Private Story
The Town (10.21.20)
“When you from the town, it’s a town thing,” said André “Ralow” Wilson, a neighborhood griot. Late-night summertime block parties, exquisite baby showers and birthday parties celebrate new life, as vigils and funerals observe its ending. The disappearance of neighborhood bars means the emergence of new underground hangouts, like “the hooka spot.”
Ralow first heard of “the town” while incarcerated in NYS. “I think it started in prison and ended out in the street and it just stayed in the street,” he said. “Even though Syracuse is small it’s still big enough that everybody don’t know everybody, so when you see an individual that you never see before that look familiar you be like, ‘You from the town?’ If they from Syracuse they gonna be like, ‘Yo, I’m from the Town.’”
In local and national media, Syracuse is often known for the high rate of concentrated poverty among Blacks and Hispanics1 and the decline of neighborhood shops, supermarkets, and historic residences resulting from decades of redlining, gentrification, incarceration, and job loss. Systematic racist policy paved the way for blight. In 2017, Syracuse’s poverty rate (32.4%) tied for ninth in the nation with Bloomington, Indiana and Dearborn, Michigan.2
Commonplace images of underprivileged neighborhoods focus on crime, poverty, and violence, failing to recognize the unquantifiable human dimensions of care and solidarity abundant in Syracuse. This project attempts to capture the sacred everyday lives of people from The Town. Arguably, these vibrant pockets of community represent the invisible Syracuse not seen by outsiders. My art is nothing without them. I hope that these stories offer a counter-narrative to a one-dimensional portrayal of a once thriving city now on the margins.
1Weiner, Mark. “Syracuse has nation’s highest poverty concentrated among blacks, Hispanics.” Syracuse.com, September 6, 2015.
2Breidenbach, Michelle. “Syracuse makes list no one wants to be on: Top 10 U.S. cities with highest poverty.” Syracuse.com, September 13, 2018.
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