Decades ago, the northeast side of Syracuse was among the nicer middle class neighborhoods in the city, but time has taken a terrible toll on the neighborhood.

No one knows that better than 86 year old Toni Franklyn. She and her husband, George own a modest well kept home on the 800 block of Highland Street. But Toni has lived in the house since she was 6 years old, 80 years in the same house. The house is full of memories. A turn of the century portrait of her parents graces a wall along with photographs of George in his Army uniform from World War Two, and a picture of Toni when she was in her 20's.

Toni remembers the day her family moved into the house at 805 Highland Street. "It was cold and snowy. I think it was February."

Lately, those fond memories have been replaced by frustration as Toni has personally witnessed the decline of the only neighborhood she has ever known. "I feel that for some reason this part of the city is not something anybody cares about."

On a walk down Highland Street, she showed me homes that she once admired, now falling into disrepair or worse, abandoned. One abandoned home is just two doors away. "My sister ...oldest sister when she got married she lived upstairs... beautiful apartment and hallway... had beautiful oak railings... beautiful beautiful artwork, beautiful construction...it's sad...really sad."

The northside she grew up in was once a vibrant neighborhood, a place where people from different backgrounds and ethnicity took pride in their families and homes. Toni says they respected each others properties. She remembers that hers was first Italian family to move into a part of the city that was almost exclusively German. "The people that lived here, they've moved on, but they swept along the curbside, cleaned it up. When we got married, the first summer we were here, we mowed the lawn and I started sweeping the street, George said, "Want me to get the vacuum cleaner?" Isaid, "Don't get smart. This is what the German people do... that's what i'm going to do" So i swept the street. I still do."

Now Toni Franklyn is the only one who sweeps the street in a neighborhood where poverty and crime has moved in. "I used to go to the stores and if I bought something, (People would ask) "Where do you live." I'd say Highland street." "That's nice up there isn't it?" they would say. Now I get, "Where do you live?" "Highland street" I'd reply. "Are you still there? Aren't you afraid?" Toni said.

Toni Franklyn says when she married George, she thought of moving away, but she says she loved her neighbors. Those neighbors have moved away or died off one by one. Now Toni and George Franklyn are among the few longtime residents left on Highland Street.