Syracuse’s painted utility boxes invite passersby to soak in public artwork
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UPDATE: This story was updated at 4:06 p.m. EST on Nov. 13, 2026.
On most street sidewalks, passersby won’t take a second look at utility boxes. But when David Clarke Smith walked past one box featuring a storybook redesign of a Little Free Library, and another that turned a utility box into an orange juice carton dubbed “Cuse Box” in downtown Syracuse, he was moved to paint his own.
Smith was so inspired that he pitched painting utility boxes as part of a public art component to his youth arts summer program supported by Tomorrow’s Neighborhoods Today with nonprofit Hopeprint.
“It makes the whole community an art gallery,” Smith, who lives in Syracuse, said. “It’s just another means of taking something that’s kind of plain and boring and making it interesting.”
Smith’s muse for his summer program was “Unboxed: The Utility Box Art Project,” which sponsored nine Syracuse artists, including Lydia Nichols, to transform utility boxes into original works with vivid colors and intricate illustrations. The Downtown Syracuse Foundation, in partnership with the Downtown Committee of Syracuse, launched Unboxed in 2024 and have since chosen artists to sponsor. Artists submitted designs, and a panel and a public vote chose the first cycle of winners.
David Clarke Smith points to details on his utility box, which features paintings of the Hiawatha Belt and Two Row Wampum. Smith showed his design to an artist from the Onondaga Nation to ensure accurate representation. Tara Deluca | Photo Editor
This summer, Smith and his students painted four utility boxes across downtown Syracuse, with one being his original design. Smith painted natural imagery and the Haudenosaunee’s deep purple flag on the corner of Catawba and North Salina streets. Smith’s box is painted with wampum belts honoring the Haudenosaunee and the Onondaga Nation. If Smith could title it, he’d name it “Remember the Treaties,” he said.
In 2024, SU alum Nichols painted a utility box on South Franklin and West Fayette streets while teaching as an adjunct professor in SU’s illustration department. The box is painted in bold blues and pinks, with accents of white, yellow and black adorning the birds on the sides of the box. Nichols’ spouse sent her the project on Instagram, and she decided to apply, Nichols said.
When Nichols moved back to Syracuse around 2020, she noticed how many local businesses leaned into the Salt City’s history. Salt had been a part of Syracuse history that became more present since her time at SU, Nichols said.
So, Nichols named her design “Keep Syracuse Salty,” a play on the “Keep Portland Weird” slogan and Portland, Oregon’s quirky art scene. She covered it with birds she’d seen on her walks around Onondaga Lake, Nichols said.
Before Nichols started painting, Unboxed organizers sent her to The Art Store off Erie Boulevard East for supplies. Joseph von Souder, the Art Store’s creative coordinator, said the Downtown Committee first came to the store with questions about art supplies. Now the store works alongside Unboxed, and its employees help each artist choose paint that won’t fade and varnish to protect the finished boxes from the weather, von Souder said.
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Von Souder’s clients frequent one box in particular: Ally Walker’s “The Library Come to Life,” at East Fayette and Montgomery streets. The Syracuse Urban Sketchers, a group of local artists who draw the city on location, now meet at the box before breaking up to sketch downtown’s buildings, von Souder said.
“Art should be accessible,” von Souder said. “And that’s why we need more public art.”
For Nichols, that accessibility is the point of the Unboxed project, and the broader goal of public art. The painted utility boxes are available to see downtown at many corners for the general public, like the salt potato boat box on the corner of South Warren and East Onondaga streets or a space-themed box outside 200 West Water Street. Galleries and art museums have their place, but bringing free art to an area like Syracuse gives a fresh perspective and highlights budding creatives, Nichols said.
“I’m a big believer that not all art needs to live behind a paywall,” she said. “There’s something wonderful about art that is just always present, free for all.”
Smith used the accessibility of public art to highlight the “underrepresented” history of Native Americans in Syracuse, he said. Alongside the Two Row Wampum and the Hiawatha Belt, which represents the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Smith painted the Onondaga headdress.
Before starting the project, Smith showed the design to an artist from the Onondaga Nation to make sure it was an accurate representation. The artist gave Smith a “thumbs up,” he said.
The project has also brought artists of different media together, von Souder said. Von Souder has seen graphic artists help painters map out their boxes on their computers and digital artists branch into new, physical pieces, he said.
Out on the street, the boxes draw people in, von Souder said. While Nichols painted, people stopped her to ask questions, give a thumbs up or just say hi, she said.
Lydia Nichols’ “Keep Syracuse Salty” utility box sits on South Franklin and West Fayette streets. The piece was inspired by the slogan “Keep Portland Weird.” Courtesy of Ava Demcher | Asst. Digital Editor
“People, I think, were excited to see this kind of art showing up across the city,” Nichols said. “I think people in Syracuse really like the idea of having public art.”
That welcome is fairly new, von Souder said. Over the last couple of years, von Souder has watched murals spread across the city, he said.
“You drive down the street and just see mural after mural after mural,” von Souder said. “More and more, the arts are claiming public spaces for everybody to enjoy it.”
Nichols advises artists to continue to put themselves out there for their community’s benefit.
Smith hopes to start running his youth arts program earlier again next summer. For Smith, the reason to keep going is his love for art, and his hope that the young people in his program continue to beautify downtown Syracuse.
“A lot of other academic disciplines are about how we live,” Smith said. “Art is why we live. Public art brings that out into the spotlight.”
