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

Village of Manlius Fourth of July — 1 Arkie Albanese Ave., Manlius Saturday, July 4, festivities 4–10 p.m., parade at 5 p.m., fireworks at dusk. Free. Details

This is the big one: Manlius throws what's billed as Central New York's largest Fourth of July parade, with live music and food trucks all evening. Come early for parking.

Tuesday, June 30

Clay Fourth of July — Clay Park Central, 4821 Wetzel Rd, Clay, plus 4155 NY Route 31. Car cruise 5 p.m., concert 6:30 p.m., fireworks around 9:30 p.m. Free. The week's kickoff — car cruise, concert, and 40-plus food trucks, with fireworks over the old Great Northern Mall lot near the Micron site. Details

Wednesday, July 1

Town of DeWitt "Celebration of America" — Carrier Park, East Syracuse. 5–10 p.m., fireworks around 9:15 p.m. Free. An outdoor concert with Mood Swing, capped by fireworks. Details

Thursday, July 2

Baldwinsville Celebrates America's 250th — Mercer Park, Baldwinsville. 7:15–10 p.m. A village 250th celebration, leading into fireworks. Details

Skaneateles 250th Celebration — Skaneateles Community Center (open house) and Austin Park (fireworks), Skaneateles. Open house 6–9 p.m., fireworks 9:30 p.m. Free. Food trucks, games, and swimming at the center, then fireworks over Austin Park. Details

Friday, July 3

Brewerton "Fireworks on the River" — Riverfront Park, Brewerton. From 3 p.m., fireworks at dusk. Free. Food, music, and family activities along the water, capped by fireworks. Details

Food Truck Fridays — Everson Community Plaza, 401 Harrison St, Syracuse. 11 a.m.–2 p.m. Free. Lunch downtown from a rotating lineup of trucks. Details

Saturday, July 4

Cazenovia Lakeland Park — Lakeland Park, 15 Forman St, Cazenovia. Live bands 5–9 p.m., fireworks at dusk. Free. Live music on the lake, then fireworks. Details

Red, White & Brews at Meier's Creek — Meier's Creek Farm Brewery, Cazenovia. 11:30 a.m. to dark. Free. A day on the farm with beer, food, music, and a view of the Caz fireworks. Details

Sunday, July 5

Freedom Eagle Syracuse 5K — Saw Mill Creek Shelter, Onondaga Lake Park, Liverpool. 9 a.m. A benefit run for Team RWB, the veterans' fitness nonprofit. Details

Tuesday, June 30

Godsmack — The Rise of Rock World Tour — Empower FCU Amphitheater, 490 Restoration Way, Syracuse. 7 p.m. Ticketed. The Massachusetts hard-rock band, with Stone Temple Pilots and Dorothy opening. Tickets

Jess Novak — The Cider Mill, 4221 Fay Rd, Syracuse. 5:30–8:30 p.m. Syracuse singer-songwriter and local fixture. Details

Wednesday, July 1

Harmonic Dirt & Friends — The Whiskey Coop, 120 Walton St, Syracuse. 7–10 p.m. CNY Americana and folk-rock, in Armory Square. Details

The Cold Stares — The 443 Social Club, 443 Burnet Ave, Syracuse. 7–9 p.m. Heavy blues-rock trio from Indiana, at the Hawley-Green listening room. Tickets

Thursday, July 2

Mia Borders — The 443 Social Club, 443 Burnet Ave, Syracuse. 7–9 p.m. New Orleans soul, funk, and R&B. Tickets

Coming Soon: 40th Syracuse International Jazz Fest (July 9-12) — Tower of Power, Trombone Shorty, and the USAF "Airmen of Note," all free, on SU's campus and at Beak & Skiff. The Guess Who (July 7) and "Weird Al" Yankovic (July 10) at the Empower Amphitheater. Skaneateles Curbstone Festival (July 9-11) — free sidewalk sales and pop-ups in the village.

We track way more than we can squeeze into The Lineup. Refer 2 friends to the Club, and the full calendar unlocks:

What's worth eating and drinking this week.

Two spots have our attention this week, and they trace back to the same place: Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, the rib joint that's been a Syracuse institution since 1988. The people who came up through Dino are turning up all over the CNY food map now, and rarely where you'd expect.

Start with the one you can hit this weekend. Brickyard Tavern & Barbecue opened last fall on Route 11 in LaFayette, the work of a house-flipping couple, a former Yankees marketing guy, and pitmaster Davey Rickenback, who learned fire and smoke in Texas and across four Dinosaur kitchens.

He lights the smokers at 3:30 a.m., burns oak from Cazenovia (fireworks Saturday), and runs no gas assist and no shortcuts. "I will not serve reheated product," he told syracuse.com. The brisket sells out most days, so go early. Get it thick-cut and pepper-crusted, or go all in on The Trinity: brisket, ribs, and a house sausage link with two sides. It's 16 minutes south of downtown, and a better holiday plan than babysitting your own smoker all day.

Now the twist: Apizza Alimentari, the new spot opening soon in Fayetteville, is the work of Dinosaur veterans gone Italian. John Stage co-founded Dinosaur Bar-B-Que back in 1988; Paulie Messina ran its bar for years. The two opened Apizza Regionale together in Syracuse, and this is their Roman follow-up. We stopped by this week as the team eased through a soft opening and got a quick tour of the old Kirby's space, and it looks amazing: a Roman-style café and Italian market by day, a full trattoria by night. More on it once they're fully open.

So: a Dino-trained Texan smoking brisket in LaFayette, and a pair of Dinosaur veterans baking Roman pizza in Fayetteville. Only in CNY.

Coverage from syracuse.com, This is CNY, and a visit of our own.

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

The morning we talked, Joe Bright had just sold an entire sorority house's worth of furniture. "That kind of made my morning," he said. Ninety-nine years in, the fourth-generation owner still lights up over helping people on the showroom floor.

There is an important part that the headlines seem to miss. You've probably seen it: the 99-year-old Dunk & Bright store on South Salina Street is closing. It sounds like an ending. It isn't. It's a healthy, growing company, evolving right along with Central New York.

We caught up with Bright between customers; he works the floor himself, his office mostly empty during the day. He'd built a life in Los Angeles and could have stayed. Instead, he came home in 2017 to the business his great-grandfather started in 1927, bought it from his father in 2020, and grew it: the Clay store in 2022, Rochester this spring, and a central distribution hub in Liverpool.

The Clay store sits off the 481 exit you take to the Micron site, and it gets busier every month. Bright is the first to say the timing was luck, not foresight: they closed on it three months before Micron was announced. Either way, the Micron effect is already in his sales. He recently furnished 11 apartments for visiting executives.

The company is growing north as the metro does, and the Syracuse closing is part of that, not a retreat from it. Consolidating to Clay and Rochester, Bright says, serves customers better: faster delivery, a more streamlined experience. He's been public about it since April: "Closing the Syracuse store is about the future," he wrote. "We are evolving to make sure we're here for our customers for another hundred years."

What he won't do is let the building go dark. Bright hasn't checked out of the South Side, where his family has done business since 1927, and he's making sure the block lands in good hands. "I will make sure that this does not become a long-term vacancy," he told us. "The people in this community don't deserve that. We'll find a use for it, and we'll get it repurposed."

The day before we talked, a customer came in and cried: 50 years ago she'd bought a bedroom set there with a husband who has since passed. "It's always more than just furniture," Bright says. "It's symbolic of somebody's Thanksgiving, their ability to connect with out-of-town family. Furniture seems to always mean more to people than just the wood and foam."

Underneath it all is a bet on local. Locally owned stores are rare now, Bright says, furniture shops included: "Not many locally owned ones. Plenty of chains." Dunk & Bright is one of the survivors.

The South Salina store is running its closing sale now, a chance to stop in before it closes this summer. After that, you'll find Dunk & Bright in Clay and Rochester, and at dunkandbright.com. Same family, same care, still here for what this place becomes next.

Construction and development around the city, in plain English.

Joe Bright sees Micron in his sales. The town of Clay is now negotiating what it gets in return.

Micron and the Town of Clay have agreed on a $30 million deal, though it still needs the town board's approval, with the first public hearing set for July 7. And it isn't impact money the way it sounds. It's a swap. By law, Micron's first fab would owe Clay about $62 million in building permit fees, but the town can only spend permit money on permit paperwork.

So Clay reworked it: Micron pays $30 million the town can actually use as it sees fit. Interim supervisor Joe Bick's answer to residents sure they'd get nothing: state law capped the town either way, so "we kinda are."

The structure: $10 million up front for projects the town picks (early ideas include a splash pad, parkland, and a community center), plus $20 million over three years meant to sit like an endowment and soften future tax increases. For scale, Clay's entire annual tax levy runs about $26 million.

Not everyone's sold. "I don't think it's a good deal," neighbor Lyn LaManna told CNY Central, and she's not alone. Residents near the site are already living the downside: along Route 31 and Caughdenoy Road, neighbors say speeding construction trucks kick up so much dust they can't open their windows, and the town is weighing a separate law to let Micron build around the clock. A coming rail spur and a second access road are supposed to ease the truck traffic by year's end.

Clay is saying yes to Micron, the biggest project in its history, while at the same time moving to keep other high-intensity development out: a moratorium on data centers and crypto mines, plus new rules for big battery-storage projects. A town figuring out, in real time, how to say yes to one giant project without saying yes to everything.

Coverage from Central Current, CNY Central, and LocalSYR.

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

You may know Hawley-Green by its houses: a famous row of pastel "painted ladies" Victorians. This is the city's arts district, on the National Register since 1979.

ArtRage Gallery at 505 Hawley Ave runs free social-justice exhibitions, and right now it's showing "25 Million Stitches: One Stitch, One Refugee" through July 18. The gallery is run by the Syracuse Cultural Workers, a progressive publisher that has printed its Peace Calendar from 400 Lodi St since 1982. The two share a building, so they're one stop.

There's serious history here, too. The Mansion on James at 930 James St is abolitionist-built, a documented Underground Railroad stop, and the only James Street mansion open for public tours. A short walk west is the free shrine to Saint Marianne Cope, Syracuse's own canonized saint, at 601 N. Townsend St.

A few of our favorites right around Hawley-Green:

One more for the holiday weekend: the Lincoln Park Pool, a few blocks east down Hawley Avenue from the neighborhood, is open for the season. A good place to cool off as this week's record-breaking heat swoops in.

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

Syracuse Mets vs. Worcester Red Sox — home stand at NBT Bank Stadium. The Mets host the Red Sox, Worcester's Triple-A club, for a six-game home stand over the holiday weekend, June 30 through July 5.

The draw is the post-game fireworks on July 2, 3, and 4. The Mets are putting on their largest fireworks display of the season on July 4, with a light-up baton giveaway before the pyrotechnics. Evening first pitches through the week, with a Sunday matinee to close it out on July 5. Schedule

Your space — reply and join the conversation.

This week's question: What's your CNY Fourth of July tradition? The fireworks spot you always go to, the cookout, the lake, the parade you've watched since you were a kid. Hit reply. Best answers run next week.

One photo from the week — from us, or from you.

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— Salt City Club Team