By Laura Hand
Tuesday, December 02, 2008 at 7:21 p.m.
SYRACUSE -- We tend to think we don't change much---but even in the last 50 years the additions to the landscape are dramatic.
The weather star on what is now AXA Tower, has only been there since 1966. The second tower of the then-MONY complex was built as Carrier Tower, in the early 70s, and there was talk of a third tower up to the mid 70s.
SU Football was played at Archbold Stadium til the late 70s--the Carrier Dome opened in September, 1980.
Oswego County's nuclear plants are also relatively new: Nine Mile One was started in 1964 and completed in '69, with Nine Mile 2 completed in 1988.
Vernon Downs, in Oneida County, opened in the 50s, while the Turning Stone Casino was a 1993 addition.
Bayberry, in Liverpool, was the first suburban planned community in the 50s. Among the first residents, Tony Drago, who remembers paying "$17,900 for the house, with utilities, carpeting, landscaping and blacktop. It was all there for you." "Everything was laid out," says his wife Sally. "And they promised schools and activities. Most families had only one car, but you could call the supermarket for an order, and they would deliver it."
Roads, like Routes 81 and 690 were just built through Syracuse in the 60s. Lifelines like the University Hospital burn unit only started in the early 80s.
Shopping habits are probably our biggest changes--as we moved away from downtown and to shopping centers. Shop City, in the 50s, boasted dozens of big stores.
By the late 80s, the Carousel Center changed our landscape again, and now we look at its expansion, in the old Oil City areas, to again change the landscape.
