Northside Urban Partnership

Today marks the last day of the Northside Mosaic exhibit in the
Our Northside Community Gallery.

Over the span of two months a vacant store front was transformed into a vibrant community art space.

The gallery will next serve as the host site for the “smART” after-school arts program for local middle school students.

Students will have the opportunity to learn various skills from Syracuse University and community mentors including sculpture, photography and printmaking.

The program is free to students  ages 10-14 and will run Monday through Thursday from 3 to 5:30 starting February 9th. For information contact Maarten Jacobs, 473-0952 x 308.

The Northside Photo Project has piqued the curiosity of Butternut commuters. Channel 9 News was asked by a viewer to investigate the large picture of a child on the Lewis Uniform building.

The photo is one piece in the Northside Photo Project, a collaborative effort between the Prospect Hill Initiative and the Northside Collaboratory to help engage and enliven the Northside community by displaying various pictures taken by community members.

Currently two of these large format pictures are in place, the other being on Columbus Bakery. Another photo is scheduled to be attached to the side of St. Joseph’s  maternal health building.
 
To Learn more about current Northside Collaboratory projects click here.

Click here to view the Channel 9 article.

After a series of delays, the Court Street bridge closed on January 14 for reconstruction. Night work to remove the existing structure is scheduled to begin on the evening of Wednesday, January 21, 2009, according to a DOT representative. A total of 6 nights of work is expected to remove the bridge following which DOT expects work to transition to daytime hours.

Update: The Court Street bridge will remain open to traffic through the weekend of January 10 and 11.

There will be no more overnight lane-ramp closures or work on the Spencer Street and Court Street bridges over Interstate 81 this week because of bad weather and a delay in the activation of temporary traffic signals along the detour route, the state Department of Transportation said. The DOT is removing both bridges and expects to have them replaced by Nov. 30.

The Spencer Street bridge is closed and nearly removed. The Spencer Street bridge overnight work is scheduled to resume Monday, if weather permits, and be completed in one day.
 
The Court Street bridge will remain open to traffic through the weekend. The overnight removal work on the Court Street bridge is to resume Monday and continue through Jan. 15. It will require six nights of work and be completed the week of Jan. 19, the DOT said.
 
The first four nights will be noisy, because the bridge deck will be taken apart and removed. The work must take place during overnight hours because it requires I-81 to be reduced to one lane in each direction for the safety of motorists.
 
Staff report
 

Northside Collaboratory Co-Founder Maarten Jacobs is being recognized for his community revitalization efforts, mostly through public art projects and arts education, in a featured article on the New York’s Creative Core website:

“Jacobs, in an effort to revitalize the community and engage those most affected by the neighborhood’s troubles co-founded the Northside Collaboratory, a collaborative neighborhood development center. His work includes the development of Public Art projects; developing, managing and teaching in arts education programming for neighborhood youth; organizing the annual “Festival of Many Nations” and other community events; providing counseling to individuals in the Collaboratory’s job training program; and assisting in the development and management of the “ournorthside.org” website, as well as the larger “Our Northside” neighborhood marketing campaign. ”

New York’s Creative Core website highlights the people , opportunities and lifestyle of Central New York.

To view the full article please visit http://www.creativecoreny.com

St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center continues to lead the way in patient satisfaction among the four hospitals in Syracuse. According to data released by the Department of Health and Human Services through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, St. Joseph’s average patient satisfaction score is 68 percent, which is above average in New York State and highest in Syracuse.
 

St. Joseph’s is also higher than state and local averages in seven different areas, including nurse and physician communication, pain control, cleanliness, discharge information and responsiveness to requests for help. The report shows that 70 percent of respondents said they would give St. Joseph’s a nine or 10 on a scale of 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest), and 80 percent would definitely recommend St. Joseph’s to others.

HCAHPS is the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients’ perspectives of hospital care. It is a standardized survey instrument and data collection methodology for measuring patients’ perceptions of their hospital experience. While St. Joseph’s already collected information on patient satisfaction for its own use, until HCAHPS there was no national standard for collecting and publicly reporting information about patients’ experiences that allowed valid comparisons to be made across hospitals locally, regionally or nationally.

“We are obviously very proud of our accomplishments in the area of patient satisfaction,” said Theodore M. Pasinski, president of St. Joseph’s. “While we still have room for improvement, these scores validate the fact that we’re on the right track and are serving our patients well. Our entire St. Joseph’s family deserves special commendation for a job well done.”

For a detailed look at scores from all hospitals, visit the HCAHPS website at http://www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov/