Downtown Syracuse street closures set for Taste of Syracuse, Butterfly Run
Downtown Syracuse lost key streets for nearly five days as Taste of Syracuse and Paige’s Butterfly Run packed Clinton Square and nearby blocks with traffic and crowds.
Drivers headed into downtown Syracuse lost several key streets for nearly five days as Taste of Syracuse and Paige’s Butterfly Run filled Clinton Square with food vendors, runners and concert traffic. Erie Boulevard West between South Clinton and South Franklin streets, South Clinton Street from West Genesee to West Fayette streets, and the 200 block of West Water Street were among the corridors closed from Wednesday, June 3, through Sunday, June 7.
The closures hit the people who rely on those blocks most: commuters trying to reach offices downtown, delivery drivers moving through the core, downtown workers with midday errands, cyclists threading between event zones and weekend visitors heading to the festivals. City officials said the shutdowns were needed to make setup, presentation and cleanup run smoothly around the two events, which have long shared the same early-summer footprint near Clinton Square.
Taste of Syracuse returned for its 28th annual edition on Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, in the Clinton Square area. The festival ran from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. both days, with free admission, three stages of music, more than 100 local musicians and more than 75 food vendors offering $2 samples. Organizers said the event was raising funds for Feed Our Vets and Donor Flight Syracuse, and billed it as Central New York’s largest food and music festival.
Paige’s Butterfly Run held its 30th running on Saturday, June 6, adding another wave of foot traffic to the same downtown blocks. The race featured a USATF-certified 5K, a 3K fitness run/walk, a 5K centipede team division and a caterpillar crawl for children under 5. The event, run by Paige’s Childhood Cancer Fund, has raised more than $5 million since it began in 1997, with proceeds benefiting the Dr. William J. Waters Center for Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders at Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital.
The race moved downtown with Taste of Syracuse in 2008, creating a pairing that has become a fixture of Syracuse’s early-summer calendar. With the closures in place through Sunday, June 7, the downtown grid around Clinton Square remained the center of the disruption, and the reminder for anyone heading into the city was simple: plan ahead before the streets fill up again.
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