The Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) hosted a public presentation Tuesday by the finalists in the Full Circle Design Competition to redesign Syracuse's Columbus Circle and Heritage Park.
OHA held the event at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Syracuse ahead of a reception at the nearby OHA location at 321 Montgomery St. in Syracuse. The three design proposals will be on display from now until Tuesday, Nov. 24, at the OHA's history museum.
The event came a day after the Columbus Monument Corporation (CMC) announced plans to take legal action against the OHA to compel the organization to comply with Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests for information related to the planning of the design competition.
Three distinct visions for the space
Lisa Romano Moore, executive director of the Onondaga Historical Association, spoke with reporters at a reception following the presentations and reacted to the planned legal action.
"You know, they have the right to be unhappy with this project and I know that they were interested in being part of this project," Romano Moore said. "They were invited to be part of it from the very beginning, and I think that would've answered a lot of questions. I'm sorry they weren't. They would've definitely added to the process."
In the design competition, the finalists included the Creative Urban Alchemy Collective of New York City; Rafael Lozano-Hemmer of Montreal; and TEN X TEN Studio of Minneapolis, which is working with MASARY Studio of Boston. TEN X TEN and MASARY are also working with LaBella Associates of Syracuse, an architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental-consulting firm.
Each finalist gave a video or slide presentation of their idea for the redesign. Creative Urban Alchemy Collective offered a concept called Unity Circle & Heritage Walk; the idea from Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is called Memory Park; and the option from TEN X TEN and MASARY is called Living Circles: A Garden of Memory.
Romano Moore also explained to reporters that the Full Circle Design Competition is meant to "think about ways to take both the Columbus Circle or St. Mary's Circle (depending on how you call it) and the Powelson site to create one unified civic space."
OHA will collect community feedback during the exhibition and via the competition website. A committee will select the winning design and announce it in December.
OHA announced on Sept. 10 the three design team finalists selected to advance in the Full Circle Design Competition. The finalists were chosen by an independent curatorial committee from a group of 17 local, regional, and North American design teams invited to submit qualifications earlier this year.
In the ongoing debate, Syracuse's Italian community sees the Christopher Columbus statue as a symbol of Italian heritage, while opponents see the statue as a symbol of colonial oppression against Native Americans. The CMC includes many prominent members of Syracuse's Italian community.
About the legal action
In the corporation's planned Article 78 proceeding, the CMC seeks to compel the OHA to comply with FOIL requests for information related to the planning of the design competition. OHA has so far refused to provide any of the requested information, claiming it is a private nonprofit education association.
The legal action will argue that the "OHA is acting as an agency of the City of Syracuse and at the specific direction of the city administration, and as such they are as much subject to FOIL as the City itself," per the CMC announcement.
The Article 78 action will seek to shine some light on a process that has been "highly secretive," CMC said in its announcement. It wants answers to questions that include:
- Who selected the curatorial committee?
- Who are the nine members and what are their qualifications?
- How were the designers selected that were invited to participate?
- How were the three finalists chosen?
- What guidance were the designers given?
- Who will decide which of the three final designs will be recommended, and how will that decision be made?
- Why was there no meaningful public involvement in any aspect of this design process?
