The Lost City

By Cornelia


We're going to spend Christmas in Syracuse with my husband's family this year. My novel A Field of Darkness is set there, in 1988. Madeline Dare, the protagonist, is hugely snarky about living in "The Salt City"--even more so than I was back in 1988, although I often derided the place, as my very patient in-laws would be all too quick to tell you.

The photograph above was taken in Syracuse around 1900, and is my favorite image of the city. One of the reasons I love it is that it bears testament to an aspect of that place which no longer exists--that being the Erie Canal running through downtown.

Madeline talks about it in Field:

I was late for work, stuck again at the five-way Erie Boulevard light. Most mornings I’d drum my fingers on the wheel and wonder why the hell they’d filled in the canal, still down there under the Boulevard’s wide stretch of asphalt. I’d inspect the once-proud buildings, spiky with imperial turrets and crenellations, and imagine how much better they’d have looked from the water, from a barge-deck’s slow glide behind a mule.... I crunched my eyes shut and tried to picture my favorite photograph of Syracuse. It was taken not far from the intersection at which I was stopped, a grainy old shot of ice skaters on the frozen canal. There were young boys in knickers and knit hats with pompoms, arms swinging as they raced through the crowd. A dancing woman in a picture hat. Spectators looking on from the streets above. The figures cast long Northeasterly shadows across the ice, so it must have been taken towards the end of that afternoon. It would have been cold, no doubt with the slicing wind I knew from having lived through two raw winters here, but still there’s a sense of possibility, of wonder.
You look at that crowd and you know they were aware of being spectacular--worth looking at, deserving of record.

There are other parts of the city that exist only in old photographs and postcards:

Like an illuminated amusement park called the White City


or very many people sailing for pleasure on Onondaga Lake, once a resort with steel piers for promenading on, and ferries from hotel to hotel,


but which hasn't been the focus of much recreation since these guys dumped something like 40,000 pounds of mercury into it.

You also won't see any streetcars, "down-city":


Or a steam train, for that matter:


But there are still wonderful buildings to see in Syracuse:

I'm especially fond of the Landmark Theatre--built as the Loews State in 1928,


which is a riot of "oriental" embellishment throughout.



Here is the upstairs lobby:


reached, of course, via the grand staircase:


And here's a view from the balcony seats of the stage itself:


I wish I'd seen the Elvis Costello show here... and I managed to miss New Year's Eve with Sun Ra for the entire time I lived there.

Another great building is the Niagara-Mohawk power building, known locally as Ni-Mo, which is just Deco up the wazoo and can also be lit in different colors for special occasions:

Here's a closeup of the figure above the entrance:

And this is my second-favorite image of Syracuse, just because to me it begs to be put on a pulp novel cover--Syracuse Noir, perhaps?:

Or maybe just Moon Over Syracuse...

And if you're in town, don't forget to pick up some wings at Sal's Birdland, "home of the sassy sauce..."

It is important to have your wings from Sal's with an appropriate beverage. If I remember correctly, these include:

and
Unfortanately, I'm not sure one can purchase Stegmaier's, these days:

But you can still get these, a tribute to the city's first industry:


I will definitely miss racking up Hank Williams songs on the jukebox
of the Crown Hotel, however--now apparently a ye olde Gaelic fern bar.

And I do wish it were still possible to travel to Syracuse like this:

Or this:

The moon is waxing toward her full and every heart beats for joy at the noble scene. How pleasant too, to see the brilliant lamps of numberless boats passing and repassing upon the smooth unruffled surface of the Canal, to hear the song of the jolly boatman or driver-boy, to see the boats sweeping by freighted with the riches of the West.

-- Jonathan Pearson, Diary, July 25, 1833