On Sunday, the streets of the Westcott neighborhood will be filled to the brim with local residents, vendors, food and live music for the 27th annual Westcott Street Cultural Fair.

Stretching four blocks, from Dell Street to Concord Place, the fair on Westcott Street will feature 120 booths and six live performance stages, including more than a dozen bands and dance groups.

Twenty-seven years ago, the closure of a supermarket on Westcott Street started a domino effect. Empty storefronts began to pop up. The neighborhood, said Sharon Sherman, chair of the Westcott Street Cultural Fair, was going downhill. So a group of neighbors got together to make a change and create a sense of community.

“The idea was to revitalize the neighborhood, to do something really positive to help bring the neighborhood back,” Sherman said.

She recalls when the area was called the “Westcott Nation,” in the 1960s. Occupied by “hipsters,” at the time, the neighborhood used to be “dirt cheap” to live in and felt like the Syracuse “Greenwich Village,” she said.

“There has been a lot of new development since that time to the fact that now, it’s one of the top neighborhoods in Syracuse,” said Sherman.

The fair will kick off with a parade at 12 p.m. Saturday at the Westcott Community Center. A march will be led by the American Legion Dunbar Post 1642, followed by the city’s police chief, Frank Fowler, and elected officials including Assemblywoman Pamela Hunter, Assemblyman William Magnarelli and Sen. David Valesky, Sherman said.

Among the crowd will be music and dance performers, nonprofit groups, local churches and politicians.

“The kids just get a kick out of marching down the street in the parade,” said Mark Zane, who manages the Westcott Acoustic Stage for the fair.

The march takes people right to the heart of the venue, which features live performances. Two other stages, WAER Center Stage and Dell Street Stage, will feature live music, as well.

“Almost anywhere you stand at the fair you’re going to hear at least one of the stages,” Zane said. “It’s got a little bit of everything.”

The event encourages original music and does not allow the same act to perform two consecutive years, Zane said. Fairgoers can expect to hear different music genres, typically including reggae, funk, rock, R&B, pop and international.

A cornerstone of the street fair, the number of booths has grown from just a handful to 120 in the past few years. Tents will line the sides of Westcott Street, showcasing handmade items sold by arts and crafts vendors as well as various nonprofit groups, neighborhood associations and educational and governmental agencies.

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“There are so many different kinds of food you can have right on our street,” Sherman said. “This is celebrating our neighborhood, and it’s a boost for our businesses.”

For family-friendly reasons, alcohol cannot be sold outside if restaurant owners decide to have a food stand. Fair organizers are also conscious of the environmental impact of the event and have recycling and composting stations throughout the street blocks it occupies.

Last year, an estimated 11,000 people attended the fair, which relies almost entirely on volunteers. Emily Winiecki, community engagement coordinator at Syracuse University, is working with Sherman to engage with about 100 volunteers from SU for the event.

Winiecki sees the city of Syracuse and the SU student body in a symbiotic relationship. While she said she hopes students participate in more long-term volunteer projects, she said she feels that the Cultural Fair is a great one-off opportunity that takes place right in the community.

For those helping with the event, Recess Coffee on Westcott Street has donated free coffee for volunteers, along with apples from Syracuse Cooperative Market, granola bars from Tops Friendly Markets and a free T-shirt, Sherman said.

“It’s a real neighborhood,” Sherman said. “There are so many involved people in this neighborhood, people who care, who want to make the neighborhood better, who contribute.”

Published on September 19, 2018 at 9:46 pm

Contact Jiaman: jpeng04@syr.edu