CNY Parks Close to Home

Summer is the perfect time to get outdoors and explore some of Central New York’s numerous parks. The city of Syracuse operates over 170 parks, fields, and natural areas encompassing over 1000 acres of land – a statistic that ranks Syracuse as a leading supporter for parks in the United States for a city of its size. The parks range in size but they all provide green space for the public to enjoy.

The city, in its earliest years, didn’t have any officially designated public parks. In fact, when Oakwood Cemetery was dedicated in 1859, its beautiful, landscaped grounds became an informal park. Residents would travel there in carriages for picnics and Sunday strolls. Take advantage of the monthly guided walking tours available during the summer months that explore the cemetery’s landscape, individual buildings, monuments, and the people who are buried here.

During the early 1880s, Syracuse was growing but had only two parks of any consequence. These were Fayette and Forman Parks, each barely a block in length. Both were founded on what had been swamp land. When Onondaga Lake was lowered, much of the swampy areas that essentially made up the village Syracuse, were drained. East Genesee Street once ran through Fayette Park, with adjacent green spaces used for military drills and parades. By the late 1830s, the road through the park was no longer used and the park, originally called Centre Square but renamed in tribute to Revolutionary War hero General LaFayette, who visited the area in 1825, became the focal point for the resulting residential area. Those who built homes here eventually paid for a wrought iron fence to surround the park’s grounds and encouraged the passage of local laws that forbade the beating of rugs or the roaming of cows in the park. They also hired a landscaper to create a beautiful oasis of paths lined with benches and shade trees. John Crouse, who lived in the area, donated two bronze statues and a fountain featuring Neptune and mermaids, for the park. Until 1917, when the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation was created, the generally wealthy residents of the homes surrounding the park paid for the its upkeep.

Fayette Park, like a number of today’s area parks, features several memorials and monuments dedicated to local firefighters, appropriately located here in the park now referred to as Fayette Firefighters Memorial Park. In 1899, area resident Hamilton White, a dedicated firefighter who also had donated firefighting equipment to the city, lost his life fighting a fire. The public contributed to the 1905 construction of a memorial to White here in the park. Syracuse’s second fire chief, Phillip Eckel, who also lost his life in an 1886 fire, is also honored with a memorial, dating to 1900. In 1939, the Firemen’s Memorial, was erected in the east end of the park. The monument was paid for by the city after the disastrous Collins Block blaze on February 2, 1939, in which nine firefighters lost their lives. Their names are inscribed on the monument. The city has a restoration effort underway to restore the park to its 19th century elegance.

The land for Forman Park was owned by local businessmen, including Lewis H. Redfield, who gave the land to the city for use as a park. It was dedicated in 1839. In 1908, a memorial to Syracuse’s early pioneers and “founding fathers” was added to Forman Park. Designed by a local marble dealer with bronze figures cast in Florence, Italy, the monument was given to the city by Redfield’s daughter, Margaret Treadwell Smith. The bronze figures are of the legendary founder of the Iroquois Nation, Hiawatha; Joshua Forman, a lawyer, canal surveyor, and promoter of the production of salt through solar means, who is considered by many as the founder of Syracuse; and newspaper publisher Redfield. The bronze figures have been undergoing a restoration.

It was John Burnet who, upon his death, left the city his large farm on the outskirts of Syracuse to be used as a park. The property was opened as the first major public park in Syracuse in 1886. A golf course was built in 1901, said to be one of the first municipal courses in the nation, and a four-acre zoo in 1914. Onondaga County acquired the zoo in 1979 and expanded it to over 60 acres, recently renaming it the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park. Park amenities today include a swimming pool and skating rink.

Nearby, also on the west side of Syracuse, is one of the city’s newest parks, Tipperary Hill Memorial Park. Located at the corner of Tompkins St. and Milton Ave. – adjacent to Syracuse’s famous “green over red” traffic light – the small park is paved with hundreds of commemorative bricks engraved with the names of those who helped fund the park and its bronze memorial or in memory of loved ones. The memorial, dedicated in 1994, features bronze, life-size figures of a 1930s Irish immigrant family sculpted by Dexter Benedict of Penn Yan. The father is pointing out the famous traffic light to his wife, daughter and son. The story, which has variations, is that those who lived in this Irish neighborhood preferred to have a light where green was on top of red. To make their point, stones were thrown to break the light with its conventional color scheme. The city grew tired of replacing bulbs and installed a traffic light where green was indeed over red. It remains at this intersection, a tribute to the contributions (and persistence) of Syracuse’s Irish community.

These are just a few of the many parks that have helped Syracuse earn the title of one of America’s greenest cities. We’ll learn more about some of the other parks in future