Chocolate Can Be Dangerous!

The newly formed Onondaga Chocolate Society will host a repeat performance of their first event, a theatrical production based on scenes from history in which the power of chocolate, the food of passion, has played a deadly role. Chocolate Can Be Dangerous! Barbara Block, local author under the nom de plume of Isis Crawford writes murder mysteries around food themes.  Barbara will participate in the mystery and will sell & sign her paperback mysteries.  There will be a raffle for a huge basket filled with all sorts of chocolate delights and Isis Crawford will draw the winning ticket!

Satisfy your craving and place a reservation for this audience participation murder. Highly entertaining , the performance promises to be dark, rich and full of nuts! Guests will be expected to sample a wide variety of chocolate delights , sip coffee or tea and savor this unique murder mystery! Cost is $15 per person in support of OHA programs. For more information or to place a reservation, call 428-1864 Extension 312. Be warned: everyone is expected to eat, drink and be wary– it’s a killer !

The Evolution of Syracuse’s University Hill

CONTACT:

Dennis Connors,

Curator of History

[428-1864 or djcoha@juno.com]

The Onondaga Historical Association Museum & Research Center (OHA) will present an illustrated lecture on Sunday, June 3rd at 2 p.m. at the Community Room inside Crouse Hospital’s Marley Education Center. The lecture will explore the development of the high ground southeast of downtown Syracuse most known today as the site of Syracuse University. OHA’s curator of history Dennis Connors will use a series of images to explore this history of this district, which began as a residential neighborhood before the Civil War. The Hill also houses other sites with a rich heritage in the community, such as Crouse Hospital, the State School of Forestry and various landmark buildings.

This program is part of a series being offered in conjunction with OHA’s current museum exhibit on the history of Crouse Hospital, which is celebrating its 120 th anniversary this year. The exhibit can be viewed at the OHA Museum at 321 Montgomery Street during regular museum hours.

Those attending the lecture will learn about the two cemeteries on the Hill, see images of Yates Castle, view an early master plan for the campus, find out where golfers once roamed, explore some of the residential architecture that once surrounded the campus, and hear about the variety of hospitals that were established there. There will also be images of Marshall Street in the 1940s, maps of the campus in the 1890s, views of Memorial Hospital under construction and a demolition scene of “The Castle.”

Admission to the lecture is free. Those attending should use the main entrance to the Marley Center at 765 Irving Avenue.

Architects of Memorial Hospital: Dwight James Baum & John Russell Pope

CONTACT: DENNIS CONNORS, Curator of History 

428-1864 or djcoha@juno.com

 

What do Syracuse’s Crouse Hospital and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC have in common?  The answer: an architectural legacy in the work of designer John Russell Pope (1874-1937).  Today, some may dismiss Pope’s architecture as conservative classicism, simply an architect copying antique forms instead of  probing unexplored design territory.  However the recognizable majesty of his famous buildings, like the National Gallery of Art and the National Archives, both on the Mall in Washington, make him a figure worthy of study. 

 

That has been the life work of Steven Bedford, an architect and also an adjunct professor in architectural history at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.  Bedford has written several articles on Pope as well as authoring two books on the man, the most recent entitled, John Russell Pope: Architect of Empire.  On May 20 at 2:00 pm, Bedford will present an illustrated lecture on Pope and his work at the Onondaga Historical Association Museum in downtown Syracuse.

 

Another local connection is that Pope collaborated for a time with an architect named Dwight James Baum (1886-1939).  Baum was a native of Little Falls, but had strong roots in Syracuse.  His parents lived here and he graduated from Syracuse University in 1909.  Baum designed homes in this area, around New York City and especially in Florida.  One of his most famous commissions was the breathtaking 1926 home for circus entrepreneur John Ringling in Sarasota, now housing the Ringling Museum of Art.

 

Baum worked with Pope on the 1929 Memorial portion of Crouse Hospital.  They also collaborated on the design for Syracuse University’s 1930 Hendricks Chapel and the 1937 Maxwell School.

 

At the May 20 lecture at the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA), Professor Bedford will discuss John Russell Pope and his joint commissions with Baum in Syracuse.  The lecture is the first in a series that is being jointly sponsored by the OHA and Crouse Hospital in commemoration of the hospital’s 120^th anniversary.  The roots of Crouse extend back to the 1887 founding of the Syracuse Hospital for Women and Children.  The history of Crouse is being presented in a concurrent exhibit at the OHA Museum that will run until August 5. 

 

Admission to the lecture is free.  For more information, contact the OHA at 428-1864.