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SU community members wrote messages of peace and love on Quad sidewalks Tuesday afternoon in response to Saturday’s shooting in Pittsburgh. Page 3
dailyorange.com
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Syracuse Stage is promoting arts accessibility through services and programs that make its live theater performances available to all audiences. Page 11
Student Life columnist Patrick Linehan explains how people can find more ways to learn about the legacy of Remembrance Week. Page 5
30 years after Pan Am Flight 103, Ron Cavanagh reflects on
TOUGH CALLS Remembrance Week 2018
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Le Moyne College keeps basketball’s first shot clock away from the public in Noreen Reale Falcone Library, while its replica is displayed in Armory Square. Page 16
remembrance week 2018
Lawyer talks Pan Am Flight 103 suit
By Matthew Gutierrez senior staff writer
By Colleen Ferguson
T
asst. news editor
he sky was just getting dark on a cold Wednesday afternoon at about 3 p.m. on Dec. 21, 1988, when a telephone inside one of Tolley Hall’s back offices began to ring. Ronald Cavanagh, then-Syracuse University’s vice president of undergraduate studies, took the phone call. A travel agent told him a Boeing 747, Pan Am Flight 103, had gone missing. Cavanagh asked the agent what that meant. “Well, it’s not on the radar, and we can’t find it,� he was told after a pause. “We lost it. We don’t know where it is.� “How many of our kids are on it?� Cavanagh asked. The agent couldn’t provide an answer. She didn’t know. Incredulous, Cavanagh hung up and took a breath. He walked to the front of Tolley, where then-Chancellor Melvin Eggers was sitting behind his desk, preparing to attend a Syracuse men’s basketball game. Cavanagh explained to Eggers that a plane was missing and they weren’t sure how many SU students were on it. “What are we supposed to do?� he asked. It had been about an hour since Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in the air over Lockerbie, Scotland. The explosion was a terrorist attack that resulted in the deaths of all 259 people aboard, including 35 SU students returning from study abroad trips and 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie. More United States civilians died in the bombing than in any other terrorist attack, before 9/11. In Tolley Hall that day, first came the travel agent’s call. Then came radio and TV news reports saying a plane had exploded in Scotland. Syracuse officials began to make the connection. Then the university called families, families called the university and
RON CAVANAGH was SU’s vice president of undergraduate studies during the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing. alexandra moreo senior staff photographer
it all came together over a series of days that resulted in memories Cavanagh has carried with him all his life. A tragedy like Pan Am Flight 103 carries an emotional weight for the grieving families and friends of victims. For Cavanagh, that emotional pull came as he picked up
the phone to make those calls to families. He can vividly remember the wave of uncertainty that unfolded. “Now, I think about it and get choked up,� Cavanagh, 79, said last month while sitting in his Syracuse home, two miles see cavanagh page 13
city
Apartment project reflects development trends By Emma Folts
contributing writer
A downtown Syracuse building built in the 1950s could be redeveloped into residential apartments and office space if the city approves developer plans next month. Acropolis Center LLC has proposed a reconstruction of Jefferson Center, a former Kmart location at 115 E. Jefferson St. The estimated cost of the project, which includes residential apartments as well as office space, is $10 million, and the construction
period will last 10 to 12 months. Steve Case, a developer at Acropolis Center LLC, said the company has plans to build two floors of residential apartments on top of the existing building. The addition would include 28 residential units, Case said. The proposed development would also involve a new building facade and a 46-space underground parking structure. The Jefferson Center proposal, if approved by the city, would be one of the latest redevelopment projects in downtown Syracuse.
Several buildings have been redeveloped in the area in recent years. The Dey Plaza building, located at 401 S. Salina St., was constructed in 1893 and previously housed the Dey Brothers Department Store. The building, currently owned by Paramount Realty Group, LLC, is now a luxury apartment complex. The company has announced plans to convert office space into additional apartments. The Dey Plaza building would add 23 apartments to its existing 61 residential units, said Robert Doucette, a developer at Para-
mount Realty Group, LLC. The new apartments will have either one or two bedrooms, the same style as the existing units. Oak Knitting Mill, located in Syracuse’s Franklin Square neighborhood on 102 West Division Street, was a 20th century knitting mill that has since been reconstructed into a loft-style apartment complex with 38 units. It opened in fall 2017. Joe Gehm of Lahinch Group, LLC, and a co-partner and developer of the Oak Knitting Mill apartments, said the city has seen a resurgence in see development page 13
Lawyer James Kreindler, who sued the Libyan government in the aftermath of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, spoke on campus on Tuesday about why he chose to take the case, calling the terrorist attack “the worst disaster of his lifetime.� Kreindler was heavily involved in the litigation against Pan American World Airways as a member of the plaintiffs’ trial team after Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988. About 30 people attended the lecture, which was co-hosted by SU Libraries and the College of Law, and was part of the university’s Remembrance Week activities. Kreindler’s team reached a $2.7 billion settlement against the Libyan government, where the terrorists were from, on behalf of the victims’ families. Pan Am Flight 103 carried more than 250 passengers, 35 of which were studying abroad through SU. “The story I’m going to tell you is one of a thousand examples of how our country could not survive, how the world couldn’t survive without vibrant investigative reporters,� he said in Dineen Hall in the College of Law. The lawyer, a partner at the family-run Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, discussed how his team’s case against Pan Am and its case against the Libyan government “played the essential format� for what he and his firm are now doing in a current 9/11 terror lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. Three decades ago, the legal, aviation and political framework in the United States was radically different, Kreindler said. In 1988, for the first time in aviation history, policemen logged precisely what they found and where they found it as they searched through plane wreckage from coast to coast, he added. “Pan Am 103 changed the law in the United States more than any other event in my lifetime,� he said. An international treaty stated that damages for each disaster victim are limited to $75,000 unless willful misconduct is found. If a mechanical issue was found with the aircraft, the team could sue for more money, Kreindler said. Since no mechanical issue was found, his firm was discouraged from taking the case, he said. But that didn’t stop them. He said this was the worst disaster of his lifetime, so he and his father would take the case. see lawyer page 13