[historical context]

By simply looking around the city of Syracuse, it's blatantly obvious that there is an immense amount of history rooted in our great city. The beautiful historic architecture that can be found on every street downtown offers a glimpse into its thriving past--the days when the trains and trolleys ruled the streets. One can witness the ghosts of extravagant theaters and movie houses, robust department stores, elegant hotels, and significant civic buildings, as many still exist today. Some still serve their same purposes, while others have been adapted to new uses, yet sadly a good number of the most magnificent pieces of architecture have been relentlessly torn down.

In the years before the railroad lines through Syracuse were elevated (to where 690 runs today), the rail line used to run east-west along Washington St. right through the heart of the city. The Washington Street site was the home to relatively large rail yard to accommodate the adjacent train station--a beautiful romanesque building occupying the northwest corner of Fayette and Franklin. The station was tragically demolished not long after the tracks were raised above the levels of the street, and now we have only the photographs to remember its glorious past.

I wanted to capture some bit of this past, allowing it to influence my design. Dennis Connors of the OHA brought it to our attention that, although the the station has been razed, the underground connecting tunnel still exists under the site since it has remained a parking lot ever since. "It had a mosaic tile floor, an arched ceiling of Gaustavina tile and walls of white enameled brick imported from England." This was an amazing surprise to stumble across, and I want to somehow showcase this surviving bit of history.
Also, I used the notion of all the activity coming and going from the station as a starting point for my concepts, which I'll detail in my next post.

Stick with me; there is little more than a week until I pitch my design to Michael, so I think I'm going to be debuting all my fancy renderings and drawings around the same time. In the meantime, I'm going to fill in my background process and set you up to be wowed and amazed. Or so is my goal.