Sean Kirst: Two centuries after Erie Canal transformed Syracuse, museums seek lost plaques that make the point

Sean Kirst: Two centuries after Erie Canal transformed Syracuse, museums seek lost plaques that make the point

Craig Williams grew up in Fayetteville, before Interstate 690 was built atop what used to be the old New York Central railroad tracks. As a child, he would ride with his siblings in the back of a station wagon on the way to their grandmother’s home in Syracuse, and he remembers being fascinated whenever they passed an Erie Canal monument in the median of Erie Boulevard, near Teall Avenue. Built from actual blocks used in the long-buried canal, i…