“I work downtown. And everywhere I go downtown, I see office buildings that are half empty. I see ‘for sale’ signs, ‘for lease’ signs, boarded up windows. It just seems to me that our downtown has died and it would be nice to see her try to get that kick-started, get things moving into this area.”
(David Cherbini, 29, lives in Tully, formerly a city resident, works for Bank of New York/ Mellon.)
“You can’t have people living in the streets, underneath overpasses and stuff. During the summer I would pass them every day, two or three at least, on my way in and out of the city.”
(Colin Taisey, 23, resident of Syracuse’s north side near Court Street, special education teacher.)
“They need more patrols, especially in the summer. On my corner, at night, in the summer time, you see 9-, 10- year-olds dealing drugs right on the corner. And some of them have a gun stuck in their belt.”
(Russell St. Andrew, 70, resident of city’s West Side, retired)
“When the weather changes, and it starts to be springtime here downtown, there seems to be a crowd of you know, individuals, that are just out looking for trouble. And I think there should be a better police presence during the evening hours, because there was one incident where I was harassed by some younger guys.”
(Marcus Boone, 48, salesman at Sutherland Group, resident of the city’s North Side, Democrat)
“There’s things that can be done: More officers, more community services, more places that teenagers can go so that they are taking out their frustrations and aggressions before they turn into crime. What do you do if you’re a 16-, 17-year-old, and it’s 8 o’clock at night? You’re going to get in trouble because there’s nothing else to do. Idle time is the devil’s workshop.”
(Jason Short, 31, lives in homeless shelter downtown, unemployed, no political party affiliation)
(Brian Hayden is a senior majoring in newspaper journalism.)
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