, arch. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2013.

About the same time the celebrated modernism Pietro Belluschi designed the new May Memorial Church on East Genesee Street (with Hueber Hares Glavin). 

Syracuse, NY. May Memorial Church. Pietro Belluschi, arch. (1964-65). photo: Samuel Gruber 2014.

In the late 1960s Hueber Hares Glavin designed several area churches that continued these expressive qualities including St. Daniels Church (1968), Our Lady of Lourdes (1969) and the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Fayetteville (1969). 

^Sources:

“South Side to Have Two New Churches: Ground Already Broken for One, Another Contract Let,” Syracuse Herald (July 21, 1927) [pdf]; 

“New Lutheran Church to be Dedicated Sunday,” Post-Standard (Sept. 14, 1928) 

“Ground Broken on Site for St. James Church,” Catholic Sun (Sept. 17, 1959).

Ione Tracy, “Four Years of Faith and Hard Work Pay Off,” Syracuse Post Standard (March 3, 1957); 

“Men Volunteer for Pompei Parish Drive,” Catholic Sun (April 23, 1959); 

“Pompei Parish Convent Has Ideal location,” Catholic Sun (Oct 13, 1960);

“Transfiguration to be Dedicated on October 28,” Catholic Sun (August 30, 1956).

“Bishop to Consecrate First Methodist Church,” Syracuse Post Standard (September 23, 1961)

“The New Synagogue for Young Israel of Syracuse,” Empire State Architect, Vol. XV:V (Sept/Oct 1955), 41.

Deco Delights: Discount Deco

Syracuse, NY. 501 Westcott Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015
 

Syracuse, NY. 508 Westcott Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 

Deco Delights:  Discount Deco
by Samuel D. Gruber

 

[n.b corrected March 2024]

Often in cities it is the small things that catch the eye, and the small details the create a stimulating streetscape that one can return to again and again without boredom.  Sure, shop signs and windows displays are the main attraction, but often those ever-changing contemporary details are set in fixed architectural frames. I've posted often about Art Deco period and style building in Syracuse. Most of those buildings wanted to stand out - not just fit in. But one of the best legacies of the commercial building boom of the 1920s is the large number of simple vernacular commercial buildings that rise above the ordinary because they was a bit of thought and a bit of simple decoration. These buildings are scattered around the city, but they were most often found clustered on busy thoroughfares, often on trolley lines.  They are an urban version of the early strip mall which began to develop in the interwar period on local highways to serve the first generation of automobile commuters. 
 
No one has documented these buildings, and they are often remade at the expense of their details or demolished altogether. Several that I remember seeing in the 1990s when I first moved to Syracuse are now gone. The ones I know best are on Westcott Street since I pass them most days. At the southeast corner of Westcott St. and Harvard Pl. is the popular Mom's Diner, which occupies a corner commercial building that has long been a place for local gathering and dining. The names of the establishments have changed, but the popularity of breakfast or lunch with neighbors has not. In the 1990s this was Chatterbox Cafe, and later the Common Grounds. In recent years Mom's Diner has served up popular diner food, and the diner is a popular morning meeting place for Westcott regulars young and old. Architecturally, the basic box-like building stands out with its simple and inexpensive aesthetic of flat brick walls enlivened with geometric patterns. 

Syracuse, NY. 501 Westcott Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Across Westcott Street, Asahi Restaurant (#508) and Beer Belly Deli (#510) now occupy space built in the mid-1920s for commercial occupants, probably first a plumber and a building contractor. The decoration here is more serious - with fluted applied pilasters, a narrow Deco-design frieze and a guarding eagle atop one of the pilasters where the building ends. Next door to the south, filling the in-between space until the Westcott Theater at number #524 is a now much-altered commercial building that originally housed, at least from 1928, the local A & P Grocery Store and the much later the Big M. The top part of the "discount Deco" wall and a series of applied pilasters survive, but the windows were altered in the 1990s when the grocery closed and the space was divided. 

Syracuse, NY. Westcott Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 
Also on the Eastside are a few related 1920s commercial buildings on East Genesee Street. The Community Folk Art Center is a good example, and two doors up Rothschild's Home Healthcare Center also is in a similar building, but the Deco details has been entirely covered over.  

 Syracuse, NY. Community Folk Art Center, 805 East Genesee Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

 Syracuse, NY. Community Folk Art Center, 805 East Genesee Street. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

The north side of the 400 Block of Hawley Avenue, on a block just outside the Hawley-Green National Register Historic District has four contiguous buildings of the type, though the original face on one has been either covered over or entirely replaced.  

 Syracuse, NY. 433 Hawley Ave. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Syracuse, NY. 445 Hawley Ave. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

Syracuse, NY. 483 Hawley Ave. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2015

 

Here is another example from the Westside, at the corner of Delaware and Grace Streets, across from the former Delaware Avenue Baptist church. Who knows how long this charming little abandoned building will last?   

Syracuse, NY. Former commercial building at corner of Delaware and Grace Streets. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2014.

Syracuse, NY. Former commercial building at corner of Delaware and Grace Streets. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2014.

These are just a few surviving examples of what was once a familiar building type. But I'm keeping my eyes open and camera ready to find some more. Are there any in your CNY neighborhood?

CNY Public Art: The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson at Syracuse's Billings Park

 

Syracuse, NY. The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson at  Billings Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2011

CNY Public Art: The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson at Syracuse's Billings Park 
by Samuel D. Gruber  

Among its many public monuments and art, Syracuse boasts a substantial collection of art by women sculptors.  These include the Hamilton White Memorial at Fayette Park and the Kirkpatrick Monument (LeMoyne Fountain) by Gail Sherman Corbett, the Elemental Man by Malvina Hoffman and the bronze Saltine Warrior statue by Luise Kaish at Syracuse University, and the high relief sculpture of the Jerry Rescue Monument at Clinton Square by Sharon BuMann.  There is also an abstract work by Penny Kaplan outside the Everson Museum, and women ceramicists have created murals in the Westcott area.

Perhaps the most famous work by a woman sculptor in Syracuse,The Hiker, located at the south side of Billings Park, goes little mentioned. I venture that today most people who even know the name of the sculptor are not even aware that T. A. Kitson, was a woman. Yet Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson (1871-1932), was a leading artist of her time, and possibly the foremost American woman sculptor of her generation. She made many public monuments throughout the country and at least fifty casts of The Hiker, her best known work, are installed as memorials across the country. 

In 1895, Ruggles Kitson was the first woman to be admitted to the National Sculpture Society. In 1888, at age 17, she won honorable mention at the Salon des Artistes Francais (the youngest woman ever to receive the honor). She was celebrated when she returned to the United States and as a (minor) celebrity asked to comment on everything from art to fashions.  When the Kitsons separated in 1909 (her husband had been her teacher and partner), Alice moved to Farmington, where she maintained a studio until her 1932 death in Boston, Massachusetts.

Syracuse, NY. The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson at  Billings Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2011

Syracuse, NY. The Hiker dedication plaque at Billings Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2011

  
The Syracuse Hiker at the south end of Syracuse's Billings Park in front of the former Central High School. It represents a Spanish American War soldier and commemorates those who died in that war, the Philippine-American War and the Boxer Rebellion. The statue reminds us of time, much like today, when American forces seemed to be engaged in an unending series of conflicts far from home. Though these were the first wars of American empire, The Hiker represents free-spirited and even carefree individualism rather than the increasingly professionalized militarism of the era. A handsome young soldier - ready for a jungle trek - steps confidently forward.  Ruggles Kitson was appreciated as a woman sculptor who could make manly men.

The first version was installed at the university of Minnesota in 1906.  The bronze cast in Syracuse was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1924.  In stanllatuion postdates the inauguration at the north end of the park of a stone monument dedicated July 15, 1920, known as the Rock of the Marne Monument, engraved with names of some of the local dead of World War I, atop of which stands the figure of an infantryman by sculptor Ronald Hinden Perry. .

The Syracuse Hiker was one of the first placements of the iconic statue, which proliferated around the country after 1921 when the Gorham Manufacturing Company, located in Providence, Rhode Island, bought the rights to the statue, and over the next 44 years cast at least 50 Hiker statues.

The earliest installations of The Hiker were mostly in the northeastern United States, often complementing Civil War Memorials.  Post-World War II statues were installed mostly in the South and West.  The Syracuse statue was recently restored and cleaned. Interestingly, because of the wide distribution of the statues, they have been used to study air pollution over the last century since their original state is known, and in case so is the date of their installation.  Thus conservators and meteorologists can compare deterioration and analysis the effect of acid rain and other pollutants in specific places and over measurable time.

 Syracuse, NY. The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson at  Billings Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2011

 

Providence, RI. The Hiker. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2005

Syracuse, NY. The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson at Billings Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2011 

 

 Syracuse, NY. The Hiker by Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson at  Billings Park. photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2011

 
Billings Park is a small open space at South Salina, South Warren and East Adams Streets; about a third of acre in size. It was once a more prominent space in the city, when central High School was open and when the downtown was more knit to the south of the city along South Salina Street. Today, there is little residential use of the area and there are more parking lots and garages than active commercials centers. The space was formerly Warren Park, named like Warren Street in honor of American Revolutionary War General Joseph Warren. Roger Billings had his carriage factory on the north side of Adams Street across from the park from 1841 to 1859;(where the recently constructed bus terminal is now) and he helped improve the park  with help from fellow citizens Richard W. Jones, George Ostrander and George Herman. The provided new landscaping, walkways and a central fountain, and the park was dedicated by Mayor William Stewart, August 24, 1867. 

For more on Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson see:
 

Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein, 1990. American Women Sculptors: A History of Women Working in Three Dimensions (Boston: G.K. Hall & Co, 1990), pp 102-105.

Westcott Neighborhood Murals: A Primer on a Community's Artwork

Syracuse, NY. Boom Babies Mural on Harvard Pl. at Westcott St. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

Syracuse, NY. Boom Babies Mural on Harvard Pl. at Westcott St. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

Syracuse, NY. "Heart of the Neighborhood," community mosaic Mural on Harvard Pl. at Westcott St. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

Westcott Neighborhood Murals: A Primer on a Community's Artwork
by Samuel D. Gruber

Westcott Street has been hopping this summer - with lots of street life at the cafes, restaurants, the new bakery and the Westcott Theater, a popular contemporary music venue.  The Save the Rain Project closed the street some days and caused dislocation, but it is now passed and finally the painted crosswalks have been replaced   Life on the street is good.

Westcott Street - or the "Westcott Nation" as it still sometimes called, is known visually for its murals - the biggest collection of exterior public painted and mosaic wall decoration in the city.  Compared to the mural programs in places like Philadelphia, or even on 45th Street in Seattle's Wallinford neighborhood, this is small potatoes...but the neighbors of Westcott are proud and involved in their murals, so they are not to be taken lightly.  In almost every way this a poplar art, made and promoted by many of the people who witness the murals everyday.  

Thus, I was surprised to find that there is no handy guide to the Westcott wall art.  So here is an introduction: 

The Boom Babies Mural (above), on south wall of 489 Westcott St., is one of the most popular in the neighborhood.  It was painted in 2002 by Michael Swatt and replaced an earlier work created in the 1990s.  Both of the murals utilized a flat pattern language of advertising graphics and poster art to create identification with and nostalgia for past stylish decades, recreated in the vintage and exotic fashions  offered by Boom Babies owner and mural sponsor Lorraine Koury.   The first Boom Babies mural inspired others,  initiating what has become a tradition of mural painting in the neighborhood.

Syracuse, NY. "Heart of the Neighborhood," community mosaic Mural on Harvard Pl. at Westcott St. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber
 

Across the street at the rear of 501 Westcott Street (SE corner of Harvard Pl) facing east, is the 6' x 8' mosaic tile mural “Heart of the Neighborhood,”  designed by SU professor and former Westcott Neighborhood Association board member Marisa Temple and created by community residents,   as part of a project by the Neighborhood Association and begun at the Westcott Street Fair in 1998.  The mural was installed in 1999.

Syracuse, NY. "Peace by Piece," mosaic at Petit Library. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

Another related mosaic mural was installed on the east wall of Petit Library in 2011.  This work was a project of local artist and teacher Ann Cofer; Ed Smith K-8 School art teacher Mary Lynn Mahan; and students from Ed Smith School.  The mosaic mural, is called Peace by Piece, and represents white doves against an abstract background. It is inspired by a paper cut work by Matisse; Polynesia, the Sky.  Cofer and Mahan adapted Matisse's design into shapes the students could make with single or groups of tiles.

About 175 students from grades three to eight worked on the mosaic during the 2010-11 school year.  New tiles were created, and these were mixed with left over tiles from the 1999 mural on Harvard Place. The library was an active participant in the process, as was the Syracuse Public Art program and the Westcott East Neighborhood Association which had sponsored the previous mosaic. The new tiles were filed in a kiln at Syracuse University.  The mural which was made by gluing the tiles onto cement boards and was installed by city employees.  It was unveiled on September 24, 2011.  [see: Greg Mason, "Pieces Linked to Make Mosaic," The Post-Standard / Neighbors City (November 10, 2011).

 

 Syracuse, NY. Community mural by Michael Moody at Westcott and South Beech Streets.   Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

Local artist Michael Moody was commissioned by the Westcott East Neighborhood Association in 1997 to paint a mural. The mural was developed out of a much more comprehensive project of community involvement and planning aimed to revive the Westcott Commercial District.  The scene represents neighborhood residents, including Tony DeLuca, long-time resident and proprietor of Abdo's grocery store (and father of most recent owner Ron DeLuca), who died the year the mural was completed.  Abdo's,  operated by the DeLuca family since 1936, was recently sold to a new owner, and the name will be changed.

Syracuse, NY.  Seven Rays Landscape mural by Jeff Bowe (destroyed), painted in 1990.

In 1990 Jeff Bowe painted an expansive, fantastic and idyllic landscape on the side of the Saven Rays bookstore, long a destination counter-culture business on Westcott Street.  Part of Bowe's work was destroyed during repair of structural damage which required removal a large section of the work. 

In response, in 2012 a committee of the Westcott Area Cultural Coalition, the same organization that oversees the Westcott Street Cultural Fair, began searching for an artist for a new mural on the north wall of the building that now houses the Asahi Japanese Restaurant and Beer Belly Deli.  In preparation for the project the Coalition had asked residents of Westcott to answer the question “What does Westcott mean to me?” Artist Alex Biegler’s design was selected through an RFP process. Biegler, is a Texas native and graduate of Syracuse University. The new mural, completed in 2013, was funded by a grant from the Cultural Resource Council (Now CNY Arts) and the owner of the building. 

 Syracuse, NY.  Alex Biegler at work on Westcott mural.  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2013)

Syracuse, NY. Westcott mural by Alex Biegler (2013). Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

In presenting the design, Biegler wrote "the mural aims to take a universal approach by discussing the idea of community itself.  This will serve both to confirm and challenge the public by providing a mirror of what they already value and connecting this value to its importance with the past, present, and future of the earth."  True, this statement is pretty vague...but still in one way at least it gets to the heart of the subject matter.  The mural present idealized views - silhouettes - of 139 natural forms, mostly referring to various species of tree, birds and beetles.  One can view these a community of related living forms, or a matrix related visual images.  Enclosing each silhouette in a box, however, recalls not a natural community - but an artificial one - that consists of the pinned specimens of entomology class. But the grid also recalls the grid of the Westcott Neighborhood, with each specimen inhabiting its own little block.

 

Syracuse, NY.  Westcott mural by Alex Biegler (2013).  Photo: Samuel D. Gruber

The 70 feet by 14 feet mural consists of three sections: an inner circle, a second circle, and an outer section surrounding the two inner circles.  Within the second circle are a series of silhouettes (the red squares) of natural organisms (plants, birds, bugs). There are no repeating pattern.  Each of 139 different organisms appears once.  Here is list of all the organisms silhouetted in the mural - can you identify them all?

1. Box Elder

2. Red Maple
3. Silver Maple
4. Sugar Maple
5. Sweet Birch
6. River Birch
7. Gray Birch
8. Hornbeam
>9. Hackberry
10. Eastern Redbud
11. Fringetree
12. Flowering Dogwood
13. American Beech
14. White Ash
15. Green Ash
16. Eastern Red Cedar
17. Sweet Gum
18. Tulip Poplar
19. Sweetbay Magnolia
20. Black Gum
21. American Sycamore
22. Eastern Cottonwood
23. Wild Plum
24. Black Cherry
25. White Oak
26. Scarlet Oak
27. Pin Oak
28. Chestnut Oak
29. Red Oak
30. Black Oak
31. Black Willow
32. Sassafras
33. Basswood
34. Speckled Alder
35. Smooth Alder
36. Shadbush Serviceberry
37. Allegheny Serviceberry
38. Red Chokeberry
39. Black Chokeberry
40. Sea Myrtle
41. Buttonbush
42. Sweet Pepperbush
43. Silky Dogwood
44. Gray Dogwood
45. Red-osier Dogwood
46. Witchhazel
47. Winterberry
48. Virginia Sweetspire
49. Marsh Elder
50. Spicebush
51. Wax Myrtle
52. Northern Bayberry
53. Common Ninebark
54. Beach Plum
55. Fragrant Sumac
56. Dwarf-winged Sumac
57. Smooth Sumac
58. Staghorn Sumac
59. Swamp Rose
60. Silky Willow
61. Elderberry
62. Arrowwood
63. Nannyberry
64. Black Haw
65. Cranberry Bush
66. Blue Star, Canada
67. American bittern
68. Blue-winged warbler
69. Brown thrasher
70. Bullfrog
71. Common merganser
72. Common yellowthroat
73. Double-crested cormorant
74. Eastern chipmunk,
75. Eastern cottontail,
76. Grasshopper,
77. Great snowy egret
78. Green hero
79. Laughing gull
80. Limpki,
81. Mallard
82. Marsh wren
83. Mourning dove
84. Muskrat
85. Mute swan
86. Oriole
87. Painted turtle
88. Red-bellied woodpecker
89. Red-tailed hawk
90. Red-winged blackbird
91. Song sparrow
92. Tree frog
93. Tufted Titmouse
94. Virginia rail
95. Willow flycatcher
96. Wood duck
97. Crowned Night-heron
98. Yellow warbler
99. Black Bear
100. Bobcat
101. Canadian Lynx
102. Eastern cougar
103. eastern coyote
104. Grey fox
105. Grey wolf
106. Moose
107. Red Fox
108. White Tailed Deer
109. Allegheny Wood rat
110. American Marten
111. Beaver
112. Mink
113. Raccoon
114. River Otter
115. Striped Skunk
116. Diamond backed terrapin
117. Brown Bullhead Catfish
118. White Catfish
119. Channel Catfish
120. Ocean Run Alewife
121. Blueback Herring
122. Hickory Shad
123. Eastern Chick Beetle
124. Cottonwood Borer
125. Big Dipper Firefly
126. Net-Winged Beetle
127. American Carrion Beetle
128. Solider Beetle
129. Lion’s Mane Mushroom
130. Oyster Mushroom
131. Hen of the Woods
132. Earth Worm
133. American Bumble Bee
134. Box Elder Bug
135. Monarch Butterfly
136. Tent Caterpillars
137. Northeastern Beach Tiger Beetle
138. Karner Blue Butterfly
139. Nine Spotted Lady Bug

 More Westcott walls await. It is time to start planning the next mural.

Syracuse, NY.  Westcott Street walls await murals.  Photos: Samuel D. Gruber