The Russell Mason mural of the late Eli Harris, South Avenue near gateway to Elmwood, Syracuse. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

The note came from out of the blue, with perfect timing. A guy named Patrick Will sent me an email a couple of weeks ago, built around this thought:

“I remember reading a article about Jim Gifford in the local paper here in Syracuse that you wrote. I worked with Jim at Van Duyn in the mid-to-late 70s. He was the nicest person I ever knew. I remember his honest and loud laugh. I can can still hear it to this day.

“It’s a real shame what happened to him,” Will wrote.

I called Will back, hopefully with at least a small piece of consolation. I told him there are a lot of folks around Syracuse who haven’t forgotten Gifford, as underlined by this open invitation:

At 8:30 a.m. Saturday, a group of us will gather in Elmwood — the neighborhood Gifford loved — to do an annual peace cleanup in his memory, and in memory of anyone lost on city streets to violence. Two years ago, the nature of that reality was underlined when we carefully worked around an impromptu sidewalk memorial to Kelvonn Godbolt, a 23-year-old who’d been shot to death a few weeks earlier on South Avenue, maybe three or four doors away from the place where Gifford died, at 70.

Twelve years ago this month, Gifford was assaulted and killed in a parking lot where Glenwood Drive meets South Avenue and Valley Drive, in the heart of Elmwood.

In the moments just past dawn, he was walking out of a now-long-gone 7-Eleven, carrying groceries that included a newspaper and a can of soup. Investigators said Romeo Williams, 18, attacked him out of nowhere. Court testimony would reveal that Williams — later convicted of manslaughter — had spent the night drinking cognac and taking “Molly,” a synthetic drug.

A medical examiner testified that Gifford died from blunt force trauma. Prosecutors said Williams maintained he didn’t remember the attack. The man he was convicted of killing was a worship leader at church, a guy who walked to his job at the old Van Duyn Home and Hospital when it was operated by Onondaga County.

If you want to stop by Saturday’s cleanup — we’ll meet where South Avenue meets Valley Drive — we’d love to see you. We’ve done this annual gathering since 2014, starting it on the first anniversary of Gifford’s death. We bag trash and cut down tall weeds in front of abandoned properties (which reminds me: We always can use people with trimmers, an especially precious tool).

Sometimes in the winter, when the plows kick up mountains of snow at the same crossroads, we’ll go to that spot to shovel paths so schoolkids can get through.

All of it, we understand, is a tiny gesture against the forces that lead to such loss. But the point, I guess, is the simple dream that an act of solidarity — and a commitment to memory — provides at least a little traction toward a larger statement about Gifford, as well as Elmwood.

The late Jim Gifford, at the old Elmwood Presbyterian Church. Credit: Courtesy Rev. Dianne Radak

“That was his community, his whole life,” said Rev. Jeanne Radak, a Presbyterian minister who knew him well. “In the way he cared for everyone, he symbolized the need for a whole community to care for each other … that we need to be community.”

I mean, there it is. That’s why we get together. Radak, who met Gifford when she was pastor of the old Elmwood Presbyterian Church, said the congregation meant so much to him that he was often waiting at the door, long before she arrived.

Pat Will, who drove a truck for Van Duyn nearly 50 years ago, said the unforgettably distinct quality of Gifford’s laugh is a reminder of “how he was just a happy guy who made you happy to be around him,” and of how Will sees it as profoundly important — especially considering the way Gifford was killed — “to keep Jim’s memory alive.”

Agreed — and as Radak said, Elmwood is the right place. For decades, that neighborhood was the center of Gifford’s life. He had no children or close family in Syracuse. As pioneering blogger Ellen Edgerton once noted, the way Gifford’s entire life involved places he could reach on foot was a kind of ultimate tribute to the purest notions of civic “walkability.”

 When Gifford died, I talked to many people who knew him from Van Duyn or from his church. He was absolutely beloved. As Radak told me at the time, he was “an innocent person, in so many ways.”

For all these reasons, we’ll do this little gathering Saturday to honor Gifford and all too many others, lost to violence.

Artist Russell Mason works on mural of legendary Eli Harris: This South Avenue
wall was no easy canvas. Credit: Courtesy Russell Mason

The larger goal — and the ultimate tribute — would be for Elmwood and its commercial core to regain the kind of energy that area held decades ago, when Gifford first moved in. For much of the 20th century, that bustling city district included such services as a library, a post office, a bakery and an ice cream parlor among multiple shops and restaurants.

Today, many of those buildings are gone or boarded-up, despite Elmwood’s proximity to eclectic housing and a legendarily beautiful city park. Yet the wistful, used-to-be feeling of that vista experienced a profound boost within the last few months, thanks to an initiative within the perimeters of our cleanup.

Trash piles up along Elmwood Avenue, in Syracuse. Credit: Sean Kirst | Central Current

As part of a “City as Canvas” initiative by the nonprofit Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today, a spectacular mural of the late Eli Harris now greets southbound travelers as they enter Elmwood along South Avenue. Harris was a revered street musician, known to generations of Central New Yorkers, who died in 2020 after he was struck and injured by consecutive hit-and-run drivers.

In that sense, he is part of the same aching story as Jim Gifford — deeply meaningful lives taken unexpectedly, and utterly without reason. The mural, with its sunburst of colors, is an explosive reminder of Harris’ legacy, a feeling summed up in three words by one of his children, Lakisha Harris:

“Oh my God,” she said of her response, every time she sees it.

Lakisha said the mural is a fitting tribute to her father, who spent much of his life on nearby Brighton Avenue. “Emotionally, mentally, spiritually: The passion he felt for his music makes you feel alive,” she said of everything that brilliant image now conveys.

Beloved street musician Eli Harris and his daughter, Lakisha. Credit: Family photo

Russell Mason, the artist, has created other murals around the nation. He said he was initially worried about the rough and irregular contours of the South Avenue wall on which he painted the tribute to Harris, and he is gratified that so many residents see the final result as “impactful.”

“I think we often overlook everyday heroes, people who inspire us,” said Tina Zagyva, chair of the Public Art Commission and a former TNT administrator. She was involved with the creation of “City as Canvas” – then pushed hard for a mural of Harris, a beloved figure in the city. City Councilor Jimmy Monto, a TNT board member who worked with fellow councilor Rita Paniagua on the vision for the two most recent of 10 citywide murals – the funding was provided by Onondaga County – said the hope is always that art can help transform entrenched, gut-level perceptions.

With a mural of such power, Monto said, “the whole conversation about the block is that someone’s trying to do something … that we’re all trying to do something.”

If you have a few minutes Saturday morning to emphasize that point, meet us in Elmwood.

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Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Central Current. He has been an Upstate journalist for more than 50 years. He held his first reporting job as a teenager and worked for newspapers in Dunkirk, Niagara...