New Syracuse lawmaker Marty Nave wants people to know why he twitches

Syracuse, N.Y. — About 20 people packed inside a North Side church’s small lounge on a cold November night for the Dale Street Neighborhood Watch meeting.

The meeting’s leader was the same man it’s been for more than two decades, a lifelong resident named Marty Nave. But this meeting was different because of what happened 10 days earlier on Election Day. Nave was now the North Side’s Syracuse Common Councilor-elect.

Nave briefly spoke to get things started, but he spent most of the night listening as neighbors talked for 90 minutes about topics such as an abundance of stray dogs, all-terrain vehicles revving engines on streets and people throwing rocks at cars.

As voices sometimes got loud, Nave remained quiet. Only a person intently watching him listening to the discussion might have noticed his sudden facial movements, like quickly opening his mouth wide without making a sound and or a series of rapid eye blinks.

“One of the things that’s important to know about me is that I have Tourette Syndrome,” he said in an interview the next morning. “I want people to know that so they understand why they may notice a twitch here or there.”

Sitting at the kitchen table in his small Dale Street home, Nave brought up the facial tics unprompted. He explained there’s a bigger reason he wants his Tourette Syndrome journey to be made public, especially now that he’s going to be a city councilor. He wants young people with the condition and their families to find inspiration in his story.

“You can do anything in your life,” he said.

Tourette Syndrome is a nervous system condition that causes people to have involuntary tics, which can include body and facial movements or sounds. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compares the tics to hiccups.

Like most people with Tourette Syndrome, Nave began exhibiting the symptoms as a child, but this was happening for him in the 1960s, when there was little awareness about what he was experiencing.

Instead, adults would make false assumptions, saying the tics were a way for him to get attention or that he had some type of intellectual disability.

“I remember having this feeling of being embarrassed,” Nave said. “As a child, you think you’re a freak.”

Nave managed to get through high school, graduating from Henninger in 1972 and attending Onondaga Community College. But he struggled to find his way in his 20s, going from one job to another or being unemployed. His parents discouraged him from getting a license to drive a car, fearful that the tics could cause him to crash.

“It was so misunderstood,” he said while looking back at those years.

A big breakthrough came in 1979, when Nave got properly diagnosed. Knowing that his condition had a name and definition – and that there were other people experiencing it – was the first big step toward him getting his adult life on track.

“I felt so relieved,” he said.

A few years later, he made the decision to learn how to drive a car so he could apply for more jobs, hopefully something that might stick.

“I said, ‘I’ve got to get a driver’s license,’” Nave said. “The bus doesn’t cut it. My parents were scared and I had some anxiety, but I had do it.”

Nave returned to OCC to finish his degree, and he landed a job at a Fay’s Drug location at the Shop City Plaza. After a decade of being unable to stay employed, this one stuck.

Nave has stayed with the pharmacy retailer at various locations through ownership changes to Eckerd, Rite Aid and Walgreens, working in positions that included receiving, pharmacy technician, pharmacy manager and clerk. Among the items on his kitchen counter is a certificate from Walgreens thanking him for 40 years of service.

“It was like I was a late bloomer,” Nave said.

Marty Nave and James Hanley — Former U.S. Rep. James Hanley talks with Marty Nave on Feb. 26, 1972. Hanley's campaign was the first of many for which Nave would volunteer over the next several decades.Provided by Marty Nave

A lifetime of politics

Winning an elected office at age 70 for the first time might qualify Nave as a late bloomer in politics, but the truth is he’s been actively involved most of his life. As a child, he drank up current events, and remembers being inspired by President John F. Kennedy.

He served on student councils throughout his school years. “I still have my badge from Grant Junior High,” he said. He tells a story about boldly walking up on the school stage as a ninth-grader and asking for Mayor William F. Walsh’s autograph after an assembly. He marvels that he’s soon going to be working with Walsh’s grandson, current Mayor Ben Walsh.

When he got old enough to volunteer on campaigns, Nave dove in. His first was helping James F. Hanley win election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972. He has worked for the local Democratic Party and mostly Democratic campaigns ever since.

The idea of running for city council has been in his mind for a while, but he didn’t pull the trigger until new Syracuse Common Council district maps were approved in 2022. The new boundaries took Nave’s current councilor, Jennifer Schultz, out of his district. It also unified the North Side, which had previously been split in half.

“I just thought, ‘If not now, when?’” he said.

Nave said he wouldn’t have challenged Schultz, who has come to many of his neighborhood watch meetings.

“It goes without saying that Marty will be an excellent leader for the North Side,” Schultz told the group at November’s meeting.

Nave’s younger brother, Dr. Dennis Nave, said he’s not surprised that Marty has become a Syracuse councilor. He noted Marty’s love for politics going back to his youth, and he also pointed to his brother’s ability to see the good in all people.

“No. 1, he will listen,” Dennis said. “He’s going to listen to his constituents and what their concerns are, and carry on those concerns.”

Dennis believes some of Marty’s ability to connect with people is what helped him deal with bullying and other negative comments that came with having Tourette Syndrome as a child.

“He focused on the good in people, not the bad, and I think people respected that,” he said.

Nave grandparents — Luigi and Mariannina Nave, grandparents of Syracuse Common Councilor-elect Marty Nave, stand outside the grocery store they ran at 404 N. State Street.Provided by Marty Nave

‘We are all immigrants’

A huge part of the Nave family’s life was the small barbershop and grocery store that his grandparents on his mother’s side ran on North State Street for 50 years. All of Marty’s grandparents grew up in Casalduni, Italy, and were brought to the United States by their parents about 110 years ago.

For many years, though, Italians faced discrimination as they attempted to learn a new language and make a living. To help blend in, Nave’s grandparents insisted that the family Americanize their names, which is why for much of his life his last name was pronounced with a long-a sound instead of the Italian pronunciation, which is NAH-VAY. It’s also how Marty, whose birth name is Marino, got his nickname early in life.

While campaigning last spring, Nave visited business owners who hailed from places such as Congo, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar. He shared his family’s story, and it resonated. Many told him they had never been visited by a campaigning politician before.

His brother Dennis, a physician who is a past president of the Greater Syracuse Labor Council, believes those conversations were key to his brother’s primary victory last spring.

“We’re old enough to remember our grandparents and great-grandparents going through the same thing,” Dennis said. “In the end, we’re all Americans. We’re just looking to make our lives here. Marty understands that.”

One of the photos Marty keeps in his kitchen shows his grandparents in their store. When talking about today’s refugees on the North Side, he pointed at that picture, saying loudly “This is who they are. We’re all part of the same melting pot. We are all immigrants. They want a better life for their families.”

Shaped by tragedy

One of Nave’s fondest and most enduring memories growing up on the North Side was the day his grandfather took him to MacArthur Stadium in 1963 to watch his first Syracuse Chiefs baseball game. It kindled a passion for the Chiefs that remains today.

Nave has been a season ticket holder for the Syracuse Minor League Baseball franchise, which is now the Syracuse Mets, for decades. He serves as an unofficial team historian, and in 2018, he became the second inductee into the Syracuse Chiefs Fan Wall of Fame. He currently serves as a Syracuse Mets Hall of Fame ambassador.

But a Chiefs game is also connected to one of Nave’s most painful memories. He was at a game one night in 2011 when he got a call that his 89-year-old father was in a crash. John Nave, 89, was killed by a drunk driver while driving home from a quick trip to the grocery story.

The woman who killed John Nave had a criminal record and long history of drug and alcohol abuse. She pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in prison. She was released to parole supervision in 2018.

The case helped shape Marty Nave’s viewpoint on how the city should deal with crime and support crime victims. He believes more police are needed, especially on the North Side, to make neighborhoods safer. He is skeptical of programs the Walsh administration is trying to employ that would engage with people who have been involved with violent crime by giving them paid internships and counseling.

“Let’s help out the young people who are doing good things in our community,” he said.

Those who have worked with Nave on community and neighborhood issues talk about his eagerness to meet with residents to hear about their concerns. That enthusiasm for helping people will serve him well as a district councilor, they said.

“I’m excited about it,” said Richard Zalewski, 75, a retiree who lives a couple of blocks away from Nave. The two met at a neighborhood watch meeting about 20 years ago and became fast friends. “He knows the neighborhood so well.”

Now Nave is eager to get into other neighborhoods with the same vigor. Nave concluded the recent Neighborhood Watch meeting with a request for those in attendance:

“Would you bring as many of your neighbors and friends from the North Side?” he asked. “Say, ‘You gotta come to meet your new councilor.’ I need you as my eyes and ears. Let’s really make this a community effort.”

Tony Borelli, coordinator of Neighborhood Watch Groups of Syracuse for the past 12 years, said Nave exudes passion for everything he does.

“He doesn’t just join something,” Borelli said. “He joins it and he makes sure he’s committed to it.”

Nave’s group is among the most active of the roughly 130 in the city, Borelli said. It’s common for Nave to go to other group’s meetings, as well.

“He has been able to network and get to know people so well,” Borelli said. “He has that connection.”

Giving and getting back

Until the fatal crash, Marty Nave had lived with his father his whole life. Most of that time they were in the same Dale Street house where he still resides with his newly adopted kitten, Zucca, which means “pumpkin” in Italian.

After the crash, Nave was devastated. He fell into a deep depression. The stress made it harder to manage his Tourette Syndrome symptoms.

“I was really at a down point,” he said.

But amid that struggle, Nave felt love from his neighbors and co-workers, who rallied around him with donations and messages of sympathy and encouragement.

“I’ll never forget it,” Nave said as his eyes welled up with tears and his voice choking.

It’s part of the reason Nave has remained committed to community service, from neighborhood watch to political and church committees.

But one of the most fulfilling acts of giving back has come through a Tourette Syndrome support group that formed in Central New York in 2004. Becky Lunkenheimer and her son, who was 11 at the time, started the local chapter through the Tourette Association of America in an effort to bring children and parents together.

Nave heard about the group and started coming to their meetings in Baldwinsville.

“It was wonderful because he would tell his story,” said Lunkenheimer, who currently serves as chair of the Greater New York Chapter of the Tourette Association.

Over the years, Nave has been a loyal participant, in large part because he wants parents and children to know they can have fulfilling lives.

“It gave parents hope,” Lunkenheimer said. “There really wasn’t a kid that didn’t look up to him. He was really like a magnet for them.”

City reporter Jeremy Boyer can be reached at jboyer@syracuse.com, (315) 657-5673, Twitter or Facebook.