A handful of Syracuse University architecture and drama students, clad in leopard-patterned fabric and carrying a portrait of Chancellor Nancy Cantor, briefly protested The Warehouse’s opening to the public Saturday, which was attended by Cantor, Syracuse Mayor Matthew Driscoll and New York state Sen. John A. DeFrancisco.

Shortly after Cantor opened The Warehouse’s doors at 2 p.m. for The Warehouse Festival of the Arts, seven students appeared on the bank of the brook that runs below West Fayette Street on the East side of The Warehouse.

Gathering branches from a nearby tree and grunting in what seemed to be the beginnings of human language, the seven demonstrators recreated what architecture students know as the ‘primitive hut,’ or the beginning of all architecture, said Rob Lubas, a third-year architecture major.

‘We were throwing the chancellor a curveball because this is her big deal,’ said Nathan Bowman, one of the demonstrators and a fourth-year architecture major.

Bowman said the demonstrators wanted to take attention away from Cantor and the event inside because SU funds should go to the institution and its students, who were not represented in decisions concerning the art center.

‘Public involvement is good,’ Bowman said, ‘but as of yet, it hasn’t happened.’

Architecture students were also upset about The Warehouse opening to the public Saturday, as students were presenting their final reviews, Lubas said.

‘This is the busiest weekend for us, and it’s pretty ridiculous that they’re opening The Warehouse up and bringing all these people in,’ Lubas said. ‘It’s just bad timing.’

The elevators of the seven-story building were restricted to floors one through three, forcing students to carry their portfolios up the stairwells.

Within a half hour, a large crowd had filed out of the art exhibit and looked on from the sidewalk of the West Fayette Street overpass. The windows of the East facade of the third floor, which was open to the public, were lined with the observers. Syracuse Police officers arrived to keep the growing crowd out of West Fayette Street traffic.

Many were unsure of the demonstrators’ message when they placed the portrait of Cantor in the space beneath the pile of branches and then later displayed it in a tree.

One bystander said she feared they were going to light the hut and portrait on fire.

‘It looks like they’re making a shrine to her,’ said Jeff Pawlowski, a second-year architecture major.

The demonstrators then continued to entertain the crowd by rubbing mud on each other’s backs, drawing on the cement barrier walls of the underpass with clay and even drinking from and swimming in the brook’s dirty water.

The Warehouse is the temporary home of SU’s architecture program while Slocum Hall undergoes renovation. Starting Saturday, the ground floor of the building was opened to the public as a community art center, which Cantor named for DeFrancisco, who secured $1.25 million from the state government for the community aspect of The Warehouse.

‘This is a day about community,’ Cantor said in her speech, ‘a joining of forces.’

Cantor received a certificate from the Chamber of Commerce and Community Ambassadors for ‘awareness of needs and contributions to the community.’

At the press conference, Warehouse architect Richard Gluckman, an SU alumnus and part-time professor, celebrated the quickness and efficiency of preparing The Warehouse for students and the public.

Only 10 months passed between conception and move-in of the 135,000-square-foot building, Gluckman said.

A large crowd of community members, ranging in age from elementary school students to senior citizens, eagerly waited to get into The Warehouse’s West Fayette Street entrance.

The art exhibit inside featured photography and paintings by local artists, an interactive event that invited children and parents to design and create their own buildings, a children’s theater performance, selected films from the Syracuse International Film and Video Festival and several live musicians.

Most of the audience seemed to have stopped and observed the demonstration after leaving the exhibits. When the student demonstration ended after less than an hour, only about half of the original visitors remained inside The Warehouse.

Published on April 30, 2006 at 12:00 pm