Charlie Graziano has it easy next week. Just two finals and an optional take-home essay stand between him and a fresh breath of sweet, New Jersey air.

Graziano and thousands of other students will soon head home for about three weeks of Winter Break. They’ll celebrate the holidays, catch up with old friends and – if they’re lucky – elude the chores and curfews that often complicate life at home.

Many university employees and local business owners, though, won’t have time to relax. Faculty and staff will spend the next few weeks laboring over schedules and syllabi, and Marshall Street retailers are gearing up for the holiday shopping season.

‘It doesn’t have as big an impact on us when they go home,’ Manny’s department manager Pat Kilb said. Customers who live in Syracuse year-round will fill the void left by the student exodus, Kilb said.

When they bid the buzzing Marshall Street commerce farewell, many students plan to pick up short-term jobs near home. Since they have no academic responsibility for almost a month, students work over break to pass the time and pocket some extra cash.

‘I’m going to try to get a job,’ said Graziano, a freshman psychology major. ‘Hopefully I can. I don’t have any lined up, but I’m going to try.’

Retailers typically hire temporary workers during the holiday season to help deal with the surge in traffic, and some students will slip back into jobs they’ve held in the past. The luckiest have cushy, family jobs – like baby-sitting or working for a parent.

And during their time off, students will have a chance to reunite with friends from high school that have been split up and scattered around the country.

‘A lot of the friends I had in high school, we’re a lot closer now because we realized how important it is to have friends from home,’ said sophomore drama major Emily DelGiudice.

‘It’s cool seeing everybody,’ Graziano said. ‘All my friends go to different schools. But it sucks having to be home at a certain time every night. I’m not used to that.’

Indeed, some students complain that moving back in with their parents cuts down on their freedom and mobility. Whether they’re piling on extra chores or setting early curfews, it makes life hard for students who want to maintain their campus lifestyle over break.

‘I first started off thinking that I would go home a lot,’ said Eric Petrie, a freshman in the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He’s from Liverpool, just a few minutes from SU. ‘But just living up here makes me want to stay here more.’

Petrie and his fellow Syracuse area residents will be treated to an unusual atmosphere on Marshall Street while students cope with life at home. The nightlife will virtually shut down and specialty shops will teem with locals hunting for unique gifts.

‘Kids are a good percentage, but we still have a lot of alumni and a lot of community people that shop here,’ Kilb said.

‘We’ll do a lot of holiday business from local people,’ said Eric Hicks, assistant manager at J Michael Shoes. His store will maintain its usual business hours and he expects a steady stream of holiday shoppers.

Meanwhile, much of the university area’s after-hours business will diminish in the absence of thousands of collegiate partiers.

‘When we don’t get the bar rush, we close at 10 o’clock,’ said Chris Anagnostopoulos, owner of Pita Pit. The popular fast-food destination stays open until 4 a.m. on weekends when school is in session. But after exams, Anagnostopoulos said, many of the Marshall Street bars close their doors until students move back in.

‘It’s still busy during the day, from the hospitals and everyone else,’ he said. ‘You know, there’s still faculty at the school.’

A handful of professors and a throng of staff members will stick around during break to post grades, finish research and solidify plans for next semester. Television, radio and film professor Patricia Longstaff estimates that a quarter of professors will be in their offices while the students are out of town.

‘I’ve heard of people doing things as exotic as going to Paris for the break, to as mundane as myself – sticking around and finishing up research,’ she said.

The university employees will enjoy a quieter campus environment and Longstaff says she’s taking advantage.

‘I try to get my hair done at Marshall Street during break,’ she said, ‘because it’s easier to get an appointment then.’

The period between semesters is crunch time for Eugenia D. Moore, an undergraduate recorder in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Her time off during the summer, though, compensates for her heavy workload during the holiday season.

‘We’ll be in the office the whole time,’ she said. ‘Posting grades, everything involved with academia.’

Moore complained, however, that sparse bus schedules and sluggish groundskeeping plague campus during winter vacation. When students are on campus, she said, sidewalks are always shoveled – but she often slips and slides to the office during break.

‘They kind of kick us to the curb,’ she said.

SU’s Department of Public Safety, though, deliberately maintains a strong presence on campus between semesters. Public Safety plans to increase North Campus patrols and regularly inspect each South Campus apartment, said Senior Lt. Grant Williams.

‘We’re going to be doing our part,’ he said. ‘We realize that when students are not here a lot of the responsibility shifts to Public Safety.’

He advised students to secure their belongings — like bikes and cars – that may be left outside. Bike theft has been a serious problem this year, he said, and he suggests students lock their bikes with U-Bolt locks or put them in residence hall storage. Students who leave their cars on campus should remove all valuables in their vehicles from plain view, he added.

Dorm residents, he said, shouldn’t worry about their building’s security.

‘They’re almost like fortresses,’ he said. ‘We don’t worry about anything being missing from the residence halls.’

But before the school locks down the dorms, Petrie’s friends from high school plan to make the short drive from Liverpool to SU for one last hurrah before the city transforms into a quiet, lonely winter wonderland.

‘I’ve had a few people come up to party,’ he said. ‘It’ll probably happen again.’

By Dec. 18, he’ll be exiled from the dorms and sentenced to three weeks at home – but he won’t be ready to come back any time soon.

‘It’s going to be awesome to just go home and work and hang out with friends,’ he said. ‘The length of the break, I don’t think it’s long enough.’

Published on December 4, 2003 at 12:00 pm