October 31, 2002

City Targets Dilapidated Buildings

by Frederic Pierce, Staff writer

Sometimes, giving something to a neighborhood means taking something away from a neighborhood.

In the case of two city areas targeted by the Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative, that something is a cluster of vacant dilapidated and dangerous buildings.

When Rep. James Walsh and Mayor Matt Driscoll last week unveiled their comprehensive plans for the Cannon and Newell street and Onondaga and Geddes street corridors, they made it clear that demolishing those eyesores was a priority.

On the west side, Driscoll said the city was already in the process of tearing down four abandoned buildings.  He even got behind the controls of an excavator and took the first few bites out of a West Onondaga Street house.

Driscoll pledged to knock down eight more buildings in the area within three months and one more by spring.

He made a similar pledge for the area around Cannon and Newell streets, where crews had already demolished six vacant buildings during the previous month.

Nine more will fall before spring, Driscoll said.

Money for the demolitions will come from the $2 million that each of the areas received as part of Walsh's $31 million Syracuse Neighborhood Initiative.

This is the city's schedule for tearing down problem structures in these two neighborhoods:

© 2002 The Post-Standard.