If you haven’t already, check out the Etsy page of Carole Clark (former proprietor of Charleston restaurant, and an early Hudson activist). In addition to her artwork, lately Carole’s been making jewelry—pins, head ornaments, earrings, vases and more—from elements found in nature such as preserved wild mushrooms, lichen, moss and bark.
Nature magazine reports that scientists at two universities, working with the New York State Museum, have turned up the fossilized remains of the world’s oldest forest floor—right here in our midst, up in the Catskills town of Gilboa. The existence of the forest has been known since the ’20s, but examination of the floor has given a better idea of what actually grew there:
‘The world's oldest fossil forest’, famously the subject of an innovative exhibit at New York State Museum in the 1920s, was discovered during stone quarrying for the Gilboa dam and reservoir in Schoharie County, New York. Palaeontologist Winifred Goldring undertook the scientific description and illustration of in-place Eospermatopteris stumps and speculated on their significance. Her original publications continue to influence views on the origin of forest ecosystems, including the roles they may have had in global dynamics and extinction. The quarry was backfilled and remained inaccessible for 90 years, but in 2010 Stein et al. located the original ancient forest soil surface and mapped part of the site. Instead of one kind of tree, they found three, with evidence of spacing and biotic interactions between surprisingly different plant forms. These discoveries should have a major impact on interpreting further fragmentary fossil evidence of these early forests.
The discovery has prompted other national stories and visualizations of what the mid-Devonian period—about 385-398 million year ago—might have looked like, including dramatic renderings of cladoxylopsid trees.
Below is an image from The Albany Times-Union’s website, of a display which evidently used to greet visitors at the State Museum:
Here’s an interview posted on YouTube with one of the Binghampton scientists responsible for the new excavation:
WikiCoCo, one of several web publications run by Will Pflaum of Stuyvesant, recently published a list of attorneys said to be employed* by Columbia County.
That list (which evidently was found on an unspecified local listserv) claimed that all of the County’s lawyers were registered Republicans. Pflaum says he cannot vouch for that, and has invited comments on the veracity of the unknown list-maker’s claim.
The party affiliations of registered voters in New York State are a matter of public record**, open to all. An examination of the current County rolls indicate that such a sweeping claim is almost, but not quite true. Most of those listed are registered Republicans... but not all of them.
15 of 19 of the attorneys whose affiliation could be definitely identified in the Board of Elections’records do appear to be registered Republicans. Four others among them are not. Two are not members of any party (“independents”). One is a member of the Independence Party, which many do not realize is a political organization. Finally, one is a bona fide Democrat.
The remaining three others could not be found in County records. (I’m not aware of any requirement that a County attorney be registered to vote locally, though one might hope that the County government would keep such business local.)
Below is this site’s annotated version of WikiCoco’s list, which shows each lawyer’s party current affiliation in County records, and the town where each is registered:
COUNTY ATTORNEYS
MISSING: No voter registration was found in the files provided for Barrett M. Mack.
ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEYS
MISSING: No voter registration was found in the files provided for Robert M. Gibson.
PUBLIC DEFENDERS
ASST. PUBLIC DEFENDERS
MISSING: No voter registration was found in the files provided for Jessica Howser.
Anecdotally, I am aware that a few of the above have changed their registrations in recent years, some into the Republican party, and some out of it. But the above is the most current info on file.
In a way, it’s a more powerful statement to say that “15 of the County government’s lawyers are Republicans, and only one of them is a Democrat,” than to assert bold but mistaken claims that they are “ALL” members of the GOP. Such easily-disproven assertions tend to undermine the credibility of those looking for more balance and fairness in County appointments. (One can’t help wondering who the source was for the anonymous listserv post, and which side they’re actually on.)
One might, however, reasonably say that the County’s hired legal guns are all Republicans, except the assistant public defenders, if the affiliations of the remaining lawyers could be identified.
* NOTE #1: The list of who is serving in these taxpayer-funded legal capacities does appear to match that posted on the County’s website, but it is of course possible that the list is out of date or incomplete.
** NOTE #2: Such information is readily available on CD or by email to anyone who asks for it by submitting a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request, which need only be sent to the agency as a plain-english email—“I want the voter files!”—though it’s helpful to mention FOIL.)
Image: The above photo is of Martin Van Buren’s son John, an attorney who among other things viciously prosecuted Smith Boughton and several other leaders of the Anti-Rent movement, which was trying to help farmers escape the feudal oppressions of the Livingston and Van Rensselaer families. The infamous trial, not much commented upon by local historians and hagiographers of those grand Hudson Valley families, took place right here in Hudson. According to one account of the trial, “Prince John” Van Buren later also gambled away the title to Lindenwald.
The Register-Star (which recently tossed a bright orange bag containing a sample paper on my property) apparently had "technical problems" in their pressroom which impeded some deliveries this morning. So they are directing subscribers who didn't get today’s paper to come into the offices at 364 Warren for one.
Subscribers will get a free donut for their trouble.
At 3 pm on Saturday, The Olana Partnership presented an illuminating panel discussion at Stair Galleries moderated by Hudson resident and Manhattan attorney Dorothy Heyl about the successful late 1970s fight to stop a nuclear power plant proposed in Cementon—smack in the middle of Olana’s southern viewshed.
Overall, the panel discussion was highly informative, stimulating and at times even inspirational. Of particular interest were Carl Petrich’s recollections of how officials within the Oak Ridge lab of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission supported his landscape planning work in spite of his eventual conclusion that this wasn’t a suitable location for a nuclear plant.Petrich’s independent-minded analysis was in many ways responsible for the project’s demise.
Fellow panelist Wint Aldrich similarly recalled that he was afforded a remarkable degree of autonomy to question the project within the Hugh Carey administration. Today it seems hard to imagine that the same level of non-politicized, objective, but ultimately oppositional research would be as tolerated in our 21st Century Federal and State bureaucracies...
There were, meanwhile, a couple of moments when an informed observer couldn't help wishing for a longer and more detailed debate than is possible on a late Saturday afternoon.
For example, panelist Rick Benas, a semi-retired NYS DEC staffer, touted a visual impact assessment policy he helped finalize in 2000. As reported by John Mason in The Catskill Daily Mail, Benas heralded this internal agency policy as a signature achievement growing out of the nuclear plant fight—characterizing it as “the basis with which the DEC judges all submissions regarding aesthetics. You identify the resource, figure out how to minimize the impact.”
Benas (who had earlier offered an authoritative explication of the visual elements which make the view from Olana so powerful) touted the policy as “an objective way to measure a subjective phenomenon.” He further claimed that it “is supported by both industry and environmentalists, concluding that “What’s in here is what we all share. If an agency’s not doing its job, throw this in their face.”
That sounded pretty darn good... prompting another panelist to suggest that maybe this policy should become law, rather than just an internal guidance policy.
However, Mr. Benas neglected to mention that in 2001 he and his colleagues at DEC had interpreted that very same policy to justify their support for the proposed St. Lawrence Cement Greenport project—a project resolutely opposed by Olana primarily due to visual impacts.
In 2001 proceedings before Administrative Law Judge Helene Goldberger, Olana attorney John Caffry expressed amazement at Benas and DEC’s policy-backed assessment, calling it “mind-boggling.”
Why “mind-boggling”? Because the SLC Greenport proposal featured, among other things, a 400-foot stack the size of an office building, with a plume stretching five miles or more, as well as several dozen other major structures atop Becraft Mountain and at the Hudson Waterfront. County resident Moisha Blechman aptly called it a “new industrial city.” As seen in the documentary Two Square Miles, balloon tests insisted upon by citizens later confirmed just how colossal and pervasive the visual impact of that new “city” could have been.
Yet the DEC’s 2000 policy made it very difficult, if not impossible, for the agency to reject a proposal based on visual impacts... even impacts as vast as those proposed by SLC. That’s because their policy is based on the premise that if a company does everything it can to “mitigate” and “offset” its presence in the landscape, then the project can still be approved—even if after those efforts, there are still significant, adverse, “residual” impacts.
In lay terms, the DEC policy says: If a company gets an A for effort, it makes it OK for them to get an F on the actual test. The policy allows approval of a project despite its harsh and discordant elements, so long as the applicant makes a good faith effort to mitigate them “to the maxium extent practicable.”
So while Mr. Benas and DEC acknowledged in 2001 that it was impossible to hide such a big project, since SLC was offering as many mitigations as possible given the circumstances, the remaining negative impacts did not constitute grounds for a denial.
Thus Benas, backed by then-DEC attorney Bob Leslie, argued from their visual policy that hiding a small portion of the 400-foot stack in an 80-foot hole in the Greenport quarry, painting parts of it light blue, then removing several structures plus the plume from Catskill was an adequate combination of mitigation and “offsets” to warrant approval, even though the plant would still have undeniable visual impacts. Following this policy, the agency proceeds from the assumption that virtually every proposal will be built. In that context, the agency’s job becomes limited to making the best of bad situations—not to prevent them. (This mindset is not limited to government bureaucrats; Scenic Hudson president Ned Sullivan has similarly argued, in the pages of The New York Times, that his organization’s role is to “manage” development, not to stop it.)
Below is the key section of Benas’ 2001 testimony from the Issues Conference held at the Hudson Elks’ Lodge referenced above, pp. 1696-7:
10 Staff is guided by DEC program policy
11 number DEP-00-2 assessing and mitigating visual
12 impacts. The policy was the subject of public review
13 and comment, had a peer review and comment, and was
14 issued in July of 2000.
15 What the policy does is, among other
16 things, it gives the universal list of all mitigation
17 strategies in this discipline. With that list, if an
18 Applicant demonstrates that they have employed every
19 strategy of mitigation, then the Applicant can assert
20 that they have minimized impact and Staff can either
21 refute or confirm that by looking at the generic list
22 and making sure that all strategies have been
23 applied.
24 In this case, even after employment of
2 all those strategies, there remains a residual
3 significant adverse impact, then the policy directs
4 Staff to explore the possibility of offsets to
5 compensate for and reach the balance that SEQR
6 requires.
7 Applicant has offered significant and
8 important offsets in this proceeding and, further,
9 Staff has gone to require in the draft permit that
10 the facility be decommissioned at the end of its
11 useful life, thus, minimizing the duration of the
12 impact.
13 We believe that the issue before your
14 Honor, among other things, is are those offsets
15 sufficient to justify approval.
The decision had tremendous precedential value; fortunately, it was not left solely up to the discretion of EnCom staff, who worked closely and privately for year's with SLC to hone its application. For if the Greenport project could have been built here, pretty much anything could. One seriously has to wonder whether, under the terms of the current policy, DEC would be able to stop a nuclear plant at Cementon on visual grounds.
State regulators were also relying on an assumption that was wholly rejected by The Olana Partnership itself, namely that only the southern view from the site really matters... Frederic Church plainly designed a 360-degree experience at Olana, and sketched or painted other views in other directions, for example looking toward Becraft Ridge. DEC staff also rushed to ratify the cement company’s assertion that the project would have no significant, adverse effect on historic resources within the Coastal Zone, even though neither the Department of State nor the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) had weighed in on the matter yet.
Ultimately, citizens concluded that the DEC was not, in Benas’ own formulation, “not doing its job” and indeed threw more enforceable laws “in their face.” after years of wrenching controversy and millions spent by both sides, the project was denied via those same Coastal Consistency rules that EnCon had shrugged off … The decision came down from a different agency, much to the chagrin of many DEC staffers, from what opponents soon heard through various Albany grapevines. (“They were shocked and angry over the Secretary of State’s decision,” one well-placed Capitol source reported to me.)
As it turns out, there was no need to compromise one view for another, or to settle for making the best of a bad situation. The 2005 rejection of the Greenport project has now been coupled with clear confirmation of the closing of Holcim’s (SLC’s) Catskill facility. The visual plumes from that destructive, foreign-owned company now have been removed from both sides of the Hudson River, along with the pollution they discharged into our region’s environment. What had been posited as a tough either/or choice, pitting Olana’s stunning southern views against its overall experience, now has played out as a complete win/win for the site.
Another topic worthy of more detailed future discussion: the way in which boundaries were later drawn (under the guidance of Cementon anti-nuclear activist Loretta Simon) to protect the Catskill-Olana and Columbia-Greene Scenic Areas of Statewide Significance, but left a gap omitting all of the City of Hudson in between the two. But that’s something for another day, as this post has already gone overlong.
According to The Albany Times-Union, the Holcim plant in Catskill is really and truly kaput. Click here and here for two previous posts explaining why this news was both inevitable and utterly necessary.
The sidewalk-level door to 557 Warren Street, which has been under renovation for several years, was open on this Springlike day, giving pedestrians a glimpse of things to come.
UPDATE: According to a Hudson Supervisor, Koolhaas may handle the building's interior, while the exterior would be renovated by another architect.
New York Magazine’s “Vulture” blog reports some truly earth-shaking news for Hudson: Rem Koolhaas has signed on to build Marina Abramovic’s long-awaited museum. The Center for the Preservation of Performance Art is slated for the old Community Tennis building on the north side of the 7th Street park.
Without exaggeration, Koolhaas is among the very most respected avant-garde architects in the world today. His involvement means that the building should become a destination not only for performance art afficianados, but also architecture buffs.
According to the article, Abramovic—who also bought a Dennis Wedlick house here in Columbia County—is anticipating an $8 million budget. She also says that she’s advocating with the new Mayor to support a hotel which would accommodate the large number of anticipated visitors, some of whom might be looking for something other than a B&B experience or a motel. (Note: A friend reports that the nearby St. Charles Hotel, which had suffered from some neglect over the years, recently has begun renovating its rooms.)
Describing the area, Vulture columnist Alexandra peers writes:
Hudson, New York, and the surrounding region southeast of the Catskills, is already something of a serious art-world hangout, with several expat galleries in town. It was the site of a New Art Dealers Alliance art fair last summer (not to mention the headquarters of the last century’s “Hudson River School” of painters and painting).
It will be fascinating, among other things, to see how Hudson’s Historic Preservation Commission approaches the project. I’ve long argued that preservation in Hudson should focus primarily on (A) preventing demolition of historic structures and (B) assisting homeowners with making—and finding funding for—historically accurate restorations. A question I remember raising with my friend Tony Thompson way back in 1998 or ’99, at a garden party held by Sarah Sterling: What would Hudson do if a truly famous architect wanted to build something cutting-edge here? Would we spurn a Richard Meier, or Zaha Hadid, or Frank Gehry building because it was not period? Hudson is, today, a catalog of period vernacular American styles precisely because its building stock evolved with the times.
(Obviously, there is a big difference between an ambitious modern project and someone negligently stripping important period details from a historic façade... But how does one distinguish between the two in a preservation code, without essentially saying “You can change it, so long the result is really cool”?)
This project may put such theoretical questions to the test. However it turns out, Koolhaas’ involvement is huge, positive news for Hudson, promising many direct and indirect economic and cultural benefits.
[h/t Warren Reiss]
Former Register-Star reporter Jamie Larson (now in journalism school) has posted an interview with the buyers of the Keystone building in Hudson, who are opening it as a restaurant called Crimson Sparrow. They are alums of wd-50 in Manhattan, which practices a science-based form of cooking known as “molecular gastronomy.” Jamie’ interview is viewable on Vimeo.
(This means Hudson will have a Red Dot, a Red Chair, a Red Chopstick and a Crimson Sparrow. Where is the love for the other primary colors?)
Upstreet just a few steps, I've had it confirmed that the sale of the Ackerman's building is finalized—sold to an arts-minded couple from Northern Dutchess, who may be contemplating a Guido's-style market in the ground floor space.
Meanwhile, a valued local source says that DPW chief Rob Perry has found not only the former Venus statue in the 7th street park, but also its elaborate base.
All this occurs in the context of business owners from 7th Street up (7up?) organizing to encourage foot traffic and improvements in their part of town. This follows on the heels of The now-defunct (but once very effective) Fourthdown and the current Belo3rd groups. Sooner or later, the merchants of the 500 and 600 blocks may have to stage a counterrevolutionary organization of their own...
