Manufacturers like the Carrier Corporation abandoned Syracuse ages ago. So the locals turned to each other for strength amid the chaos.
Photographs by Ben Cleeton
Written by John Leland
April 11, 2019
The B&B Cocktail Lounge opened on South Avenue in Syracuse in 1989, and by the time it closed almost three decades later, it was a lonely vestige of what had been a thriving strip of African-American bars and clubs. South Avenue had flourished in parallel with Carrier, the air-conditioning and refrigeration company that had its main operations nearby.
The B&B, started by two Carrier workers named Billy Ray, was a bustling joint where locals gathered after work, after a funeral or when they just needed company.