D-DAY – Hope or Despair
June 6th, 2021- D-Day. Please refer to my series at “word on the street tablehopping.com”. It describes how to restore the American way to the streets of Syracuse. It shows you how to engage the entire City and all of its’s resources on one team. It is well designed, financed and has goal certain results.
The plan is sound. There is nothing lacking but leadership. This column comes out the first part of each month. So, I don’t know if D-Day is underway as I write. It is very unlikely. I know that this column is read by many with power. Many have become my friends over the years. Our City and our Country is embroiled in systemic evil. Systems are cruelly designed, stagnant and not addressed. Our lower middle class and poor are among the most punished and denied in the industrialized world. What I cannot grasp is the loss of bravery and the willingness to sacrifice and take stands and to walk tall right into the storm of human justice denied, and fight for right.
I am from the immediate Post World War II Generation. We were brought up by Top Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation”. The war caused a comradery and a demand for the common good that lasted nearly two decades. America was still an experiment but she never walked taller and with finer intent. So fine that for nearly 20 years it reached the neighborhoods and the people and we knew we were one. The war gave birth to thinking that allowed us to address the dormant evil of embedded accepted systemic racism that flourished openly since the Civil War. The Civil Rights movement was born. Blacks could Vote. They could drink water from the same water fountain and use the same bathroom as whites. They could sit at lunch counters and sit anywhere on a bus. Equality for all, fairness for all, opportunity for all and American hearts full of the “intent” of the Constitution was peering through. As I proceed let us remember that too much darkness remained in too many hearts and racism did not go away. This evil was joined with other evils, far too soon and with great and consuming consequence overcame our reality causing disgraceful neglect throughout the City and our land. Greed and dispassion and neglect. Not just for minorities but for anyone who was poor.
For a while Syracuse was a picture-perfect example of an America caring for all of her people. With Civil Rights, the course was set to include Blacks. I came to Syracuse in April of 1956. Henry’s Jewelers was located in the Loew Building on Jefferson and Salina Street. My Dad was a Manufacturing Jeweler, Clock and Watchmaker. He also cut Diamonds. We came from Hyde Park, New York. My Dad was armed with a letter of recommendation signed by Eleanor Roosevelt. He was the Roosevelt Clockmaker. Henry’s needed someone with my Dad’s talents and needless to say they took one look at the letter and he went to work. Syracuse was in her prime.
Earl Wilson had a Jewelry Store located on Salina Street just before Fayette and Salina. Rudolph’s Jewelers was across the street from Henry’s at Jefferson and Salina. The Hotel Syracuse, the Yates and the Jefferson Clinton were all buzzing with life. The Western Union had the entire building at 351 South Warren Street employing several hundred people. (Today, if you stand across the Street and look up you will see “WESTERN UNION” embedded in the brick. I was the last City Manager.) The Midtown, Loews Strand, Paramount, RKO Keith’s and Lowes State Theatres dotted downtown Salina Street. Dey’s, E.W. Edwards, W.T. Grants, Witherill’s, Wells and Coverly, Bonds, The Addis Co. The Economy Book Store and several other fabulous stores were all thriving with activity. It was the Huge Store Display Windows that were most impressive. Each was designed with great tender loving care by owners’ intent to be the best at what they did. Monopoly had not yet taken nearly everything.
Each Store displayed their wares with imagination, style and fabulous appeal.
Mannequins were outfitted with the finest designs of the day. They were impressive and realistic and you could almost feel them looking back at you as you as you looked at the beauty of each display. The display windows ranged in size yet most covered the entire front of the store. Christmas was a fairytale downtown. As stores were owned individually each cared greatly and Christmas displays were creations of beauty designed by those that loved their store, their customers, the season and the City.
Buses were 15 cents. A bus stopped at virtually every corner in the City every 15 minutes. Transfers were free. You could easily go anywhere. You could work anywhere as transportation was reliable abundant and efficient. We were a manufacturing town. Jobs were abundant. Most homes were single family owners. Apples and other fruit trees dotted most yards on each block along with gardens and manicured shrubbery and trees. Literally, if your sidewalk was cracked you could call the city and they would come and fix it. They were the pathways to school. There was no City School bussing. Grocery stores were everywhere. Huge chain grocery stores like we have today did not exist. If a store charged a few cents too much for a quart of milk or loaf of bread the neighborhood would let them know they better stay fair or else. They were good days. For most they were happy days. Lots of folks did not have much but nearly everyone had values. Everyone tried to dress well, lawns were mowed, hedges were trimmed, there were flowers everywhere in every neighborhood. Downtown was a Diamond. The neighborhoods were Gems. Tender Loving care was everywhere. Petula Clark was inspired to write and sing the song “Downtown”. Well worth googling the lyrics. It was all true. Until the comradery of the war died.
I am not sure what is worse. The actual deterioration and destruction of all of this and the great suffering of the vast majority of City residents or the horrifying systemic failure that are the cause. Or the clear refusal to accept a way forward, even from someone with 75 years of wisdom, living and working in the city, someone who has lived and observed all that has happened, showing you the way. For D-Day to have passed is on you. If you collectively could not pry yourselves away from ingrained systemic evil and injustice.
Something you might do is sit down with the entire City Charter and revise it. Recognizing and removing systemic glitches and especially. restraints, in keeping with the ability to move forward and “for” the people that actually live in your neighborhoods. Sidewalks are a good start. Current policy has all but ended repairs. Set and enforce strong just standards that protect citizens esp. for large property owners and prevent Skylines, etc.etc.etc. – throughout, revise unfair and enforce just regulation.
As I am fairly certain this effort has been in vain, I am poised to admonish. But if, just what if, you paid attention and really got involved in your City in ways that worked and mattered. You would see a great column next month. Celebrating infrastructure on the mend, jobs and opportunity on the horizon, whistling small business owners, drugs dealers startled and unable to poison, patriotism, justice, the easing of pain, the absence of fear, beatings and sexual abuse, esp. of the very young, and renewed hope that is real in the hearts of those that have suffered daily in silence. I write today with a heavy heart as I fear instead you have chosen to maintain youth being raped daily for fixes and beatings vastly unreported and victims of all of the above that cower daily in fear. I fear rather than celebrating an enlightened city on the mend we are continuing in the current systemic cruel rut and pointless endeavor that never fixes the problem.
The people of the streets will continue to weep as you maintain the status quo.
Praise the Lord if D-Day took Place. Wow – Flanders Fields would be at attention and our hallowed sacrifice would be saluting you and they would be proud to be, as you gave value to their absence in the great pursuit I have suggested.
PS: D-day was not set in stone. As a matter of fact D-Day in WWII was delayed because of weather. Make copies of my plan. Read it. Think about it. One day the right people will be in place. It still may be you. You may need to adjust. The Plan is what you must adjust to. Mayor, you may well be in Washington one day. Take the plan with you. It is a blueprint designed for Syracuse but can be replicated and adapted to any city. Remember, if and when you form a team of all City leaders and employees with esprit-de-corps you have an Army Walking Tall. When people are Walking Tall the job will be done.
How to Save our City: December 2020, January 2021 and February 2021- These are the dates of my Series at {word on the street tablehopping.com}. I urge you to read March 2021 and May 2021 for fine tuning. 
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