Divided Highway. As a freeway comes down, Syracuse, New York, faces its legacy of segregation [View all]

[Midnightwalk]

For more than 50 years, Interstate 81 has cut through the heart of hard-luck Syracuse, New York, raining vehicle exhaust on its Southside neighborhood, where most residents are Black and poor.

Now, New York State wants to replace that elevated stretch of freeway with a street-level boulevard to knit the city’s urban grid back together. Construction could begin as soon as next year.

The plan has stirred visions of renewal in a city where one in three residents lives in poverty. Some here say it could also make amends to Black residents who were displaced by Interstate 81’s construction decades ago and have been living in its shadow ever since.'

“When they put that highway up they destroyed this community,” said David Rufus, a lifelong Southside resident who is now an organizer for the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). “Now here’s an opportunity to right that wrong by bringing it down.”

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-BIDEN/INFRASTRUCTURE-FREEWAYS/qzjpqbzzyvx/]