South Salina Street Downtown Historic District

South Salina Street in downtown Syracuse holds a group of 25 commercial buildings in the 200, 300 and 400 blocks, built between 1855 and 1950. For nearly a century this was the shopping center of central New York. A major department store anchored each block: McCarthy & Sons, designed by Charles E. Colton in 1894; the L.A. Witherill Company in the 1855 Pike Block; and Dey Brothers, designed by Archimedes Russell in 1893. The Dey Brothers move into a former residential block south of Fayette Street surprised local merchants, but it pulled the business district southward. Styles range from Italianate and High Victorian Gothic to Beaux Arts, Italian Renaissance Revival, Art Deco and Modern. The district also includes Loew's State Theater, which was individually listed in 1977. Although later alterations hid some facades and shopping has moved to highway centers, the street preserves the architecture of the department store era and the growth of Syracuse's commercial core.