Best Web Design in Syracuse, NY (2026)

Web Design for Syracuse, New York

Syracuse is the Onondaga County seat and heart of Central New York, a former salt-boiling boomtown nicknamed 'The Salt City' that grew along the Erie Canal into a major industrial hub. Today it is a snowy college town powered by Syracuse University and SUNY medical and forestry campuses, known for orange-clad basketball crowds, salt potatoes, and the only permanent upside-down traffic light in the country on Tipperary Hill.

AppWT works with Syracuse, NY businesses from Livonia, Michigan, mostly online and travelling as needed.

About Syracuse

Also known as. The Salt City. 'Cuse / The Cuse. Emerald City.

History. The area sits on the lands of the Onondaga Nation, the central fire of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy; Jesuit missionaries including Simon Le Moyne reached Onondaga Lake in the mid-1600s, founding the Ste. Marie de Gannentaha mission. Syracuse was formally established in 1820 and named after Syracuse, Sicily, for its similar natural features. State-designated brine springs and the Onondaga Salt Springs Reservation made it the nation's largest salt producer; by the mid-1800s it produced over 12 million bushels a year, and the last brine was drawn in 1926. The Erie Canal ran through downtown at Clinton Square, driving 19th-century growth; Irish laborers who dug the canal settled the Tipperary Hill neighborhood.

Local economy. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century industry ran on salt and chemicals and then manufacturing; the city was home to Carrier Corporation (maker of the first modern air conditioner), the Franklin Automobile Company, and Smith Corona typewriters. The post-industrial economy is led by education and healthcare, with Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate Medical University among the largest employers. Destiny USA (formerly the Carousel Center) is the largest shopping mall in New York State.

Culture and community. Salt potatoes, small potatoes boiled in heavily salted water and served with melted butter, are a Central New York summer and fair staple traced to Irish salt-works laborers. Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, founded in Syracuse in 1988, became a nationally famous barbecue destination. The Great New York State Fair, held in the Syracuse area since 1841, draws well over a million visitors annually. Syracuse University 'Orange' athletics, especially basketball, football, and lacrosse, fill the domed stadium (the JMA Wireless Dome, formerly the Carrier Dome) with tens of thousands of orange-clad fans.

What makes Syracuse distinct. Tipperary Hill has the only permanent upside-down traffic light in the United States, showing green over red because Irish residents kept smashing the 'British red on top'; city officials relented in 1928, and the neighborhood's 'Stonethrowers' are honored with a bronze statue. Lacrosse's roots lie with the neighboring Onondaga Nation, widely regarded as a home of the game. Actor Tom Cruise was born in Syracuse. The NBA's 24-second shot clock was invented in Syracuse, credited to Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone in 1954. Syracuse is one of the snowiest major cities in the U.S.; its greatest recorded seasonal snowfall was 207.9 inches in the season ending in 1993.

Syracuse Landmarks and Local Life

• The JMA Wireless Dome (Carrier Dome) at Syracuse University
• The Niagara Mohawk (National Grid) Building - a striking 1932 Art Deco landmark
• The Landmark Theatre - a 1928 movie palace (opened as Loew's State) and the city's only surviving ornate 1920s theater
• The Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology (MOST) in Armory Square
• Clinton Square - the former Erie Canal crossing now used for festivals and winter ice skating
• The Salt Museum in Onondaga Lake Park - Liverpool, set in an original salt-production barn