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Give Peace a Home
Syracuse New Times, April 11-18, 2007Big Brother’s job will get easier soon when the Syracuse Peace Council moves into its new headquarters near Westcott Street, joining forces to share space with Peace Action of Central New York and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The SPC hopes to move by midsummer, and bring its special brand of peace activism to what organizers see as a more prominent site in the city.
The SPC has been housed in a quaint converted home on Burnet Avenue just west of Teall Avenue since the days of the Vietnam War. Ever since they left the headquarters of the New York State Council of Churches (the current home of Jowonio School) across from Nottingham High School in 1971, the SPC has run all its “Educating, Agitating and Organizing” out of the little house, which was also for many years the home of the Front Room Bookstore and the SPC Press.
While such musical chairs may be hard to follow, the 924 Burnet Ave. location has actually been the most stable place for the SPC since its founding in 1936. “Prior to that, we had a fairly nomadic existence,” said SPC staffer Andy Mager, “staying in different offices for a few years at a home, using donated space.”
Now a new not-for-profit entity, the Center for Peace and Social Justice has purchased the three-story building at 2013 E. Genesee St. for $159,000. The center, which is in the process of obtaining federal tax exempt status, will lease space to the SPC and other peace groups, including the Citizen Awareness Network, an anti-nuclear, safe energy organization. Mager is spearheading a capital campaign to raise $400,000 to pay off the mortgage, for starters.
With this move, the peace and justice organizations will also be able to share resources. “Our intention is that this will foster collaboration,” said Chrissie Rizzo, area director for the AFSC, the social justice action arm of the Quakers. “We already work together on the annual Hiroshima Day march. We are all partners in a group called MAEP {the Military Alternative Education Project}, working with high school and college students, and we hope that being in the same building, more opportunities to work together will present themselves.”
If all goes according to plan, the funds from the capital campaign will allow for the purchase of the building, plus improvements like an elevator, an expanded parking lot and some interior renovations. Slightly more than $100,000 has already been pledged, including $5,000 from retired insurance executive Jack Mannion and his wife, Councilor-at-Large Stephanie Miner. The largest source of funding is from a bequest left to the SPC by the estate of Norma Bentley, who died in April 2005.
To make things a bit easier, the Syracuse Cultural Workers, itself an SPC spinoff, has donated its former home on East Fayette Street, which was vacated when they moved to 400 Lodi St. in 2002. When that house sells, SCW will donate the proceeds to the new center. Mager is also submitting grants to three local foundations, the CNY Community Foundation, Rosamond Gifford Foundation and the Allyn Foundation, to help with the renovation.
“I think this move will increase our visibility and make it easier to work more effectively,” said Mager, who has been a part of the SPC for three decades and worked as a part-time staffer for the past five. “It’s a real plus for us, to be in a better-located, high-quality building; it will, in the eyes of some, add more legitimacy to our work. Being in a centrally located building also makes it easier to work with students at Syracuse University and at Le Moyne College.”
The shift marks the end of an era for the little house that has been the organizational epicenter for hundreds of protests and campaigns. It has also been the home base of nearly 500 editions of the monthly Peace Newsletter. The house was also home to the SPC Press, which for decades churned out posters, flyers and pamphlets for the SPC, its allies, and commercial clients until just a few years back.
“All that’s coming with us from the press is the paper cutter,” said SPC staffer Carol Baum. The process of pouring through decades of stuff and deciding what stays and what goes {the “Impeach Nixon” lampshade is a definite keeper} has already begun. “It’s exciting,” said Baum, “and a little bit sad.”
—Ed Griffin-Nolan
Syracuse Center for Peace & Social Justice
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340 Midland Ave., Syracuse, NY 13202
(315) 478-4571
info(at)syracusecenter.org