Keeping Syracuse time
I have my flaws, but I do know how to treat a lady. Five years ago, for our thirtieth anniversary, I took my wife to a nineteenth-century mental hospital. (We didn’t check in.) This year, to celebrate her birthday, I showed her a traffic light — and as a lagniappe, we gandered at a clock, too. It’s not quite as quotidian as it sounds. Well, maybe it is, but now that I’ve got you on the line, let me tell you why we drove two hours to Syracuse, the Salt City, to inspect a pair of everyday sights. First, the light. In 1925 or thereabouts, the city of Syracuse installed a traffic signal with green on top and red on bottom in the Irish neighborhood of Tipperary Hill. This was done at the behest of an alderman surnamed Ryan. A proud Paddy politico, apparently.
