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

Vegtoberfest — Harvey's Garden, 1200 E. Water St., Saturday, Oct. 24, 1 to 6 PM. Free.

The Syracuse Veg Collective's fall festival, with vegan food and drinks, craft vendors and entertainment. The collective holds seasonal festivals to showcase local vegan vendors and raise money for local animal sanctuaries. Details

Wednesday, October 21

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Cosmic Collisions — Landmark Theatre, 362 S. Salina St., 7:30 PM. The astrophysicist on asteroid and comet impacts. Tickets

Micron panel at ArtRage — ArtRage Gallery, 505 Hawley Ave., 6 PM. Free, RSVP required. A panel on what Micron means for the region's environment and economy. Details

Thursday, October 22

Ragtime — Baldwinsville Theatre Guild at the Everson Museum of Art, 401 Harrison St., Thursday through Saturday at 7 PM, Sunday at 2 PM. $40. With a 21-piece live orchestra. Tickets

Friday, October 23

Jurassic Quest — NYS Fairgrounds, Friday 1 to 6 PM, Saturday 8 AM to 8 PM, Sunday 9 AM to 5 PM. $30.69 plus fees, under 2 free; timed tickets. Tickets

Spooktacular Stroll — Long Branch Park, Liverpool, Friday through Sunday, 5 to 9 PM. A family-friendly, not-so-scary half-mile Halloween walk. Details

Crunch vs. Rochester, Pink in the Rink — Upstate Medical University Arena, 7 PM. $15 student rush with ID. Raises money for the Upstate Cancer Center's She Matters mammogram program. Details

Fright Nights — 1 Lepage Pl., Friday and Saturday 7 PM to midnight, Sunday 7 to 11 PM. $45 at the door, less in advance. Haunted houses, open through Oct. 31. Tickets

Saturday, October 24

Syracuse Stage Family Day — Syracuse Stage, 820 E. Genesee St., 9 AM to noon. Free. Hands-on theater stations and a free children's show at 10. Details

EEK = MC² Halloween Weekend — The MOST, 500 S. Franklin St., Saturday and Sunday, 9:30 AM to 5 PM. Free with admission. Halloween science crafts and games; costumes encouraged. Details

Zoo Boo, final weekend — Rosamond Gifford Zoo, 1 Conservation Pl., Saturday and Sunday, 10 AM to 3 PM. Included with admission. Details

Halloween Bash — 1911 Tasting Room at Beak & Skiff, 2708 Lords Hill Rd., LaFayette, 6:30 to 10:30 PM. $30 with one drink and a buffet. 21+. With a costume contest. Tickets

Sunday, October 25

Trick or Treat at the Salt City Market — Salt City Market, 484 S. Salina St., 11 AM to 2 PM. Free. Trick-or-treating at the market's businesses, plus family movies and activities. Details

Wednesday, October 21

Carsie Blanton — The Song & Dance, 115 E. Jefferson St., 8 PM (doors 7). 16+. Folk singer in the Woody Guthrie tradition, with The Burning Hell. Tickets

Thursday, October 22

Peppino D'Agostino with Ben Ellis — Pink Rock Culture Co-op, 201 E. Jefferson St., 6:30 PM. $25 to $50. Italian-born guitarist, with classical guitarist Ben Ellis. Details

Friday, October 23

DAMDOG — The Fitz, 321 S. Salina St., 8:30 PM. Free. A CNY band for 50 years, in the NYS Blues Hall of Fame. Details

Saturday, October 24

Halloween by Candlelight — The Syracuse Orchestra, Inspiration Hall, 709 James St., 7 PM. An hour of Halloween music by candlelight, from Danse Macabre to Ghostbusters. Tickets

Camerata RCO — Grant Middle School, 2400 Grant Blvd., 7:30 PM. $30, $25 seniors; students and EBT/SNAP holders free with ID. Members of Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, in their first Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music appearance. Details

Method Man & Redman — Upstate Medical Arena at the Oncenter War Memorial, 8 PM (doors 7). With The L.O.X. and Lloyd Banks. Details

Bearly Dead — Middle Ages Music Hall, 120 Wilkinson St., 8 PM (doors 7). All ages; under 18 with a guardian. Grateful Dead tribute. Tickets

Sunday, October 25

Syracuse Chamber Orchestra: Symphony Samplings — Park Central Presbyterian Church, 504 E. Fayette St., 3 PM. Free. The orchestra's sixth-season opener, with symphonies from Haydn to Mendelssohn. Details

The Merz Trio — Hendricks Chapel, Syracuse University, 4 PM. Free. Beethoven, Clara Schumann and SU composer Loren Loiacono. Details

Monday, October 26

Dead Night with Pearly Baker's Best — Funk 'n Waffles, 307-313 S. Clinton St., 7:30 PM. 18+. A Grateful Dead tribute with a weekly residency. Tickets

#SYRFoodTrucks Monster Bash, F-Shed at the CNY Regional Market, Friday, Oct. 30, 5 to 11 PM. 21+. 13 food trucks and hourly costume contests; $25 through Thursday, Oct. 22, then $35.

Funk 'n Waffles Fall Fest, Friday, Oct. 30, 6:30 PM, with Sophistafunk, New Planets and more. 18+.

Crunch vs. Hamilton, Halloween Spooktacular, Friday, Oct. 30, 7 PM.

Orange football vs. SMU, Saturday, Oct. 31, noon at the Dome.

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

Brooklyn Pickle, 2222 Burnet Ave. — deli and sandwich shop

We often write about new spots here, but the classics also deserve some recognition, and a deli that's been on Burnet Avenue since 1975 belongs in the rotation too. The Burnet Avenue shop is where it started: Ken Sniper opened it with just over $2,000, in a storefront 13 feet wide. The name comes from the pickles his family brought home from visits to his grandmother in Brooklyn, where his mother grew up. He wanted that pickle with every sandwich, and every sandwich still comes with them.

A new building replaced the original by 1992, and a major expansion in 2007 gave it its current form. Craig Kowadla, who started at the register at 7 and came back to work for Sniper in the early 2000s, bought the business in 2022. Inside, look for the pickle-shaped table and the neon Brooklyn Bridge.

We stopped in for lunch this week and ordered the Brooklyn Pickle Special: corned beef, pastrami, Russian dressing and Swiss on dark rye. A whole sandwich comes on rye slices about twice as wide as a regular loaf's, so it's a great deal if you can split it with a friend. Lunchtime gets busy, but the staff moves you through the line with a no-nonsense ordering style. We had ours to go, and we were in and out quickly.

The daily soup specials are on our radar for the next time we stop in, with five or six choices the day we went, chili among them. Chicken noodle is on every day.

What to order: the Brooklyn Pickle Special, and bring someone to split it with.

Hours: 10 AM to 8 PM, closed Sunday. Menu and online ordering

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

In 2018, an SU sophomore named Charlie Fleisher walked into Caraway Cleaners on Burnet Avenue and asked whether the owners would do his laundry. Xai Uon was at the front counter. She gave him 10% off and got started, and the next time he came in, he brought his friends.

The couple's company for the Burnet Avenue shop dates to 2012, per state records, six years before he walked in.

"Then he goes, 'I'm gonna try to get you some of the ladies, too,'" Xai told The Daily Orange.

Eight years later, Xai and her husband, Ray, do laundry for about 50 SU students a semester, at $1.50 a pound, cash or check. Ray takes orders by call or text and drives his Toyota minivan around campus most days for pickup and drop-off. They've never spent "a dime on advertising." Students pass his number along, and parents post about him in Facebook groups.

Back at the shop, Xai handles the walk-in orders and helps fold the student loads once Ray is back. Cash left in a pocket comes back in a labeled envelope on top of the clothes. Above one of the washers hangs a framed photo of their first group of students, who graduated in 2021; Xai calls them her "pioneers." Two of them went fly fishing in Pulaski with Ray their senior year.

"We're almost like a second parent for them," Ray said.

Ray came to Syracuse from Cambodia at 13, and he said it matters to him that everyone feels welcome; he was new to Syracuse once, too.

"We just show them that we have nice people in Syracuse still," he said. "You have somebody who cares about you guys."

The campus route is for students, but the counter takes walk-in orders from everyone else. Caraway Cleaners is at 3056 Burnet Ave., about half a mile up the street from Brooklyn Pickle.

Coverage from The Daily Orange.

Construction and development around the city, in plain English.

Toggenburg Mountain, the ski hill in Fabius, has a new owner, and the plan is to reopen it for the 2027-28 season.

The land is going back to the family that owned it before it was a ski hill. Douglas Wheeler's family owned the property until 1953, and his son James says it was his great-great-grandfather's goat farm, later sold to the Hickey family, who opened the ski area. Greek Peak's owners bought it in 2015.

In 2021, Intermountain Management, which owns Labrador and Song Mountain, bought Toggenburg, its only competitor, and shut it down. It also paid Toggenburg's former owners not to compete within 30 miles for five years. The New York attorney general sued in 2022, and in March 2025 a judge ruled that shutting Toggenburg down, along with a "no poach" hiring agreement, broke state antitrust law.

After the ruling, the attorney general pushed for a court-ordered sale to someone who would run Toggenburg as a ski area, while Intermountain wanted to sell it to a buyer who proposed building housing there. Under a settlement, Intermountain sold Toggenburg to Douglas Wheeler, a local business owner who will reopen it as a ski resort; the attorney general announced the sale on Friday, Oct. 16. Intermountain also pays the state $30,000 and can't try to buy Toggenburg back for four years.

"Competition among Syracuse ski areas means more choices and better prices and services for New York skiers," Attorney General Letitia James said.

What it means for you: Toggenburg won't reopen this winter. The lift cables were cut and will be replaced, and the new owners don't know yet what other repairs will be needed. They hope to open the restaurant 6 to 8 months before the slopes, and James Wheeler says the goal is a hill for beginners and kids, with rope tows for learners.

Coverage from the attorney general's office, CNY Central, Spectrum News, NewsChannel 9 and Storm Skiing.

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

This neighborhood of curving streets north of James Street started as a family farm. By 1908, a land company formed by the heirs of Charles and Deborah Sedgwick had laid out more than 80 tree-lined lots, with a tennis club for the people who moved in. The lots were big: about 75 by 200 feet, against 44 by 115 on the grid just outside the neighborhood.

Today those streets sit inside the Sedgwick-Highland-James Preservation District, which the city calls its largest historic district.

Ward Wellington Ward was born in Chicago, studied architecture at MIT and lived in New York City before moving to Syracuse, his wife Maude's hometown, in 1908. He designed about 250 buildings, most for Syracuse clients but more in Rochester toward the end, before illness ended his career in 1926. He also designed summer camps in Skaneateles and Clayton.

His houses fill early-1900s neighborhoods like Strathmore and this one. When the National Park Service documented his work in 1996, seven of his eight locally designated Syracuse buildings were in this district. You can spot his houses by their rows of pointed-arch windows, which form a string of W's, reportedly his signature.

Homes to look at on a walk or drive through. The first three are Ward's:

Other places to visit nearby, just outside the neighborhood line:

History from the City of Syracuse, the Sedgwick Farm Neighborhood Association and the National Park Service.

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

Orange football lost 34-26 to Louisville at the Dome. Umari Hatcher caught 13 passes for 224 yards and was named ACC Receiver of the Week. Next: Saturday, Oct. 24, 7:30 PM at North Carolina on ACC Network. Schedule

The Crunch gave up the first two goals, scored four straight to beat Rochester 4-2 Saturday, and won 4-3 at Hamilton Sunday. Next home game: Friday, Oct. 23, 7 PM vs. Rochester. Schedule

Every Wednesday, in your inbox.

Join the club.

— Salt City Club Team