By August a vacant side lot on the Near West Side can stand waist-high, all timothy and ragweed leaning out over the sidewalk. Knockdown Services LLC takes on exactly that kind of ground — heavy grass cut back down to something a person can walk across, mow and keep. Late-summer heat sits still between the houses in Syracuse, and the work is slow and loud and enormously satisfying in the way that only reclaiming something is. What was a thicket at nine in the morning is a lawn by two, edges trimmed, clippings raked off the walk. After that it goes on the schedule, and every cut after keeps it there.