The amphitheater and lawn at Syracuse’s Inner Harbor now have a name that symbolizes its association over the years with the annual Pride festival. Syracuse Common Councilors Monday unanimously named it Progress Park, which council sponsor Jimmy Monto says can have many meanings beyond the LGBTQ community.
“We kicked around a lot of different names," Monto said. "We kicked around Pride Park, Rainbow Park. It would have pigeonholed the park into meaning just one thing, and I think the word progress means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.”
Jess Posner was the only person to address councilors at the public hearing before the vote. She told them as a member of the LGBTQ community, it’s important to focus on progress amid efforts to undo it on many levels.
“There are almost 500 anti LGBTQ bills across the country in 2024 and it is only March," Posner said. "Our government is currently funding a war across the world which makes it more dangerous to be both Muslim and Jewish here at home. Our Black, Brown and Native siblings still face daily violence due to ongoing colonialism. Renaming this part to Progress Park is a symbolic gesture that affirms, our city not only as a sanctuary to immigrants, refugees, and new Americans, but to trans, queer, and two-spirit people.”
She says Progress Park is a powerful gesture that can provide a glimmer of hope at a time when we desperately need it.
