Syracuse, N.Y. — Advocates, community members and government leaders gathered Saturday to voice outrage over a proposal to tear down Pioneer Homes to build an optometry college.
Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard reported Tuesday that SUNY Upstate Medical University was in talks with the Syracuse Housing Authority to allow the hospital to build an 8-story eye doctor school where 92 units of public housing are slated to be torn down near Interstate 81.
Those talks have now been paused due to public reaction. The SHA had not told tenants about the plan.
A group of about 20 gathered in Pioneer Homes at the end of Light Court, right where the highway overpass cuts the neighborhood in two. As various community members spoke the Upstate University Hospital sign was visible over the roof of the homes. Children laughed while running with each other down the sidewalk.
The gathering was held the day after an appeals court ruled the state can proceed in tearing down I-81. Onondaga County Legislator Charles Garland, a member of Renew 81, who brought a lawsuit to stop the teardown organized the gathering Saturday.
Garland brought an easel with a map of the Upstate University campus to point out the “missing piece” of Pioneer homes that would perfectly complete the campus, he said. Underneath the map of Upstate was a photo of a little boy. The photo was Garland as a child, living in Syracuse before his family’s funeral home was torn down through eminent domain to make room for I-81.
“What we’re seeing it’s one more repeat of history,” Garland said. “And it’s gentrification.”
Garland stressed the tearing down of 81 won’t fix things.
“This grid is not going to solve systemic racism. It’s not going to solve the overflow of policing. It’s not going to solve our housing problem,” Garland said.
David Rufus, who has lived in the community his entire life and has family in Pioneer Homes, called the discussion “an assault, a violation” and a “blatant break…
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