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

Syracuse Mets Home Opener NBT Bank Stadium — Tuesday, April 14, 6:35 PM vs. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders

First home game of the year. The Mets opened on the road and dropped Saturday's game to Buffalo 5-0. Mets farm vs. Yankees farm. Forecast calls for thunderstorms tonight — check the radar and the team's socials before you head over. Tickets

Dolphin Tank - Le Moyne College (James Commons, Campus Center), Tuesday, April 14, 6-8 PM, doors at 5:30. Free. Le Moyne's annual entrepreneurial competition — local emerging founders pitch for $50,000 in funding. Hosted by the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship. Note: same night as the Mets home opener — two good options if you’re looking for a Tuesday night out. Details

CNY Playhouse: "12 Angry Jurors" - CNY Playhouse, runs through April 19. The classic courtroom drama, locally produced. CNY Playhouse runs out of the Atonement Lutheran Church on West Glen Ave. Tickets

CNY Ballet: Depth & Desire - Everson Museum Hosmer Auditorium, Saturday, April 18 & Sunday, April 19 Sat 2 PM & 7 PM | Sun 2 PM | $45 adult / $40 child. Artistic Director Claire Solis is reimagining Bizet's Carmen — the 19th-century opera about passion and jealousy — set to a soundtrack of pop anthems. Joining her are guest artists Jared Brunson (a contemporary ballet dancer) and Nataniel Taylor, a Syracuse native training at the American Ballet Theatre school on a full scholarship. Tickets

Syracuse Crunch vs. Belleville Senators - Upstate Medical University Arena, Saturday, April 18, 7 PM. The Crunch are second in the North, playoffs clinched, with a slim path to the #1 seed if they sweep Belleville this week. Saturday is the regular-season finale at home before the Calder Cup chase. Tickets

Gypsy Blue Revue ft. JP Soars & Anne Harris - The 443 Social Club, Wednesday, April 15, 7 PM Blues and gypsy jazz at the 443. A 75-seat listening room where you can hear a pin drop between songs. Tickets (sold out - join the waitlist)

Yarn - Funk 'n Waffles, Thursday, April 16, 8 PM Country, folk, and rock from Brooklyn. Touring since 2007, a regular fixture on the Americana charts. Doors open while the kitchen's still going. Waffles and Yarn on a Thursday night. Tickets

Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen - Landmark Theatre, Thursday, April 16, 8 PM UK tribute band. They had a residency in London's West End. The Landmark itself is half the experience. Tickets

FunkyBlu - The Fitz, Friday, April 17, 8:30-11:30 PM. Free, no cover. The speakeasy below Oh My Darling runs free live jazz every Friday and Saturday. Walk in, or book a table via OpenTable. Details

Shawn Halloran - Beak & Skiff 1911 Tasting Room, Lafayette, Saturday, April 18, 2-4 PM Free, walk in. Live acoustic at the apple orchard's tasting room. Music specials: $1 wings, 20% off appetizers, $4 hard cider drafts, $4 Orchard Palmer cocktails. We're always down for the quick drive out to Lafayette, but the specials that go along with the jams really make it worth the trip. Details

Coming Soon: & Juliet at Landmark Theatre (April 21-26) — the pop musical from the Schitt's Creek writer. John Legend at Landmark (April 28). Mike Powell's two-night 443 residency (April 16-17) is already sold out — he'll be back.

One food or drink spot this week — what to order and where to find it.

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

Twenty years ago, a Syracuse gym teacher at H.W. Smith Middle School started a lunch club for a handful of boys. He called it "men of strength." It became Building Men, a mentorship program that now lives inside 19 Syracuse city schools and has run through the lives of thousands of kids.

On Saturday night, Joe Horan celebrated two decades of it at a sold-out gala at Sky Armory. Alumni flew in from across the country. The keynote came from Don McPherson, former SU quarterback. It was the kind of room that only exists because somebody kept showing up for twenty years.

Sean Kirst wrote the full story this week in Central Current — how Horan got here, the book recommendation from his sister that started it, the conversation with former SU star Joe Ehrmann that reshaped it, and how a 12-year-old named Muzamil Kaila ended up as one of the reasons the whole thing lasted. Read the piece here.

One thing to say plainly: Syracuse runs on quiet, long-haul work like this more than anyone tells you. The places where people commit to other people for twenty years, in a city that doesn't make the national news for it, are the places the city actually holds together.

Kaila is 22 now. He runs an auto shop called Kaila Auto Solutions on South Avenue, in a garage that used to be called Ed and Frank's. He's on Building Men's board. He hosts a podcast called Formless.

Construction and development around the city, in plain English.

The future of Shoppingtown Mall is back on the public agenda. About 80 residents packed the DeWitt Town Hall courtroom on Monday, April 6 (per WAER's count) — the first community meeting since the county appears to have cleared the last legal hurdle to fully control the 65-acre site. County Executive Ryan McMahon hosted and took questions for two hours.

What McMahon described: a mixed-use site that doesn't have to be retail-anchored. He's floated high-tech manufacturing as a possibility — citing Micron's Clay expansion and the spin-off ecosystem coming with it — alongside "empty nester" housing (his preferred phrase over "senior housing"), retail, and portions of the mall repurposed rather than flattened. He's also said housing alone could serve as the anchor that gets the project moving. Proposals are due May 14. A decision by June.

What residents pushed back on: the graffiti, overgrown weeds, and boarded entrances that have defined the site for years (McMahon promised upkeep until a developer takes over). The lack of transparency in the process. The fear of ending up with something too industrial, too chain-heavy, or too traffic-generating.

They asked for green space. They asked for senior housing. And they asked, pointedly, about Scotch and Sirloin — the steakhouse that's been on that site since 1969. McMahon said the eventual developer will own the restaurant's land too, which limits what he can guarantee.

Resident Angela DeSantis, quoted by WAER: "All these years, we've been held hostage by the county."

McMahon's response, also via WAER: "At the end of the day, the buck's going to stop with me."

Proposals due in a month. Finalists in June. Watch this one.

Coverage from WAER, CNY Central, and LocalSYR.

The city launched its 2026 road reconstruction plan on April 9 — about 20 miles of streets across every quadrant of the city, plus three miles of sidewalk replacement on seven streets that overlap the reconstruction list. Common Council approved the funding back in February: $14 million for the road work, $3 million more borrowed for the sidewalks.

This is a scaled-down year compared to 2025's $25 million / 27-mile plan (of which the city completed about 18 miles). 2023 and 2024 each ran around 23 miles. So 2026 is in line with what actually got done last year.

Major routes on the list include Brighton Avenue (Thurber to Seneca Turnpike) and Midland Ave (Ostrander to Seneca Turnpike) — both anchoring the Southside corridor — and East Colvin east of Comstock, near the SU campus. Also: Griffiths, Knaul, Roosevelt, Williams, South Avenue, and more.

This lands the same season I-81 Phase Two starts visibly affecting surface streets. The state's I-81/I-690 reconstruction is moving from the elevated viaduct down to street-level work — including major underground utility replacement on Erie Boulevard and Salina Street. Two layers of construction at once. The state runs the I-81 Connect app for real-time alerts on that side; the city's work is separate.

The full city street list is on WAER — North, South, East, West. Find your block.

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

Consider this the first entry in a downtown series. Some context: we're not downtown experts. We started working a few days a week out of the INSPYRE Innovation Hub on Harrison Street a few months ago, and we made a point of getting to know what's around. The 200 block of East Water (a few blocks from INSPYRE) is the one we got familiar with first.

Two reasons. First: Water Street Bagel Co. has been an anchor of our downtown trips since long before we set up shop nearby — wood-fired bagels from Meg Dellas and Luke Esposito. Meg's the fourth generation of the Dellas family — her great-grandfather opened Varsity Pizza on Marshall Street in 1926, and the family added Faegan's Pub next door in 1978. Second: it turns out this block has been having a moment.

The Sweet Praxis opened on Water Street in November 2016 — the bakery anchor here for nearly a decade. Founded by two architects-turned-bakers. French macarons, vegan donuts, scones, croissants.

In the last year, two more spots arrived. Pausa Coffee opened in September — European-style espresso program by day, cocktails by night. This newsletter is being written from there, right across the street from Water Street Bagel. Then in February: Wake Up Coffee & Sandwich, Vietnamese phin coffee, and banh mi from the Trang family (also behind New Century on the Northside). They sold out on day one.

Two anchors that have been here, two new arrivals in the last year. Plenty of choices for caffeine in the morning, lunch at Wake Up or Water Street Bagel, an afternoon pastry at The Sweet Praxis, drinks at Pausa after dark.

What downtown block should we check out next? Hit reply and tell us.

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

SU Women's Lacrosse: four overtimes, longest game in program history. #3 Syracuse beat #19 Notre Dame 10-9 on Saturday, April 11, on Senior Day at the JMA Wireless Dome. Sophomore Caroline Trinkaus completed her hat trick with the winner — one second left in the fourth overtime. Twelve straight wins, the nation's longest active streak in college women's lacrosse.

A local pet looking for a home.

Your space — reply and join the conversation.

What's your go-to Syracuse or CNY spot — the one you'd take an out-of-towner to first? Reply to this email. Best answers run in next week's edition.

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

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— Matt & Cary