{"id":61876,"date":"2015-05-20T21:30:07","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T01:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=61876"},"modified":"2015-05-20T18:53:15","modified_gmt":"2015-05-20T22:53:15","slug":"historical-oz-foundation-to-purchase-baum-neal-house-in-syracuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=61876","title":{"rendered":"Historical Oz Foundation to Purchase Baum-Neal House in Syracuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"business\"<\/a>(Chittenango, NY \u2013 May 20, 2015) The International L. Frank Baum and All Things Oz Historical Foundation announced May 18 that they have secured The Syracuse Land Bank board\u2019s approval to buy the property at 678 W. Onondaga Street in Syracuse. The foundation, known for its All Things Oz museum and annual Oz-Stravaganza! Festival in Chittenango, says the house, known as the Baum-Neal house is an interesting footnote to history, and should be saved.<\/p>\n

Foundation President, Dennis Kulis said the house is important to Central New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cWizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum was born in Chittenango, but some would say his adult life really started at this home, which was his sister\u2019s,\u201d Kulis said. \u201cThis is the place that Baum met his bride-to-be and the love of his life, Maud Gage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kulis went on to say that Maud is often regarded as the person who encouraged Baum to write down his stories.<\/p>\n

Marc Baum, the Baum-Neal House committee chairperson, (and no relation to the author), says the home needs a lot of work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis house is in deplorable condition,\u201d Baum said. \u201cIt has been vacant for many years, and it came back on the market through the Syracuse Land Bank in late February. In March, members of our board toured the house with the Syracuse Land Bank representatives, and we decided that this would be the last chance to save it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baum said another group had a purchase contract on the house, but the land bank and the group ended that agreement in February of 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we looked at the house, we were surprised to see how bad off it really was. It is going to take a lot to save it, but it is certainly worth the effort.\u201d said Baum.<\/p>\n

The Foundation intends to look to local community support and local businesses to help out, as they have in past projects that the group has taken on.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a 100 percent volunteer organization, and a 501(c)3 non-profit, we depend on support of local businesses and the community at large to get involved,\u201d said Kulis; adding, \u201cwe feel confident that this project will get a lot of interest because of the local connections.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group believes that the All Things Oz Museum in Chittenango, the Gage House in Fayetteville, and the Baum-Neal House can help drive OZ themed tourism to Central NY. In addition, the Oneida Nation\u2019s new Yellow Brick Road Casino adds even more OZ tourism opportunities to the area.<\/p>\n

The group said that after their March board meeting, they decided that the home wouldn\u2019t be salvageable if they waited any longer. They did not put in an application in April, as there was another group interested, but when that offer did not get approved by the Land Bank, they decided to step in and try to save the property.<\/p>\n

Baum summed up the project by saying \u201cIt will be a lot of work, and a great expense\u2026but the Wizard of Oz is the American Fairy Tale.\u00a0 Not a day goes by that someone doesn\u2019t say \u2018There\u2019s no place like home\u2019 or \u2018if I only had a brain\u2019 or \u2018we\u2019re not in Kansas anymore.\u2019 It is a part of the American fabric, and the fact that we have the history right here in the Syracuse area is remarkable. We should work to save it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about the group or to watch updates on the Baum-Neal House project, you can find them on Facebook or on their websites\u00a0www.oz-stravaganza.com<\/a> or www.allthingsoz.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Chittenango, NY \u2013 May 20, 2015) The International L. Frank Baum and All Things Oz Historical Foundation announced May 18 that they have secured The Syracuse Land Bank board\u2019s approval to buy the property at 678 W. Onondaga Street in Syracuse. The foundation, known for its All Things Oz museum and annual Oz-Stravaganza! Festival in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/61725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}