Syracuse in the News
Syracuse, New York: Best Places
11/09/2009
Source: Onboard Informatics, U.S. News
Sometimes called "the city that salt built," Syracuse has, in reality, a number of assets that have made it the metropolis it is today. Proximity to the Erie Canal made it a transportation hub for the Northeast, as did its accessibility to other major cities, including New York, Boston, Toronto, and Montreal. Syracuse rather unromantically earned its name by committee vote in 1819, but the name has an impressive ancestry in the seaport in Sicily that was once a formidable city-state founded by the ancient Greeks.
You can thank Syracuse for your tomato sandwich. Ninety years ago, city resident Joseph Burns invented an ingenious kitchen device: the serrated knife. But you can probably thank Syracuse for more than that.
This busy city in the Finger Lakes region of New York has been transformed into an arts and cultural center for the Northeast. Syracuse is home to 140,000 residents—and plenty more college kids, thanks to the 20,000 students making up Syracuse University.
This is not a spot for the thin skinned. Syracuse is perhaps the nation's most snowy metropolitan area, with an average snowfall of 114.6 inches. The Syracuse Common Council one year ruled that snowfall beyond the 162.5 inches accumulated by March 30 would be illegal. A couple of days later, the city got 2 more inches. So if you like snow, you're in the right place. Each year, the city celebrates winter with Syracuse Winterfest, a festival of cook-offs, ice sculptures, and, of course, snowball softball.
Syracuse is in the middle of the state, 250 miles from New York City, with a landscape mixed of rolling hills and smooth plains. The city itself boasts a collection of historic neighborhoods, many bearing the aesthetics of Syracuse's industrial past, with their trademark brick factory buildings. The Armory Square district is now a shopping and nightlife destination where brick factories and warehouses have been rehabbed into boutiques and restaurants.
The city's neighborhoods host a bounty of arts and cultural events, particularly in the warmer weather, when the Taste of Syracuse shows off the flavors of central New York and the Syracuse International Film Festival spreads 10 days thick with parties, screenings, and seminars. The international jazz festival, Jazz in the Square, brings music to downtown Syracuse for three days in late July.
The Syracuse region is a golf lovers' dream, with 40 courses dotting the area. The city also has an abundance of museums and galleries, a year-round opera company, and a symphony orchestra. Niagara Falls is a little more than 21/2 hours' drive away. Closer by, the Green Lakes State Park features two meromictic lakes—their surface and bottom waters don't mix in fall and spring. The park features 10 miles of trails.
Syracuse University, founded in 1870, has nearly 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students and is one of the city's largest employers. There are, however, more than 40 private and public colleges in the greater Syracuse region. These schools—which include SUNY–Syracuse, SUNY–Oswego, Le Moyne College, and Bryant & Stratton College—have a total enrollment of 215,000 students.
You'll have access to four acute-care hospitals, as well as outpatient centers and an impressive teaching hospital at SUNY–Syracuse.
The salt industry's heyday is through, but business in Syracuse is still humming. The city's largest employers include Syracuse University, SUNY–Syracuse, and St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center. The region's water supply, rail lines, and other transportation infrastructure are a major draw for businesses.
Housing in Syracuse is a relative bargain for New York State. The median selling price for a single-family home is about $75,000.