SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- You might not notice it right away, but there's something different at the intersection of Milton and Tompkins Street in Syracuse.
"It's that upside-down light and I say no, all the rest of them are wrong, this one is right, the green on top,” said Peter Coleman, who has owned Coleman’s Irish Pub on Tipperary Hill for more than 60 years.
It all started in 1925 with a man named John "Huckle" Ryan. He asked that the traffic light be installed green on top, a nod to the Irish heritage in the area.
"It went in green on top, and then, I believe it was the Department of Transportation got involved and said hold on, there's a safety issue here,” said Janice McKenna, Tipperary Hill Neighborhood Association president.
The light was replaced, from top to bottom, with red back on top. That's when the neighborhood kids took matters into their own hands.
"They were young lads who just liked to cause mischief,” Mckenna said. “And every time it went up, they allegedly, knocked it out."
They came to be known as the Stonethrowers. For years, they kept their identities, and their slingshots under wraps, but then in 1987, they got some help from a local politician.
"I believe it was when Tom Young was mayor, he said that there was amnesty for stonethrowers, so if anybody was a stonethrower at that point they could admit to it,” McKenna said.
In 1996, this monument was installed. An Irish immigrant family, the father pointing at the traffic light, but just take a closer look in his son's back pocket. That's right, tucked away in there, you guessed it, a slingshot.
"You've got the father telling the daughter and son and wife this history and legend of the light, and there's the hint of the stonethrowers, I mean I thought that was unbelievable,” said Coleman, who was the driving force behind the monument.
Everywhere you look, a traffic light symbol as iconically Irish as shamrocks and leprechauns.