WHAT’S SHAKIN’

UPGRADE MOVES PASS FORWARD

The tranquil beauty of lovely Pass Arboretum, one of the city’s most natural parks, has recently been disrupted by a work crew with back hoes and bulldozers. The project under way, construction of two rain gardens, represents the most fundamental change to the 12-acre tree preserve in decades, providing both beautification in the park and relief from storm-related problems in its Tipperary Hill community.

Pass Arboretum is tucked inside the city’s western border with the town of Geddes, diagonally opposite Burnet Park. The ground has been excavated just inside the fence along Avery Avenue to make way for the rain gardens, which will convert a grassy gully into 11,000 square feet of flowers, plants and landscaping.

“The purpose of these rain gardens is basically to collect stormwater and prevent it from running into the sewer system,” explained B.J. Adigun, program coordinator for CH2M Hill, the firm that is acting as a consultant for Onondaga County on its Save the Rain program. “The green infrastructure portion of the project being done at Pass Arboretum is what we call a decentralized project. They’re going to be able to prevent as much stormwater from going into the sewer system as possible, which results in less combined sewer overflow. During heavy rain and snowmelt events, the capacity of the water entering the sewer system sometimes allows for backup into Onondaga Lake and its tributaries. The less water we get into the sewer system during rain events and snowmelt events, the less likely we are to have these combined sewer overflow events.”

Upon completion of the project, scheduled for mid- to late-November, water produced by rain and melting snow that occurs naturally in and around the park will be diverted into the garden areas, with overflow funneled into an underground drainage system. “The system is only designed to take so much water over a given period of time,” Adigun said. “In the event of a very large storm, we don’t want flooding or ponding to become a big issue, so we have overflow catch basins. Once the water rises to a certain level, all of that water would flow into the sewer.”

The rain gardens are designed to add to the charm of Pass Arboretum, diminished in recent years by some loss of older trees due to storm damage and attrition. “We know that that space is right now trafficked and basically used as a park,” Adigun said. “We think this rain garden will basically enhance that park-like setting and provide some nice, natural viewing. So it’s a great collaboration and it’s something that’s going to allow us to be able to capture stormwater, but at the same time improve the aesthetics there and provide value to the park as well.”

Tipperary Hill Neighborhood Association president Janice McKenna is looking ahead to more beautification efforts at the arboretum after completion of the rain gardens. “The neighborhood association is thrilled with the whole concept,” McKenna raved. “It’s going to be beautiful with flowers and it’s going to help a lot with drainage in the neighborhood. Anybody who lives on lower Tipperary Hill knows what it’s like in a big rain to have all this rain come gushing down the hill, and this is going to divert up to a million gallons of rainwater a year. It’s going to be great for our environment, great for our roads and it’s going to be beautiful.”

Planners, conscious of the neighbors’ strong affinity for the rolling landscape of the little park, sought community approval early in the project. “The consultants attended our July meeting to present the plan because they we looking for neighborhood buy-in,” McKenna recalled. “They wanted to make sure that the neighborhood would be behind this. Everybody, 100 percent of the people there, was thrilled about this project. At the initial meeting there was someone there from historic preservation because the park has a lot of restrictions as far as what you can do there. I think it’s because it was a gift from the Pass family.”

Those restrictions come from the original deed transferred by Adelaide Pass, the widow of James Pass, Onondaga Pottery Company president and partner in Pass and Seymour, when she donated 12.1 acres to the city of Syracuse in 1925 in memory of her late husband. The deed stipulated that the property, to be known as James Pass Arboretum, be maintained as an arboretum and not used for recreational purposes.

The neighborhood association helped introduced the plan for gardens to neighbors who attended the Tipp Hill neighborhood picnic at Pass Arboretum in August with photos of some of the flowers that will be planted. “We did get some emails from people who hadn’t attended the meeting or the picnic wondering what was going on there,” McKenna said.

There has been an offer of a donation of park benches to place around the garden. McKenna added that such a gift would have to fit into the character of the arboretum. “We’re looking into a variety of styles that might fit in. We’re thinking stone because of the granite entrance posts.”

Placement of the gardens within the arboretum will not only provide a beautiful view to motorists and pedestrians passing along heavily traveled Avery Avenue, it will do so without infringing upon those who visit the greenspace as the sloping terrain is literally off the beaten path, in a lightly used part of the park. The late-season timing of the project gives Tipp Hill residents another reason to look forward to spring.

—Kevin Corbett

Democracy in Action

The responsibility of a journalist is to give a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, beaten down by the powerful.” So wrote Amy Goodman, the independent journalist and host of Democracy Now, who is coming to Syracuse this week, in her most recent collection of essays, Breaking the Sound Barrier (Haymarket Books, 2009). The much lauded and much criticized Goodman will be speaking Thursday, Nov. 3, at 7 p.m. at Hendricks Chapel on the Syracuse University campus.

Bill Moyers, writing in the preface to the book, called Goodman a “tornado of muckraking journalism. . . willing to take on the powers that be to get at truth and justice.” Even her adversaries tend to admire her tenacity. When Bill Clinton called her on Election Day 2000 for a quick “get out the vote” chat, she kept him on the line for a half-hour, until he lost his cool and called her questions “hostile and combative.”

Goodman produces five shows a week of some of the most highly praised progressive journalism you’ll find on the air, both radio and television. Democracy Now has grown from a small independent radio production in 1991 to a multimedia operation that is carried on more than 900 radio and TV stations nationwide. Yet, if you live in Syracuse, unless you are watching Time Warner Cable channel 98 on Saturdays between 9 and 11 a.m., you won’t get to see or hear her.

Retired Syracuse Symphony timpanist Doug Igelsrud, a longtime fan of Goodman, persuaded Time Warner to carry Goodman’s show back in 2003. Each week he downloads all five episodes of Democracy Now from his satellite feed, and then selects two of them to be broadcast on Saturday morning. He finds it difficult to leave three of them out, and has long believed that we would be better off if the show were available locally in its entirety.

“I listen to the program,” said Igelsrud, who turned 70 this year, “because I find there are people on there that you don’t get to hear in the mainstream media. These are not short sound bytes, but indepth interviews with people who are involved in the issue or know the place being discussed.” Echoing a common refrain heard about Goodman, he added, “She is usually on the ground with the people.”

Lately, Goodman has been on the ground paying particular attention to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Early this fall she was a lonely journalistic voice camped out at the Jackson, Ga., prison in the weeks leading up the controversial execution of Troy Davis, the man convicted of murder after the testimony of witnesses who later recanted.

Goodman began her career in radio as a news producer with WBAI in New York City, and worked there for nearly 10 years before taking her show national, and then international. Longtime followers may remember her as one of the first reporters to cover Indonesia’s human rights violations in East Timor, where she witnessed an Army massacre of 270 civilians in 1991. Her colleague Allan Nairn had his skull fractured by Indonesian soldiers while they were covering the massacre. Those who tuned in more recently may recall that Goodman was arrested along with her producer by Minneapolis and St. Paul police at the 2008 Republican convention.

It is her independence that catches the attention of Roy Gutterman, an associate professor of communications law and journalism at SU’s Newhouse School of Public Communication. Gutterman teaches First Amendment law and serves as director of the 6-year-old Tully Center for Free Speech. Goodman is a unique entity on the national media scene, he noted.

“She represents something we don’t see much of anymore: independent media. Especially in broadcasting, that is very, very rare. She brings a different viewpoint, one that is not mainstream. Most media today are corporate. Even on TV, you have Fox on the right, MSNBC on the left, CNN tries to go down the middle. But in a certain way they are each corporate. She has an ability to be independent, to stake out a story without having to worry about following a party line.”

Why isn’t Goodman’s show on radio in Central New York? “I’ve been trying to figure that out since we began planning this,” said Gutterman. Igelsrud has been working hard on getting one of the local public radio stations to carry Goodman, even approaching SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor at the annual Martin Luther King celebration in the Carrier Dome two years ago.

The effort seems to have stalled. “I think there is a bias within NPR against Democracy Now,” said Igelsrud. “A number of us have met with Joe Lee, the station manager at WAER, and it just doesn’t go anywhere. We’ve met with WRVO. They seem to see think that NPR is the gold standard of journalism, and that Democracy Now is commentary.”

When reached by phone, Lee told the Syracuse New Times, “Our program strategy is NPR news and music. Democracy Now is news and opinion programming. We air Morning Edition, NPR News at the top of the hour and All Things Considered.”

Lee added that he considered Democracy Now a “niche” program and noted that it isn’t widely carried on NPR stations nationwide. “Whenever you put something on the air, something else has to come off, and we have to think about how that affects our listenership.”

According to Igelsrud, “When you listen to the program, you don’t hear advocacy and promotion.” You hear the people that she talks to. There are a whole lot of people who want that program here. It should not be the only source of news that people use. But I appreciate Democracy Now bringing perspectives that are hard to find.”

So for now, if you want to hear Amy Goodman, you’ll have to trek up to Hendricks Chapel on Thursday. Her presentation is sponsored by the Tully Center for Free Speech, along with the Syracuse Peace Council, which has invited Goodman as part of the organization’s 75th anniversary celebration. The event is free. For more information, call 472-5478.

—Ed Griffin-Nolan

The Folks Behind the Curtain

As the first snowflakes of the season hover in the air, Syracuse Stage is preparing for a Narnia winter wonderland. The costume shop is stitching outfits and the scene shop is constructing backdrops for their upcoming winter show, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The play, based on the C.S. Lewis fantasy epic, will be Syracuse Stage’s most elaborate show to date, with puppets and elaborate costuming. A grand total of 27 actors are involved, 21 of which are students in Syracuse University’s Department of Drama.

Visitors can witness the magic behind the production on Saturday, Nov. 5, during Syracuse Stage’s third annual open house. Free tours of backstage areas— including the costume shop, scene shop, prop shop and rehearsal halls—will run every 10 minutes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tour groups will see conceptual drawings, partially made costumes, set pieces and props that will later appear on stage during The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, slated to run Nov. 25 to Dec. 31.

The open house will provide theater fans of all ages with the opportunity to understand how a show is transformed into a full-blown theatrical production. During the tours, producing artistic director Timothy Bond, costumer Gretchen Darrow-Crotty and properties coordinator Sam Sheehan will provide an insightful glance into the production process. Performances of this year’s children’s show and an SU Drama presentation will be showcased for free.

“If you’re curious to see what goes on behind the brick wall, then check it out,” said managing director Jeff Woodward. “We reveal all.”

Syracuse Stage’s mission is to be a theater for the community while enhancing the artistic vitality of Central New York. The staff recognized a fascination with theater from a production standpoint, and the potential to draw audiences and community partnerships, and decided to create the open house event. They were surprised at the overwhelming amount of people who showed up at the inaugural open house. Last year they welcomed more than 500 guests—a 100-person increase since the first.

“We thought the best community thing we could do was to open our doors and let people come in to roam the building and see what really happens,” noted Woodward.

The tours begin in the Storch Theatre with Bond speaking about the overall operation and the current season before inviting guests up on the stage to witness an actor’s perspective. Guests will discover the costume shop’s extensive inventory that is made entirely from scratch. Add spiels from the prop shop and scene shop and you have a comprehensive tour in an hour or less.

The tours are first-come, first-serve and are one of the most popular attractions alongside the children’s show, which will take place at 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. in Archbold Theatre. The children’s show is a 30-year-old Syracuse Stage educational component that features the thespians of SU Drama. They tour area elementary schools from late September to early December to present high-energy, culturally diverse and interactive shows. The children’s tour entertains audiences of 10,000 kids every year and has exploded in popularity in the past five. This year’s show, New Kid, has been sold out since the spring and has appeared at more than 40 schools so far this season.

The children’s shows commonly incorporate issues seen in schools such as bullying. For instance, New Kid tells the story of Nick, who has immigrated to America from a country called Homeland. Although Nick is teased for struggling with the language, it is the Americans who speak an unintelligible gibberish that neither Nick nor the audience can decipher. Recommended for all ages, New Kid addresses prejudice and peer pressure without beating the audience over the head with a message.

“We look for an artistic quality to {the children’s plays},” said Lauren Unbekant, New Kid director and Syracuse Stage’s director of educational outreach. “I think the educational part naturally comes out of that because they’re really aesthetically pleasing.”

The open house is also an educational opportunity for aspiring actors. SU Drama students who participate in the children’s production learn what is required of professional actors as they follow the rehearsal process and experience what it is like being on a tour. Girl Scout troops can earn their theater badge, and high school students interested in pursuing theater as a career can visit SU Drama’s information table, or speak with the accessible Syracuse Stage staff.

“In the past couple of years we’ve seen many visiting high school drama clubs. Of course, their eyes are as wide as saucers,” said Woodward. The date of the open house conveniently pairs up with the first on-campus audition date for SU Drama.

For more information, contact Syracuse Stage at 443-2636.

—Samara Napolitan