Urban challenges are also where blessings can be found
To the Editor:
I don't exactly share my neighbor Sean Kirst's romance for drunken neighbors or faulty gas heaters. Nevertheless, I do share his enthusiasm for a neighborhood peopled with residents who "gladly sacrifice their time" to retain the strength of their neighborhood. In his column, Sean says vibrant city neighborhoods are places where neighbors are truly connected.
For anyone considering a move, I suggest you consider Strathmore. Along with an opportunity to claim Sean Kirst as your neighbor, you might find many others you have a great deal in common with. We have the typical assortment of hardworking residents: schoolteachers, accountants, small business owners, nurses, professors, doctors and lawyers, to name just a few.
To dispel some of the mythology about city living, we are not all hunkered down to avoid drive-by shootings. In Strathmore, we take walks around the neighborhood, attend concerts in the park, visit with each other at neighborhood book clubs or Strathmore Ladies Night. We take great pride in our beautiful old homes, send our kids to fine colleges and in true neighborhood spirit, install hanging plants on telephone poles along our tree-laden streets. Generally when we vote, we know everyone at the polling place. Additionally, many of us relish our five-minute commute to work, the library and Wegmans.
Often when people consider why they live where they do, they will cite the quality of housing, schools, convenience, etc. Yet what most cements people to neighborhoods is their connectedness.
Those who live in Strathmore live here in spite of the challenges of an urban environment. Yet sometimes it is precisely in our challenges where blessings can be found. And we in Strathmore are abundantly blessed. Our mutual commitment to its preservation has given us something to rally around, a way to get to know one another.
As a result, we have a very engaged citizenry, two grassroots organizations, a spirit of volunteerism and the sense of living in a small town. We have wonderful architecture that we celebrate annually in an historic homes tour, and vibrant churches and schools. We have a beautiful park that is more physically woven into neighborhood than any other park in the city.
When neighborhoods face challenges, the best hope for their survival rests with its people. It is with this hope that in Strathmore, people both remain and return.
Patricia Conway Black
Syracuse