Events this week — what's on, where, and how to get in.

CNY Veterans Parade and Expo — Center of Progress Building, NYS Fairgrounds, Saturday, Nov. 7, expo 9 AM to 2 PM, parade at noon. Expo admission is free.

NASA astronaut Jeanette Epps, a Corcoran High School and Le Moyne College graduate who lived on the International Space Station from March to October 2024 (235 days in space), speaks at 10. The parade brings more than 90 veteran and military organizations and five high school marching bands, and veterans eat breakfast free from 9 until it sells out. Details

Thursday, November 5

Rock & Roll Rebels with Come Out CNY — Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison St., 6 to 9 PM. $25 in advance, $30 at the door. Vinyl DJ, flash tattoos and costumes encouraged. Details

Bad Art & Brews Social — Harvey's Garden, 1200 E. Water St., 6 to 8 PM. $20 plus fees. Make "gloriously terrible art" and meet new people. Tickets

Friday, November 6

Art Mart opens — 500 S. Franklin St., Monday to Saturday, 11 AM to 5 PM, through Dec. 24. Syracuse Allied Arts' 71st annual pop-up gallery of 25+ local artists. Details

Saturday, November 7

Harvest Moon Holiday Market — Crazy Daisies, 4693 Kasson Rd., Saturday 10 AM to 5 PM, Sunday 10 AM to 3 PM. $10; kids under 11 free. Benefits Elmcrest Children's Center. Details

CNY Art Guild Fall Show & Artisans Market — Aspen House, 8550 N. Entry Rd., Baldwinsville, Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM to 4 PM. Free. Details

Squishing of the Squash — Rosamond Gifford Zoo, 1 Conservation Pl., feedings from 10:30 AM. Free with zoo admission or membership. Elephants at 12:30. Details

Queer All Year Market — Community Room at Salt City Market, 484 S. Salina St., 11 AM to 5 PM. Free. More than a dozen artists and small businesses; masks required 11 to noon (free at the door). Details

Springside Farm Holiday Market — 1850 Route 91, Fabius, Saturday and Sunday, 11 AM to 5 PM. Local artisans and holiday treats. Details

Pop-up at Playa Bowls DeWitt — 11 AM to 2 PM. Charm Social's make-your-own bag charm bar and CNY Mental Health Therapy. Details

Monday, November 9

Haudenosaunee Social — Skybarn, 151 Farm Acre Rd., 5 to 7 PM. Free. Traditional Haudenosaunee songs and dances, taught on site. Details

Tuesday, November 10

Hell's Kitchen — Landmark Theatre, 362 S. Salina St., 7:30 PM, through Sunday, Nov. 15. Alicia Keys' musical, inspired by her life. Details

Wednesday, November 4

Harmonic Dirt and Friends — The Whiskey Coop, 120 Walton St., 6 PM. Free. Weekly Americana, folk and bluegrass. Details

Toronzo Cannon — The 443 Social Club, 443 Burnet Ave., 7 PM. $33.77 to $65.75. Chicago blues guitarist and singer, and a retired city bus driver. Tickets

Thursday, November 5

level:memory album release — Middle Ages Music Hall, 120 Wilkinson St., 6:30 PM. All ages (under 18 with a guardian). Syracuse four-piece, with A Kid Called Danger and Intext. Tickets

Friday, November 6

Acoustic Guitar Project — May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society, 3800 E. Genesee St., 7:30 PM. $17 to $20. Five songwriters each wrote and recorded a song in one week on the same guitar. Tickets

Saturday, November 7

A Musical Tribute In Honor of Paul Armstrong — The Lost Horizon, 5863 Thompson Rd., 7 PM. 21+. Seven acts, including the Flashcubes, honor the Syracuse power-pop band's late founding guitarist. Tickets

Sunday, November 8

Celebration at St. Paul's — Saint Paul's Syracuse, 220 E. Fayette St., 3 PM. The Syracuse Orchestra and SU Oratorio Society mark the church's 200th. E. Fayette is closed between Montgomery and S. State, so come in from the west. Tickets

Tuesday, November 10

Robbie Fulks & Heather Maloney — The 443 Social Club, 7 PM. $39.11 to $76.41. Grammy-nominated Americana (country, folk and roots) songwriter, with Massachusetts songwriter Maloney. Tickets

Crunch vs. Laval Rocket, Military Appreciation Night, Upstate Medical University Arena, Wednesday, Nov. 11 (Veterans Day), 7 PM. Schedule

Annika Chambers & Paul DesLauriers, The 443 Social Club, Thursday, Nov. 12, 7 PM. A Houston soul-blues singer and a Canadian blues-rocker. Details

Holiday Shoppes, Horticulture Building, NYS Fairgrounds, Friday through Sunday, Nov. 13–15. $10; veterans and kids 12 and under free. Details

Henry V, Syracuse Stage/Drama Theater Complex, 820 E. Genesee St., Nov. 13–21. $15 to $25. Directed by John Tufts. Details

Art Gone Wild! LIVE Auction, Rosamond Gifford Zoo, Saturday, Nov. 14, 6 to 8 PM. Paintings by the elephant "miracle twins" Yaad and Tukada and red panda Spring; $8 in advance, $10 at the door, $35 VIP. Details

One food or drink spot a week — what's new, what's worth the trip, and what to order.

Simple Roast Coffee, 2265 Downer St., Baldwinsville — drive-thru coffee hut in the Tops parking lot

Simple Roast roasts its beans every day at its Auburn location, and now it has a drive-thru hut in the Tops lot on Downer Street in Baldwinsville, open 7 days a week, 6 AM to 6 PM. Owner Matt Peirson and his team had their ribbon-cutting Thursday, Oct. 29.

On the drive-thru menu, a 12 oz coffee is $2.50, a 16 oz latte is $5, and a 16 oz cold brew is $4.25. Those are the 3 coffee drinks Simple Roast's menu labels "Most Popular." Among its specialty drinks, the menu gives that label to the Electric Fizz, a refreshing, non-coffee, caffeinated seltzer drink (iced only, $5.50 for 16 oz).

From the food side: muffins and scones are $3.25, and cinnamon rolls and Breakfast Bombs are $6. A 12 oz bag of beans to take home is $15.

We're looking forward to trying the Electric Fizz! We'll report back.

Coverage from the Greater Baldwinsville Chamber of Commerce and Simple Roast's drive-thru menu.

A deeper look at one person, place, or project in Syracuse.

Pat Murphy grew up playing baseball in Eastwood. Today he's the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers, and last week, at 67, he led them to the first World Series championship in franchise history.

Four of his friends from the Syracuse area were in the stands in St. Petersburg, Fla., when the Brewers beat Tampa Bay to win it: Bob Campese, Dave Venditti, Mike Vavonese and Mike Meola Jr.

Sean Kirst told their story in Central Current. Murphy and Campese played for an Eastwood Little League team called Wayne's Bike, and they often ended the day still in uniform at Frank's Pizza on North Avenue. Summer days meant a glove on the handlebars, a bike ride to Nichols Field (now Cummings Field), pickup games with breaks to run home for lunch and dinner, then back to Nichols in the evening to play or watch.

At CBA, Class of 1977, Murphy played football, basketball and baseball. He also boxed, training as a teenager at the Syracuse Boxing Club on Midler Avenue (Murphy recalls coach Billy Harris telling him it wasn't for him). Early in his senior baseball season, against Bishop Ludden, he pitched all 14 innings, threw more than 200 pitches and struck out 17 in a 3-2 loss. That night he ate a Butterfinger in the car on the way to CBA's Kid Gloves boxing competition, then won his second straight championship. The next time CBA played Ludden, he threw a three-hit shutout and drove in the only run.

He played basketball at Le Moyne, football and baseball at Bowling Green, and baseball at Florida Atlantic. The Giants signed him in 1982, then released him with a shoulder injury before he ever played a game for them. He kept playing elsewhere for a few more years. "I wanted to be somebody," he told Yahoo Sports in 2024.

Coaching is where it took. Notre Dame hired him at 28, and one of his players there was an 18-year-old shortstop named Craig Counsell. Murphy moved on to Arizona State in 1995, reached the College World Series final in 1998, and resigned in 2009 during an NCAA investigation that ended with a one-year penalty. He said last month that he saw it as an injustice, and that his ego was involved more than it should have been.

The Padres made him their interim manager in 2015 and didn't keep him. Counsell, by then running the Brewers, hired his old college coach as bench coach. Murphy survived a heart attack at the ballpark in 2020, and when Counsell left for the Cubs in 2023, Murphy got the job. He won National League Manager of the Year in 2024 and 2025, and this year's Brewers went 103-59, the most wins in team history.

Murphy came home in 2024 to be inducted into the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame, and CBA has named its head baseball coaching position after him, the school's first endowed coaching job.

His friends say he never lost touch. Vavonese, who met him when they were 8 and playing Pop Warner football with the Eastwood Bears, still texts with him throughout the season. "I went to Tampa to support a very loyal friend who's never forgotten where he's from," Vavonese told Kirst. Before Game 4, Campese, Venditti and two more friends made their way down to the seats just above the diamond, and Murphy looked up from the field and acknowledged them.

"Sometimes we pinch ourselves," Campese said.

Kirst is now collecting readers' memories of childhood pickup baseball, and where you played, for a column. Memories and old photos go to [email protected].

Coverage from Sean Kirst in Central Current (the Murphy column and the call for sandlot memories), SI High School, Yahoo Sports, the AP, a CBA profile and the Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame.

Construction and development around the city, in plain English.

Admission to the Crouse Health Harborview Aquarium will be $25 per ticket, with discounts for children and seniors, CNY Central reported Monday, Nov. 2. Kids under 3 are free.

At that price, a $54 annual Individual membership pays for itself on your 3rd visit, and a $180 annual Family membership (two adults and up to four kids) can pay for itself on your 2nd visit. The annual memberships currently listed are the Founders prices, which end on Opening Day.

There's still no opening date. County Executive Ryan McMahon told CNY Central on Monday, Nov. 2, that it's weeks, not months, away.

Coverage from CNY Central and the Harborview Aquarium.

One neighborhood at a time — what's there, what's changing.

Main Street in North Syracuse started as one stretch of a Native American footpath, the "Thousand Island Trail," which ran from Pennsylvania to the St. Lawrence River. Settlers later laid logs across it to make a rough road, and in 1812 the Legislature opened it as the Salt Road between Salina and Brewerton.

In 1846 it became the Salina and Central Square Plank Road, which the village calls the first plank road in the country: 16½ miles, $23,000 and four tollgates, "finished and ready for travel on July 18, 1846." Loaded wagons got the planked side, and on Sundays bicycles raced on it. The state took over this stretch in 1913, and it was paved in 1914–15 as today's Route 11.

The settlement along the road was known as Podunk by 1826 and then as Centerville, whose post office was named the Plank Road Post Office after the new highway. About 1880, residents asked the Postmaster General to change the name to North Syracuse, and the village incorporated on Nov. 30, 1925.

After World War II, it boomed, reaching 8,687 residents in 1970. Today the village has a draft of its long-range plan, which looks ahead to 2045, and one of the selling points in it is how close North Syracuse is to Hancock Airport, I-81, and Micron.

Where to go in and around North Syracuse:

History from the Village of North Syracuse, its draft Comprehensive Plan 2045, the Town of Clay historian.

Local sports — what just happened and what's next.

Orange football beat No. 19 SMU 30-27 on Halloween with a touchdown in the last 17 seconds. Next: Saturday, Nov. 7, noon vs. Clemson at the Dome (ESPN2). Schedule

Men's basketball opened with a 74-58 win over New Haven. Next: Thursday, Nov. 5, 7 PM vs. Central Connecticut State. Schedule

Women's basketball opened with a 75-48 win over Sacred Heart. Next: Sunday, Nov. 8, noon vs. Cornell (moved up from 2 PM). Schedule

The Crunch shut out Hamilton 7-0 on Friday, Oct. 30. Next home game: Saturday, Nov. 7, 5 PM vs. Hartford (Emo Night). Schedule

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— Salt City Club Team