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Syracuse Eastward

By Daniel Leventhal | Published March 11, 2022

Syracuse, Utica and the Eastern Canal.

Greetings. This is the next-to-last post in my Erie Canal series.  Last post we got to the outskirts of Syracuse in upstate New York.  In this post, among other things, we will stop off at a colonial era military fort, visit a brewery, see some more outstanding surviving stretches of the Old Canal and also a bit of the 20th century Barge Canal, and stop off in two major Erie Canal cities, Syracuse and Utica.

It’s the start of our explorations of the eastern region of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor.  In the map below we begin at Syracuse and get almost to Little Falls. Next post it’s Little Falls to the Hudson and the end of this pictorial trip along the hugely historic Erie Canal.

First, Syracuse.  It was a fine visit. On arrival in Syracuse in high overcast I managed to get some decent shots of the incredible art deco era Niagara Mohawk Building (1932) which is now owned by the energy company National Grid. Don’t even try to photograph the exterior stainless steel and chrome nickel features in bright sunlight!  I returned the next day which was clear and sunny, and even with a polarizing filter the photos didn’t really work out.  It was originally the headquarters of the Niagara Hudson Electric Company which was once the largest electricity provider in the USA. It’s an art deco masterpiece. Wow.  The building was meant to be a “cathedral of light” with the metal winged sculpture to personify electric lighting which then was still quite the technological innovation.  Click here for some more photos.  

I got to see some of Syracuse University, long considered one of America’s most beautiful college campuses.  I stayed at the “Grand Lady” – the restored and reopened Hotel Syracuse (now the Marriott Syracuse Downtown), 1924, which was a great base for walking around the center city.  I loved the Armory Square district in downtown Syracuse.  There was a lot of handsome historic architecture.  My photo above is the striking St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Syracuse with the domed spires so characteristic of sacred architecture in the Ukrainian region.  It seems timely to mention that persons claiming Ukrainian ancestry are more heavily concentrated in upstate New York communities than just about anywhere in the entire USA , and few US cities are as Ukrainian as Syracuse.

The Erie Canal Museum in central Syracuse was the best museum about the Erie Canal the entire drive, and that’s saying something.  I stopped at a lot of them! It is located in the 1850 US National Register Weighlock Building which is the last remaining structure of its kind.  What’s a “weighlock”? You can read more here.  

As is the case in Rochester, the 19th century Old Canal once cut through downtown Syracuse. Here is an image showing what the city center looked like at Clinton Square when the canal still ran through the city:

One of my photos below was taken at Clinton Square and also pictures the Soldiers and Sailors Monument (but sans canal) – the Syracuse section of the Old Canal was filled in and paved over in 1925 to create Erie Boulevard.  

I would definitely return to Syracuse.  I am afraid I can’t say the same thing about Utica.  The F.X. Matt Brewing Company (Saranac Brewery) visit was totally fun.  If you are doing this drive, that’s worth a stop.  As to Utica itself, it seemed pretty challenged.  From what little I have read it was once an important industrial center, but it now has all the markings of a hollowed out post-industrial city which unlike many other such Rust Belt cities doesn’t look like it is on any comeback journey (at least to my eyes). New Yorkers, please forgive me if I am wrong. These are my impressions.

The heart of the Utica downtown along Genesee Street was mostly deserted with one closed business after another.  The center city wasn’t totally empty, and I found signs of resurgence here and there.  Not a lot. Keep in mind these are all pre-pandemic photos from 2018.  It’s hard to imagine what the commercial district would be like now after all the business closures in New York in the last two years.  Yikes. 

As an exception I have included a few photos of the many abandoned buildings one sees in Utica.  As I have said many times in these posts, I don’t like to do “ruin porn” photography and try to show the good bits of these older cities in the US heartland and focus on the many inspiring stories of these Rust Belt cities reinventing themselves and recovering.  I just didn’t sense that Utica was anywhere close to being on that list.

There were certainly good parts of Utica to visit.  Union Station (1914) is a gem.

Here’s an image I found online of more prosperous days in a bustling downtown Utica:

Nearby Ilion wasn’t very inspiring either.  As I journeyed eastward on the drive, many of the urban areas seemed to be struggling and much more so than the western and central parts of the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor. Ilion was no exception.  I passed by the huge Remington Firearms complex as I headed eastward.  The company was founded in 1816 and for many years had its headquarters in Ilion.  It has since moved its HQ to Georgia with expansion and investment now taking place outside of the New York state.  With two insolvency filings by Remington in recent years there have been job cutbacks in Ilion which according to what I read have impacted the city.  In the historic photo below one sees how the Old Canal once ran right by the Remington site.

Let’s end on some positive notes.  The portions of the Old Canal around Syracuse and Utica were as good as any I saw on the whole drive.  If you like old diners, head for the Empire Diner in Herkimer (in a 1952 Mountainview).  It was voted Best Upstate New York Diner in 2017!  US history buffs, Fort Stanwix is a tremendous stop.  In the key early years of the US Revolutionary War it’s the upstate “fort that never surrendered” despite a prolonged siege by the British.  Its survival was an important step in the defeat of the British army in its failed Saratoga Campaign under Gen. John Burgoyne to take the northern colonies (in the final post to follow in a few weeks there will be some photos of Saratoga National Historical Park where the decisive defeat and rout of Burgoyne’s campaign took place).

Here’s the gallery. Enjoy!

Next post:  the final leg of the Erie Canal drive as we make our way to the Hudson.

Click on (or tap) an image to expand it (and use the arrow to the right on an expanded image to go through the set, if preferred over scrolling down in the post).