Syracuse, NY -- An assistant art professor from Syracuse University and her students are wrapping up work on this year’s class project. It’s two stories tall. Marion Wilson and her class of architecture and art students took on a boarded up house at 601 Tully St., smack across from Blodgett School. They’ve come up with a design to reconstruct...
Syracuse University students and SU professor Marion Wilson (right) discuss final design decisions Thursday for the renovation of a vacant house at 601 Tully St., Syracuse. They are part of a project involving Home HeadQuarters of Syracuse to convert the structure into a home for Fowler High School student programs.
Syracuse, NY -- An assistant art professor from Syracuse University and her students are wrapping up work on this year’s class project. It’s two stories tall.
Marion Wilson and her class of architecture and art students took on a boarded up house at 601 Tully St., smack across from Blodgett School. They’ve come up with a design to reconstruct it into offices, an art gallery, classroom and café where neighbors can settle in with a good cup of coffee.
Wilson describes the project as a “sustainable community storefront for arts, publishing and emerging entrepreneurship.
Wilson, himself an artist, also is director of community initiatives in the visual arts in SU’s School of Education. She came up with the grant money and support to translate the design into reality, with help from SU and other sources. Wilson wrote grants for a solid year to raise the money to help pay for the project and stitched together a number of them, including $50,000 from the Kauffman Foundation, she said. She brought in enough money to cover the rent for five years, supplemented by paying tenants.
Home HeadQuarters, a nonprofit housing agency, has $150,000 in state Restore New York money to pay for the renovations scheduled to begin in June. The agency owns the house, which used to be a two-family dwelling with a history of police calls and drug activity, said Alys Mann, of Home HeadQuarters. .
It is located in a neighborhood under revitalization by the Near Westside Initiative, a nonprofit with partners that include SU and Home HeadQuarters. When 607 Tully is renovated, Home HeadQuarters will sell it to the initiative, Mann said.
Wilson’s class is called: “Social Sculpture: 601 Tully” and she’s had other classes involved in project on the Near West Side. Wilson said she loves the neighborhood for its urban vibe, the park at its center, its many children, its walkability, and the way its residents are so often out and about.
SU’s School of Education will lease the space. Wilson said she has lined up occupants, who will pay a fee to help make the estimated $1,400 a month it will cost to occupy the building. They include a local coffee shop, New Community Press and Wilson, her gallery and projects. Say Yes to Education, which works with city students, will have a teaching garden outside.
Fowler High School junior Troy Hamlin, 16, listens as final design decisions are discussed for the renovation of a vacant house at 601 Tully St., in Syracuse. Hamlin, who grew up in the neighborhood, served as the community expert.Students from nearby Fowler High School, in particular students from its business academy, will use the building, perhaps for internships or to gain hands-on experience in its commercial operations, Wilson said.
Fowler has been involved in project since the beginning, said Susan Centore, the career specialist and a business teacher at the high school. When Wilson first approached her about it, Centore said, she knew it would be good for kids. Fowler students have benefited from a previous Wilson project – the renovation of an old vehicle into the “Mobile Literacy Arts Bus,” which travels to city schools. “She doesn’t just think outside the box. She doesn’t see the box,” Centore said.
The design work and the 601 Tully class are pretty much done, and construction is scheduled to begin in June. But for the past school year, ideas flowed fast and freely as the students devised ways to convert the house — that’s just over 2,000 square feet — on a limited budget. “High school, low resources,” Wilson put it.
The youngest class member a provided a perspective the SU students just didn’t have. Troy Hamlin, 16 and a Fowler junior, grew up in the neighborhood and now lives closer to Tipperary Hill. He served as the community expert, Wilson said.
When the SU students considered creating a green outer wall -- one covered with vegetation -- Hamlin told them the house would look like a lot of the rest of them in neighborhood: overgrown.
When the class began, several Fowler students were involved. Hamlin was the only one continued to make the late-day class that met in Armory Square. He’ll get high school and college credit for participating. He said he learned a lot about city codes, construction and design. “I’ve actually learned a lot more from this, no offense to the school, than I have learned from the school,” Hamlin said.
More Fowler students will get a chance to learn there, when it is completed and before, too. Money from CNY Works will pay for five Fowler students to help with the construction and the storefront should be done by fall, Wilson said. “Its doors are open to the community,” she said.
Contact Maureen Nolan 470-2185 or mnolan@syracuse.com.