SYRACUSE — It was a summer evening in mid-July when the Redhouse Arts Center formally unveiled its new marquee. The marquee’s lighting marked the first time in nearly 60 years that downtown Syracuse had two lit marquees on its main downtown strip, and the first brand new marquee on South Salina Street in more than […]
SYRACUSE — It was a summer evening in mid-July when the Redhouse Arts Center formally unveiled its new marquee.
The marquee’s lighting marked the first time in nearly 60 years that downtown Syracuse had two lit marquees on its main downtown strip, and the first brand new marquee on South Salina Street in more than a century, according to the Redhouse.
“The whole point of this marquee is to tell people where we are,” Franklin Fry, executive director of the Redhouse Arts Center, said in his remarks at the July 15 event.
The Redhouse paid for the $125,000 marquee using funding sources that included a New York Main Street grant through the New York State Department of Homes and Community Renewal. The Central New York Community Foundation matched the state’s contribution, according to Fry.
Prior to the marquee lighting, the “Light the Town Red Soiree” event on July 15 included the presentation of the inaugural Redhouse Arts Center Lifetime Achievement Award presentation to long-time board member Bill Hider.
The Redhouse Arts Center is a nonprofit cultural and performing-arts organization that has presented dozens of performances at City Center at 400 S. Salina St. since 2018.
“I’m overwhelmed. So exciting seeing all of you here supporting the Red House and come out to see me win this award. It’s very touching. It’s very touching to see all the friends and family that came … I appreciate that,” Hider said in addressing the gathering inside the Redhouse Arts Center.
The organization says it was Hider who had the vision and leadership to move the Redhouse from a 90-seat walk-up theatre at 201 S. West Street to the 43,000-square-foot, multi-theatre performing-arts center that it is today.
The Redhouse says it became the anchor and original tenant in 2018 of a building complex that is now called City Center. The organization credits Hider’s vision that “helped give downtown Syracuse a fresh and vibrant place” that now draws more than 25,000 visitors annually.
The July 15 red-carpet fundraiser included cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, a silent auction, live music by Isaac Betters, vocalist Michael Ranalli, pianist Jimmy Cox, and The Cadleys.
“As Redhouse lights the first brand new Salina Street marquee in a century, we hope it serves as a beacon for our community. It will welcome and empower our local artists to bring forward their visions of our community for us all to see,” Fry said in the Redhouse Arts Center announcement.
To acknowledge the new marquee, several Syracuse city landmarks lit their buildings red in “solidarity with and celebration of” the Redhouse Arts Center. They included City Hall, City Center, Crouse Health, Loretto, National Grid, Barclay Damon, St Joseph’s Health, the gate and Exposition Center at the New York State Fairgrounds in the town of Geddes, and the Oncenter - ASM Global Syracuse.
And just up the street from the Redhouse, the Landmark Theatre, which the Redhouse describes as its “neighbor and elder Salina Street sibling,” also had its marquee lit in red.
