CNY Hall of Fame

Tom Cruise on the red carpet last year

 Now for something different. Destiny USA are close to entering administration due to a default and getting anchors as well as smaller stores to fill in vacancies is not uncommon across the country these days, so for one anchor that's single level on the first floor, let's get creative and put a museum in there! At least a hundred people who are household names around the world have personal ties to CNY. Some of them are listed on our sister blogs (only SU girl Vanessa Williams appears on both). Celebrities who went to uni, were born, lived, and/or grew up within a 75 mile radius of Syracuse will qualify for the gallery. Since A-lister Tom Cruise has been strictly films for over forty years time, yet left town when he was very young, I could only have him here. When I was the one who was away, I would sometimes tell others that he was born here. Rosie O'Donnell knew just as well (you had to have been around in the mid-to-late '90s). Richard Gere moved to North Syracuse when he was a little older, even though he did some TV in recent memory. We would showcase dozens of notables. Grace Jones's hula hoop can be an exhibit. There's a Walk of Fame downtown in front of the Landmark Theatre, but it's not enough and focuses more on the immediate area, and isn't like the ones back in Hollywood. We don't want it to be another Studio 54 of halls of fame like the one in Cuyahoga County or even Otsego County, so we'd get as many people profiled as possible.

There's a small Sports Hall of Fame inside Drivers Village (former Penn Can Mall) in Cicero, even though many athletes like Breanna Stewart and Dorsey Levens also got their start in our backyard. SU has a NYS Broadcasters Hall of Fame at Dick Clark Studios inside SI Newhouse School of Public Communications (which includes alums Ted Koppel, Marv Albert, Bob Costas and Jeff Glor along with the late Rod Wood and Ron Curtis to name a few). Having this new museum at Destiny brings something original and unique and may be less expensive than trying to convince another chain to come when the economy is up and down.