Westcott Street Cultural Fair celebrates the neighborhood’s uniqueness

The Westcott neighborhood celebrated its 31st Cultural Street Fair on Sunday, Oct. 1. The fair was complete with vendors selling handmade merchandise, performances from local artists and food from restaurants in the community. 

The event started out strong at noon with a parade featuring a lively display of different organizations and businesses from the Westcott area.

This year’s fair was the largest yet, as the event extended further down Westcott Street than ever before. As for attendance numbers, there were about 10,000 people who went to the fair overall, according to Sharon Sherman, Chair of the Westcott Street Cultural Fair. 

Sherman has been chair for the past ten years. She entered the role after several years of volunteering and becoming gradually more involved with the event. The fair’s founders were “concerned that the neighborhood was transitioning in a bad way,” Sherman said.

“When I came here in the 70s, people used to say that this was the Greenwich Village of Syracuse. We’ve got a lot of artists and musicians living in the neighborhood, and it’s always been very diverse.”

Though the event is a staple to the colorful neighborhood, people from neighboring towns were fascinated by the event’s allure. One of them was Gracelyn Wilber, a native of Dewitt, who attended the fair with her siblings. 

“Honestly, we just love coming to these kinds of places,” Wilber said. “I am most excited to see the different types of art here. I love jewelry, pins and clothing. I actually purchased a pin from a local vendor.”

There were indeed a lot of different types of art to appreciate – with about 150 booths lining the streets of Westcott Street, South Beech Street, Victoria Place, Harvard Place and Dell Street, there was no shortage of creativity to explore. 

Photos by Em Burris, Grace McConnell, Kyle Chouinard, Nathan Lechner, Jana Seal, and Abby Presson

Several performances graced the six stages positioned around the fair. There was something for everyone to enjoy – acro yoga, magicians, bellydancers and musicians, to name a few. 

At the end of Westcott Street, Syracuse local Jim Livi set up a bubble playground for fairgoers. Inspired by a bubble show he saw in Utica in 1992, Livi decided to make a living touring the tristate area and sharing his love of bubbles. 

“My inspiration is divine inspiration,” he said. “I drew up a few pictures to visualize [the bubble shows] and thought, ‘You can do something with this.’”

Livi brought several baby pools filled with the homemade bubble solution that he has spent over 30 years perfecting. Dubbed “The Mega Bubble Man”, he also brought many mega-sized bubble wands to delight those who stopped by the bubble playground. 

Among the large crowd of fairgoers were several Syracuse students. Spencer Grady Chan, a sophomore at S.U., said the eclectic vibe of the fair reminded him of his home, San Francisco. 

“It’s crazy to think that everyone around here is their own unique person with their own thoughts and agendas,” he said. “But for us to all be here together is really fascinating to me. Asking people ‘What brings you out here today?’ Can solicit so many different responses.”

This was Chan’s second time attending the event. Last year, as a first-year student, he saw a flyer and was excited to “branch out from the campus into the surrounding community.”

“The small interactions with all different kinds of people are most riveting to me because I can meet people I wouldn’t have met on campus,” Chan said. 

For students looking to be more involved with the Westcott Cultural Street Fair, Sherman encourages people to volunteer at next year’s fair, for which planning is already underway.

“As soon as you get back in August, sign up on our website and help. It’s a lot of fun, and you get a free t-shirt,” Sherman said. “We want to have student volunteers because that’s what the fair is about – bringing people together.”