Third Onondaga County courthouse

Despite proposals to repurpose the building in various ways, including in the book Architecture Worth Saving in Onondaga County, it was demolished in 1968.

[9] Both villages continued to advocate for relocation of the courthouse into their borders, as they saw the prosperity that had left Onondaga Hill with the county seat.

[11] The third Onondaga County Courthouse was designed by Horatio Nelson White, at the time the best-known Syracuse architect.

[5] Nelson was influenced by a recent remodel of the nearby Rochester's Monroe County Courthouse from the Federal style.

The newspaper published the report of a committee examining the need for a new courthouse, which wrote that the building had grown too small for Syracuse.

It wrote further that the entrance was "dark and dingy; the halls and rooms are dirty;... the cells of the prisoners and cooking in the basement create offensive odors which permeate the whole building and are very obnoxious."

The building was not properly ventilated, and the newspaper noted that several witnesses and a constable had fainted in the courthouse in the past year.

In a review of the book, architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable deemed the building "a landmark of high quality" and "a top example of its style.

"[27] Architecture Worth Saving proposed repurposing and preserving the building, suggesting removing the third floor and office spaces, which would restore the courtroom to the hall it initially was.

It also suggested tearing down a police station that had been built on the back of the building to make a parking lot.

[28] The guide urged that those proposing tearing down the courthouse recognize it as "irreplaceable" for its historic value, architecture, and masonry construction.

If it could not be converted to a lecture hall, Architecture Worth Saving suggested several other options that would not involve demolition, including as a museum, as the offices of a public service organization, or (as a last resort) selling it to private interests with the requirement that the exterior be preserved.

[29] In 1964, The Post-Standard wrote that Syracuse was seeking offers from private interests for the courthouse and that the building would likely be torn down if no other use was found for it within six months.

[30][31] Within the next two years, the adjoining police department building was sold to Ronao corporation for $11,000 and demolition had begun.

[33] Later that year, the Crusade for Opportunity, a community action agency based in Syracuse, began to occupy the courthouse.

[36] Proposals for reconstruction were advanced as early as 1970 by the Society for the Advancement of Visual Environment (SAVE), which suggested five sites: Clinton Square, Onondaga Community College, the Everson Museum of Art, Fayette Park, and a spot off of Interstate 81 near Nedrow, New York.

[40] Despite this, by 1978 the blocks were already in failing condition, with several broken, some vandalized with spray paint, and others sinking into the dirt they had been left on.

[24] In February 2022,[41] David Haas, a Syracuse inhabitant who runs the Instagram account @syracusehistory,[42][43] posted that the location of the stones was still unconfirmed.

[41] The following day, Haas posted that Ben Walsh, the mayor of Syracuse, had confirmed that the stones were still held at the Hancock Airport.