Demolishing a highway that nearly everyone seems to hate has proved more complicated than expected.
Saquan Evans, center, and friends hand out after playing basketball at Wilson Park, which flanks the Interstate 81 viaduct in Syracuse, N.Y., on May 29, 2023.
Part of this stems from the fact that the area primarily affected is Syracuse’s 15th Ward, a historically Black neighborhood that abuts the highway and has long borne the brunt of its impact. Residents in the 15th Ward, despite the promise of the new development, are wary of gentrification and further disruption. But city planners have also faced a string of legal challenges from suburban communities that say the viaduct’s removal will harm businesses outside the city.
But within the 15th Ward, life could still be sweet, recalled Clarence Dunham, who grew up there and has seen the changes firsthand. “In Syracuse, the Black neighborhood was very small,” Dunham recalled. “Most of the families knew everybody. If they didn’t know you, their grandparents did. Or they knew your mother, your father, your uncles. It was very tight-knit, and it was lovely.”
Among the houses that were demolished was the Harrison Street home where Dunham’s family lived, as well as his grandparents’ place on Madison Street. As a struggling community college student, Lanessa Owens-Chaplin lived for a time in the Pioneer Homes, a public housing project built in 1941. Because the viaduct was built right next door, residents could literally watch the cars go by steps away from upper-floor windows. The noise was constant.
Under this plan, much of the traffic that now uses the viaduct would be rerouted to I-481, which traverses the eastern suburbs and reconnects with I-81 farther north. And that’s where much of the opposition comes in. Emmi, like many opponents of the Community Grid, is aware that the viaduct damaged the 15th Ward and probably should never have been built there. “But now that it was,” he said, “and it’s been in place for 50 years, there’s been a lot of businesses that have been built up around the highway that rely on the highway.”
“A lot of people in those corridors, a lot of the African American community in that corridor, are deeply distrustful of government in all its forms, particularly white folks,” he said. It’s not hard to see why, he added. Driscoll tried to explain what was being contemplated for the neighborhood. “Yeah, we’ll see,” the man replied. “I’d appreciate it if you’d get off my porch.”
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