Years ago, artist J.P. Crangle included his version of a Gannon’s Isle origin story within his sprawling, madcap mural on an interior wall of the legendary Syracuse ice cream stand, at Valley Drive and Seneca Turnpike. This particular work of art — part of Crangle’s stream-of-consciousness Gannon’s cartoon community of laughing or fuming or dreamy ice cream creatures — portrays the sister and brother co-founders, Eileen and John Gannon, piloting a ship named for their late dad, Bill Gannon, while surrounded by chattering characters. They are all nearing the shore of the destination they would soon… at least in Crangle’s mind… christen as Gannon’s Isle. The squinting masthead on the ship, Crangle said, is his own self-portrait. As for the way it came to be, he takes it straight back to the brilliance of Eileen Gannon. Eileen died this week, at 68, after a long illness. On Instagram and Facebook, there was an emotional outpouring of tributes from now-grown-up teenage “scoopers” who used to work at Gannon’s, or from generations of moms and dads who patronized the original stand or the newer one at Shady Brook, or from the many Central New Yorkers who remember Eileen’s support and kindness for such community endeavors as Little Leagues and block parties and local festivals. Yet maybe her most extraordinary legacy is this: While every city in the nation is home to plenty of ice cream stands that sell a sweet and well-loved product, many of those communities can only wish they had a Gannon’s — an iconic ice cream oasis that draws customers and employees from every neighborhood in the city, a place that offers not only ample helpings but a warm and comforting spot to gather that’s remained a Syracuse constant for more than 40 years. Even John Gannon, the younger brother who’s been Eileen’s partner from the start, says with palpable gratitude and affection: “She was the boss.” The discovery of Gannon’s Isle: Eileen and John Gannon on a ship named for their dad in J.P. Crangle mural … with J.P.’s face as the masthead. Credit: Family photo He said Eileen — one of his big sisters and fourth in line among nine Gannon siblings — had that same hold-everyone-together demeanor since childhood. John described her as “a force who led without yelling or screaming, who was always so calm and determined and so good with people.” While those qualities helped turn Gannon’s into a legendary Upstate ice cream getaway, Crangle and John Gannon both remember a truth that makes the whole thing even more remarkable: Eileen was hardly thinking that way at the beginning, though she quickly bought in. The process by which Gannon’s evolved over the last 44 years into the ice cream powerhouse it is today, the one with almost 50 part-time employees, boils down to a few moments of chance and a whole lot of constant attributes — with efficiency and quality and tenacity high above them. Still, if you consider the odds of any ice cream spot succeeding, then wrap in the shaky local economy the place faced for many years at the beginning, it is fair to associate another quality with Eileen Gannon: What she achieved involved a kind of genius. “Based on my perception, as a customer of both (Gannon’s) locations, I think what strong brands do is take something that’s a familiar commodity and instill it with something that gives it value in people’s minds,” said Tony D’Angelo, chair of public relations for Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications. “What does it is consistency,” D’Angelo said. “I think what Eileen Gannon and her family were able to do was take this kind of consistency with ice cream and turn it into a Syracuse tradition.” A core part of it, D’Angelo said, was “establishing a reputation for great ice cream,” a sense of enduring, you-can-count-on-it quality in both taste and atmosphere. Eileen and John Gannon, mid-2010s. Credit: Family photo Asked to choose a preferred flavor, D’Angelo is a butter pecan guy. The thought of it makes him want to go back, which is the baseline way any great business thrives — and summarizes what John Gannon insists is the Eileen effect. Still, Crangle remembers just how tentative it all was, in the early 1980s. He was a young graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology, eager for a career in cartooning and animation. To get started, he did street caricatures and he worked the state fair midway and he eventually took his quest all the way to Hollywood, where the studio responses all came down to the same thing: No thanks. Back in Syracuse, he had an idea made even better by this aside: Crangle’s parents kept a journal, and in an entry shortly after his birth in 1958 they recounted how on the way home from the hospital they stopped by the old Gannon’s Silver Star, the grocery store Bill and Nancy Gannon operated on that corner. In other words, Crangle was in Gannon’s before he ever was inside his own house, which seems a proper set-up for this tale: By 1983, Crangle was aware Eileen and John had opened their ice cream operation in what used to be the old Arctic Isle, a stand right outside their parents’ grocery store. Crangle went to them with a pitch that he thought would help to make the place distinct. He had his own cartoon vision for Gannon’s Isle, a “parallel universe” populated by these lovably blobby ice cream characters “who have children and friends and ride vehicles.” Eileen, only a couple of years out of college, contemplated the idea, then made a swift decision that Crangle said helped to change his life. “She just said: Let’s go,” Crangle said. “That was the whole beauty of Eileen … She was good to me and she empowered me and she never got in the way and she listened and she was open but she was never a pushover.” Eileen Gannon: She hardly envisioned 40 years ago that she’d become an ice cream legend. Credit: Family photo He paused to emphasize that last point a second time, with appreciation. He worked hard for Eileen and John. But their faith was a key part of an ongoing career, doing his art. Eileen’s vision helped create an ice cream steamroller she hardly saw coming. In 1982, a life in ice cream wasn’t in Eileen’s plans. She was a recent graduate of York College, already contemplating a return to school for a graduate degree in what John believes would have been recreational therapy. As for John, he had just graduated from Corcoran High School and “was kind of wandering,” as he described it this week. The ice cream stand outside the store needed a tenant. Bill and Nancy Gannon saw it as a good moment to get into that business. All the Gannon kids at one time or another worked in the store, but at that instant in time Eileen and John were the only two readily available to take on this new direction when their parents asked. “We went all-in,” John said. “You’re young, and it’s a time when you can do it.” Their tight partnership resulted in something legendary, an effort that serves as a Central New York lesson about imagination and courage and possibility. The results changed many lives, as evidenced by 35-year-old Jeremy Harding, whose older sisters — Alison and Erin — worked at Gannon’s as teenagers even before his arrival in 2005 at the stand, as a Corcoran High School student. That’s where he met Grace Bradshaw of Jamesville — his future wife — while they both had jobs there, scooping. A teenage Jeremy Harding at Gannon’s, with a phony heart of thorns tattoo, honoring his boss. Credit: Courtesy Jeremy Harding Twenty-one years later, the couple happily speaks of their 14-month-old daughter Caroline as a particularly wonderful result of that romance, forged at Gannon’s. They have stopped in with Caroline several times to say hello to John, though they didn’t get the chance to show their baby to Eileen. The impact, Harding said, is difficult to measure: “This was the woman who taught me to work, at a young age, and to hold yourself and others to a high standard.” Eileen had expectations and made sure you knew it, Harding said, but she was also the kind of person whose trust felt like a gift, challenging you to meet her threshold of responsibility. Measuring up required qualities you only fully appreciate years later, once you realize how much they’ve meant to you in life. One of the rules, by the way, known on the sly to many Gannon’s customers: Harding recalls how the young staff never closed at night until they served the absolute last person, meaning – on summer evenings with long, fast-moving lines – closing time could be more of a concept than a rule, especially when people saw the lights and kept pulling in. Consider that demand, then imagine this: At the very beginning, John Gannon said, they served Byrne Dairy ice cream. It was a sales representative named Tony Keser — listed in his obituary as “an ice cream connoisseur” — who told Eileen and John they would be much better off manufacturing their own product. Jeremy Harding and Grace Bradshaw at their wedding: Of course, Gannon’s was there. Credit: Courtesy Hannah Frederick Photography They listened. Eileen once told me how she took a fast course at Penn State in ice cream making and closely studied the multi-flavored New England success of Ben Jerry’s. Making their own ice cream allowed them to add “some funky flavors,” John said — even though they both preferred simple chocolate chip — while Crangle contributed another wildly distinctive touch, transforming a standard outdoor decorative fiberglass cone into a kind of psychedelic two-faced ice cream totem for the rooftop of the shop. “It was all timing,” said John Gannon, though “timing” cannot fully account for how he and his sister built a system that equates to almost 45 years of sustained success, an operation that eventually outgrew the little stand and demanded full use of the old store. Eileen was always willing to try new things, John said, to take a chance and throw the ball. Some of those attempts didn’t work, like a downtown shop or a place at Destiny USA. Some did, magnificently, like a second stand at Shady Brook, along Velasko Road, that’s often packed. John said they also tried for a while to stay open year-round, but the late Louis Savastino, founder of the old Luigi’s Restaurant across Valley Drive, offered this advice: Ice cream has a certain symbolic seasonal power, evoking warm days and hope. Close for a few months in the winter, he said, and demand will build until you guys come back — always behind the understanding that in Syracuse, snowiest large city in the nation, an ice cream stand that reopens every March signals warmer times aren’t so far away. Savastino was right. Now, on harsh February days, travelers look with longing toward the roadside sign at Gannon’s for an annual countdown, toward the first day. It worked because Eileen — as she did with Crangle — really listened. Ice cream, John said, was always part of the Gannon family routine. When the kids were little, they would all pile into a station wagon, and their parents would drive them to the old Marble Farms. Eileen, even in those days, was “the ringleader,” as John puts it. Eileen Gannon, probably at a staff meeting, with the iconic J.P. Crangle ice cream character behind her. Credit: Courtesy Alicia and Jayme Ward She would gather the young siblings for group excursions to playgrounds or the movies or to the drive-in, “with everybody just glued to her,” John said. The last few days have brought a flood of civic condolences. John, his wife Emily and their entire family have heard countless tales of love and appreciation about Eileen from a legion of Central New Yorkers — including many, like Jeremy Harding, who say the lessons learned as teenagers helped shape their adult lives. As for John, he thinks back on how he and Eileen, at first, never believed they’d be in it for the long haul. They were the ones available to run the stand when their parents needed them, and John — at that point, with no real plan in life — imagined he’d stick around until he “figured it all out.” What he became was a key part of something memorable, central to one of the great ice cream traditions in Upstate history. For that, with a certain astonishment, he thanks Eileen. He hopes to name an ice cream flavor in her honor, though her earnest, warm and relentless commitment created its own kind of Syracuse flavor that’s already hard to beat. In countless households, just watch what happens when you say: “Let’s go to Gannon’s.” The post Sean Kirst: Eileen Gannon’s product was ice cream. Her brilliant legacy is a place of true community, in Syracuse. appeared first on Central Current. ...read more read less