Livin’ in Liverpool: Disrepair disrupts American High playground promise

When Hollywood director Jeremy Garelick first met with Liverpudlians at the Zogg Building auditorium in March 2017, he said that — after he purchased the historic high-school at 800 Fourth St., and turned it into a film studio and trade school — he hoped to restore the baseball diamond at the corner of Sixth and Hickory streets and would also keep the children’s playground open on the west side of the building.

Several villagers specifically expressed their desire to maintain the kids’ playground at Hickory and Fourth.

Initially known as the Liverpool School of Cinema, Garelick and his partner, producer-director Will Phelps, issued a statement at that time affirming that they looked forward to “benefiting the community in multiple ways. We are pleased to offer the community continued free access to the Zogg Building’s playing fields, auditorium, gyms and classrooms. A portion of the building will remain dedicated to the existing BOCES School.”

Later that year, Phelps announced that they’d dropped the Liverpool School of Cinema moniker in favor of a new name: Academy at Syracuse Studio, resulting in a rather rude acronym.

Moviemaking underway

Since then, the studio has produced a handful of films including “Banana Split, “Holly Slept Over,” “Looks that Kill” and “Big Time Adolescence.” Along the way, the moviemakers settled upon a new name for the place: “American High” Those two words are now embossed in cement above the building front entrance.

While production proceeded at the historic brick structure, the little playground on the west side of the building fell deeper and deeper into disrepair. A swingset and slide toppled, monkey bars disconnected, metal fence posts are bent and twisted, wooden posts are rotting.

“The village is actually making us remove [the playground],” Phelps reported in a recent email. “So that’s why you may have noticed it in the process of being dismantled.”

Village Codes Officer Bill Reagan agreed that the dilapidated playground is in desperate need of renovation. He said American High is considering rebuilding a swingset there and possibly adding a picnic table or two.

“Once it’s fully removed,” Phelps continued, “we would like to do something nice with that space, but the first step is getting rid of the rusted-out old playground and making sure the area is safe and not an eyesore.”

Both the baseball field and the old school’s cinder quarter-mile track remain underdeveloped.

American High finances

Two years ago, show-biz website Deadline.com reported that Garelick teamed up with Mickey Liddell’s LD Entertainment to launch American High.

“Staked with $50 million, the new company will generate a slate of high school-set comedy features,” the site stated. “Garelick will tap his relationships to hatch the films, which will be shot in a recently acquired 100,000 sq-ft high school-turned-studio.”

Based in Los Angeles, LD Entertainment financed “Big Time Adolescence” which was shot here last year.

The 44-year-old Garelick wrote and directed 2015’s “The Wedding Ringer,” a comedy starring Kevin Hart which grossed $79.8 million, more than tripling its production budget of $23 million.

Gormel apartments inch ahead

Liverpool’s first family of hospitality — tavernkeeper John Gormel, his wife, Linda, and sons, Adam and Josh — have taken another small step forward on a plan to expand from eating and drinking establishments into apartment-building management.

The family already owns four restaurant-bars in the village, The Retreat, the Cobblestone, The Barking Gull and the White Water Pub. Neither the Gull nor the Pub — both located on the basin Block — are presently open for business.

At the July 22 village of Liverpool Planning Board meeting, the Gormels were represented by architect Jim Knittel, of the new Syracuse firm, in-Architects.

“Mr. Knittel showed the Planning Board preliminary design sketch-plan drawings of a building being proposed for the mixed-use area of Lake Drive,” said Planning Board Chairman Joe Ostuni Jr.

Last December, the village received artist’s renderings from the Gormels outlining a proposed 42-unit apartment complex along Lake Drive, replacing several residential properties and the Barking Gull which they now own there.

As seen on those drawings, the 42 apartments would be housed in three buildings on Lake Drive facing the Salt Museum. Parking would be behind the buildings in the middle of the Basin Block.

Those three-story structures were designed by Fayetteville architect Salem Richard Lahood.

Now, architect Knittel will be working on construction plans and preparing a site-plan application to present to the Planning Board at a future meeting. “The planning board is looking forward to working with the Gormels when they’re ready to move forward,” Ostuni said.