When the city first started to install traffic signal lights in the 1920s they put one at a major intersection on Tipperary Hill, on the corner of Tompkins Street and Milton Avenue.
After a few rounds of this the city decided that if they wanted a light at that intersection, they had better put the signal up inverted, and so they did.
[2] In recent years some long time neighborhood residents of Irish ancestry and local business owners gathered resources and encouraged the city first to demolish an old run-down commercial building and then in 1997 to build a small park, the Tipperary Hill Memorial Park, and erect a statue, the Tipperary Hill Heritage Memorial.
The memorial is dedicated to those who, in their opinions, were brave sons of Ireland who had stood up to City Hall and won.
Before 1886, the entire far west side of what is now Syracuse from Burnet Park north to Milton Avenue in Solvay was known as the Village of Geddes.