SamPratt.com

R.I.P.

This winter, the obituary pages have brought a steady stream of sad news of the untimely passing of people I was glad to have known in Hudson: Steve Kulyniak, Ann Barley, Bill Cranna, Joanne Krasowsky... Their presences all are missed.

Saturday Art: Gary Kuehn

Berliner Serie (1979)

The Sting, Part II?

By several credible accounts, there appears to have been a second round of “sting” operations last night, seeking to entice Hudson businesses to serve minors.

In January, eight Hudson business owners were astonished to find themselves on the wrong end of an undercover operation. The sting featured mature-looking underage drinkers who attempted, mostly successfully, to get served in local restaurants and bars.

Most of the establishments targeted rarely play host to anyone under 31, let alone under 21, since they mainly serve higher-end drinks that aren’t usually ordered by cash-strapped teenagers. As such, many local bartenders were unlikely to suspect that one of their customers would be too young to drink, especially if they were in the company of other adults.

To be sure, teenagers drink; anyone who claims they never did is either a liar, or a bore... But typically, underage drinking happens in the woods, or in cars, or in the basement of the home of whoever’s parents are away on vacation... not in upscale Hudson bars. Drunk driving is likewise a serious matter. But that’s true no matter what the age of the drinker. In any case, there’s no indication that kids are getting tanked at local establishments. (More usually, it’s a friend’s older brother who gets sent in to buy a case at a convenience store, then passes it along, keeping a six for himself.)

Adding to the business community’s perplexity was the revelation that funding for the sting came via Catholic Charities, a Columbia County nonprofit which had turned over State grant funds for teenage alcohol education and substance abuse prevention to the Hudson Police Department. Local politicians promised to “look into” the situation, and according to several elected officials, no further grants of this type had been authorized.

All this taken together, there was a widespread feeling that rather than having been caught up in a legitimate effort to deal with a problem situation, they were the victims of entrapment. And that the State grant money ought to be spent on genuine education (of both youth and bar staff) rather than “gotcha” operations.

Yet on Thursday night, there were widespread reports that another sting was underway. A bartender at a high-end downtown establishment reported directly to me that a woman in her mid-20s had sat at the bar, acting nervous, and saying that she was “waiting for friends.” After a while, a young man came in and tried to order a Coors Light—something the bar quite obviously did not stock. When carded, the young man proved to be only 20, and left, unserved; the nervous-acting “spotter” left shortly thereafter, with no friends having shown up.

A patron of another establishment farther uptown reported an almost identical story, of out-of-place and ill-at-ease “spotters” leaving right after an unsuccessful attempt by an underage drinker to get served. At this point, any further stings would appear to be redundant—every Hudson establishment is now on the lookout, and carding regularly, and thanks to texting and other social media, word spreads like wildfire if there’s an operation underway.

Given the firm denials by local officials that any new funding has been approved for this purpose, one can only speculate that must have been was some unspent money left over from the prior round of Catholic Charities funding...

Either that, or some local kids have decided that it’s more fun to punk Hudson bartenders than to drink in a musty old van.

Quotable Nietzsche

When one has a great deal to put into it, a day has a hundred pockets.

 — FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (Human, All Too Human, 1878)

Wedne(t)s(y)day: Rip Van Winkle

A photogravure of Rip from an 1892 book, found at Natisha’s Etsy store.

Gut check

Our region is fast becoming both a high-end breadbasket for gourmet New York City restaurants featuring top-quality ingredients, and also a culinary destination in itself. And for the most part, this is a great thing—as much for our economy as for our landscapes and our stomachs.

But as that status rises, so does the risk that excess and affectation will overrun the honest enjoyment of good, heathy food made well.

To that end, this controversial new article in The Atlantic Monthly is must-reading for Hudson Valley foodies, even though most will howl at it like an animal being led to slaughter.

In Fed Up: The Moral Crusade Against Foodies, critic B. R. Myers argues convincingly and searingly—pun intended—that “gluttony dressed up as foodie-ism is still gluttony.” Tweaking author Francine Prose (and the foodie movement’s habit of reporting non-critically on itself), Myers writes:

Not surprisingly, [Prose] regards gluttony primarily as a problem of overeating ... In fact the Catholic Church’s criticism has always been directed against an inordinate preoccupation with food—against foodie-ism, in other words ... A disinterested writer would likely have done the subject more justice. 

The author reviews a host of recent books by chefs, foodies, and other authors like Prose, and with genuine flair pronounces them not merely lacking literary worth, but also any awareness of their own vanities and hypocrisies. From the elevation of gluttony into a quasi-religion, to the pretentions of ostentatious connoisseurship, to the false invocation of “tradition” to justify self-indulgence, Myers racks up telling point after point:

The Roman historian Livy famously regarded the glorification of chefs as the sign of a culture in decline. I wonder what he would have thought of The New York Times’ efforts to admit ‘young idols with cleavers’ into America’s pantheon of food-service heroes.

But Myers’ most biting critiques are saved for the foodie movement’s smug and self-affirming embrace of cruelty:

Restaurant reviews are notorious for touting $100 lunches as great value for money. The doublespeak now comes in more pious tones, especially when foodies feign concern for animals. Crowding around to watch the slaughter of a pig—even getting in its face just before the shot—is described by Bethany Jean Clement (in an article in Best Food Writing 2009) as “solemn” and “respectful” behavior. Pollan writes about going with a friend to watch a goat get killed. “Mike says the experience made him want to honor our goat by wasting as little of it as possible.” It’s teachable fun for the whole foodie family. The full strangeness of this culture sinks in when one reads affectionate accounts [of] children clamoring to kill their own cow—or wanting to see a pig shot, then ripped open with a chain saw: “YEEEEAAAAH!”  

Again, many of us who support local, sustainable agriculture or just nutritious food—including the restaurants, growers, and distributors in our region who make it possible—may find this stiff rinse of mouthwash has a bit too much sting. No sacred cow is spared here, not Michael Pollan, nor even Alice Waters... But Myers’ polemic is an essential read for anyone who wants to get it right, cutting out the excesses and vanities of the foodie movement while keeping the more rigorous, useful core intact.

(That link to The Atlantic again: click here.)

Tu(n)esday: Baths

 

From their indispensable new album Cerulean—just in time, as Múm was starting to get tired... [h/t Giovanni]

Hudson 101: The Cement Plant Battle (Part 4)

[ Click for Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 5 ]

NOTE: This piece originally appeared in last year’s environment issue of Our Town (the Columbia County quarterly), under the title The Bullet We Dodged: How the Cement War was Won.* I’m offering it here in several installments over the next week, in a somewhat expanded form, and with added visuals and links, both for those who lived through the tumultuous years of 1998-2005, and for others who moved to the area more recently—who may wonder what all the fuss was about...

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THE CONVERTS • While much of the media and SLC tried to portray opponents as kneejerk reactionaries, for most, the process of opposing the plant involved a slow, steady loss of faith in the company—paired with increased  trust in opponents’ credibility.

Claverack’s Mary Sanchez, who ran a lively and sometimes profane online chat site known as “Red’s Board”, described her change of stance in terms of the patience and decency of opponents’ responses:

People took the time to answer my questions in a civil and thoughtout manner. Their answers made sense—and—they could be verified with facts. I started to look back at my involvement with SLC. After reading all the information I had found (not been given—but found), both good and bad, I asked myself that question that Jesse continuously asks: “Why is SLC good for us?” I could not think of an answer... I got to thinking that big promises don’t always add up to big “keeps.”

It is my hope that some of the “pro-cement” folks will take some time to really really honestly think about this SLC project. Really think about this Santa Claus of a company promising you all you ever wished for. I do not believe that there can be a Santa Claus if there is no heart.

Santa Claus would never use people.

Santa Claus would never hurt people.

St. Lawrence Cement has no heart, and they use people. They prey on their feelings and they are good at bringing out the ugly in everybody.

It was also on Red’s Board that then-State Assemblyman Patrick Manning (R-Hopewell Junction) had his own epiphany about SLC.

Manning had bashed opponents at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast at Meadowgreens, then got an earful back from disappointed constituents.

He agreed to an hour online chat at Red’s, finally admitting that he would not want a project like SLC in his own town. Gathering his own facts, he consulted closely with doctors such as noted Cornell cancer researcher and Hillsdale resident Mitchell Gaynor, to understand the health implications of living near a major coal-burning facility, and then weighed in regularly and forcefully with State agencies against the plant. Another key public official, Hudson Planning Board chair and later President of the Common Council Michael Vertetis, began as a middle-of-the road plant proponent.

But Vertetis (unlike his former ally, Mayor Rick Scalera) was careful to maintain a civil relationship with plant opponents, and showed an interest in having the City conduct a proper review. At first, many of us assumed that Mike was proceeding cautiously only to ensure that a botched process wouldn’t open the door for a successful lawsuit. But over time, the heavy-handed tactics of SLC (in particular their belligerent attorneys, Bob Alessi and Tom West) tended to alienate more moderate supporters like Mike.

By keeping communication open with folks like Mike, our side maintained the possibility of his voting against SLC’s proposed Host Community Agreement, a package intended to buy the City’s support.

That in fact happened on the same day that Secretary of State Randy Daniels found the project violated New York’s Coastal Policies, dealing a crushing double-whammy to the project on April 19th, 2005.

THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY • Opposition needed to be rooted in more than just environmental arguments.

While some business leaders automatically supported the project without doing any due diligence, others took the time to gather facts and assess the situation. Farmers and realtors (including Steve Kingsley, who generously donated free office space when we were just getting our feet under us) were two early groups with a lot at stake, taking a stand against SLC as a threat to their livelihoods.

Germantowners Nancy Gordon and Paul Swedenburg, whose hightech company HAVE, Inc. is located in Hudson’s former Simpsonville neighborhood, were among the first to step out of ranks with those businesses falling in line behind SLC.

Before taking any position, they invited then-project managers Dirk Cox and Phil Lochbrunner to a discussion with me at their offices. They insisted on an open debate, with both sides present. After considering what they’d heard, Nancy and Paul issued a strongly-argued op-ed, setting forth precisely how the project would harm their business, and the commitment they’d made to employing local people. Richard Katzman, then a major employer in Hudson- Greenport, also gathered his own facts, and after losing confidence in the company, came out against it. He proceeded to underwrite the construction of a giant scale model of the plant, quarry and dock facility, and sponsored telephone polls (conducted by the same firm used by President Clinton and Mayor Michael Bloomberg) showing that by 2002, plant opponents had outnumbered supporters. 

Toward the end of the fight, many of these same business leaders along with others such as Martina Arfwidson of FACE Stockholm, Don and Marnie MacLean of Thompson- Finch Farm, Deborah Bowen of The Inn at Green River, and David Rubel of Agincourt Press, worked with us to craft a Statement of Values for promoting greener, more sustainable development in the region: To ensure continued growth and stability, we need to protect our high quality of life. This includes a healthy environment and workforce, clean air and water, scenic and historic resources, and public enjoyment of our unique natural surroundings. [We conclude] that the overall scale, design, location and impacts of the St. Lawrence Cement facility proposed for Hudson and Greenport pose too great a risk of harming the health, quality of life, and economic viabililty of our region, and therefore it is not the right fit for our communities.

By the time this letter was presented to the State, more than 200 businesses representing over 1,150 full-time and another 450 part-time jobs in the area, had signed on. Their message was clear: in the mid-Hudson Valley, the fate of the environment and the economy are inextricably linked. We were fighting not only to stop something, but also to preserve the possibility of a brighter future.

THE EXPERTS • Citizens’ groups always are held to a higher standard of accuracy than slippery politicians. We knew we had to be painstakingly accurate in our public statements, and to back them up with full documentation and professional confirmations by independent experts.

One such expert was living right under our noses in Claverack: toxicologist and EPA consultant Travis Kline (son of Pamela Kline, founder of Traditions). Kline was asked to speak at an SLC forum, set up by the company in hopes that they’d control the dialogue and make opponents appear marginal and ill-informed.

But the opposite occurred, as major public attendance forced the events to move to a large Columbia-Greene Community College auditorium. As panelists were peppered with tough questions from the well-prepared audience, they were emboldened to step outside the limited scripts SLC expected they’d stick to. Much to the company’s chagrin, Travis made a devastating presentation about the health risks of volatile organic compounds and products of incomplete combustion resulting from the burning of impurity-laden limestone and coal. Calling for a multi-disciplinary risk assessment and test burns, he warned that the existing regulatory process was inadequate to protect residents from harm. By his second forum appearance, SLC had lost control of the dialogue, causing some of its supporters to lose their cool. Four “young guys feeling their oats,” sporting the company’s free blue tshirts, attempted to menace Travis, who was escorted out of the hall for his own safety by State Police Investigator and forum member Gary Mazzacano. These occasional and pathetic attempts at intimidation only made SLC look worse.

While SLC expected opponents to bring nothing to the table, impressive experts were retained to back up our positions during official reviews.

One day in 1999, Hudson art dealer John Davis had a visit from a loyal client named Gabe Miller. Gabe spotted one of our flyers on John’s desk and said: “You really don’t want something like this in your community. I know, because I build these things.” An NYU chemistry professor and senior engineer at Camp Dresser & McKee, among the largest international industrial consultants based in the Northeast, John arranged for Gabe to meet me for lunch at the St. Charles Hotel, whereupon we became the first environmental group ever represented by CDM. His firm’s work was supplemented by Dr.

Alex Sagady, a pit bull of an engineer from Michigan, who represents citizens groups at discount rates. Alex’s preferred method of working was to file Freedom of Information requests with State agencies, then fly to Albany to camp out in the offices of the Department of Environmental Conservation, where he’d invariably find lots of useful information that bureaucrats, such as Project Manager Michael Higgins, had previously “overlooked”.

As our network expanded, similar finds began emerging on a regular basis. One after another, experts came to Hudson to educate our membership in public presentations: Neil Carman of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club, Florida kiln activist and elected official Penny Wheat, Downwinders at Risk leaders Jim Schermbeck and Katy Hubener, Bonnie Sanders of South Camden Citizens in Action. Sanders, who died the following year, was particularly moving as she talked about her neighborhood’s experience with SLC: “They spread around a lot of promises of jobs and grants for local organizations. They led our church pastors to think that this company would do good for minority residents.

Once they had their permits, we learned that all they cared about was making money. We only gained a very small number of jobs. What we ended up with was pollution that made my grandchild, other kids and our seniors fight for breath, and truck traffic so heavy it shook house foundations. [But] even if SLC stood behind their promises, the hardships wouldn't have been worth it. You can't trust this company, and you don't want them in your area.” The Allies From the start, we knew we couldn’t go it alone. The fight had to be expanded to the whole Valley and into the downwind states of New England. After a lonely couple of years, one by one, more than three dozen groups stood with us—some contributing just their names, others biting off major pieces of the legal fight. 

During one difficult winter meeting at City Hall in Hudson, a group of about five young, purposeful people in outdoor gear strode into the Council Chambers: Alex Matthiessen and his Riverkeeper crew had docked their boat and come up Warren Street like the cavalry to save the day.

Meanwhile, at his office in Pittsfield, my all-time favorite conservation activist George Wislocki, founder of the Berkshire Natural Resource Council, used his decades of contacts and stockpile of credibility to convince EPA’s New England Regional Administrator to issue a stern letter against SLC—and her support was echoed by the Massachusetts DEP and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. Across the river, Athens officials such as Andrea Smallwood and Chris Pfister opened up a western front against SLC by passing a Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and submitting strong letters cautioning against Hudson impairing the State’s investment in the Village’s newly-restored park and docks along the Hudson. 

THE GO-TO GUYS & GALS • But for all the specialized skills and thoughtful analysis that go into long grassroots battles, possibly the most valuable asset of a citizens’ organization is to have plenty of worker bees ready to swarm out of the hive at a moment’s notice. We weren’t lacking in that department. Whether it was an urgent mailing to get stuffed and stamped, or rounding up auction items for our next benefit party, or needing a small crowd to assemble for an unexpected meeting, or volunteers to help set up for an event, people gave generously and endlessly of their time: Warren Collins, Fran DeGrazia, Bob and Monica Mechling, Diana Jelinek, Dick Donovan, Claire Oravec, Chloe Zerwick, Jennifer Arenskjold, Marty Davidson, Martha Lane, Carole Clark, Hillary Hillman... This list could go on forever, and still be missing important contributions.

We also lost some of our most valued soldiers over the years: the hilariously wise Cassandra Danz (a/k/a Mrs. Greenthumbs); the fearless Bud Mann; artist Hannah Williamson; Phyllis Herbert, who never threw out a single article about the plant; and the ever-ready Vinny DeGrazia, our favorite bartender and raconteur. Their contributions live on each time anyone looks toward Becraft and still sees a hill, rather than a 1,200-acre hole in the landscape.

NEXT UP: The conclusion of this five-part series. Click here to continue...

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* Readers who want to read the full, original OT article as edited by Enid Futterman and designed by John Isaacs can download it as a PDF right away by clicking here. A full, week-by-week chronology of the fight can be found at Stop the Plant.com.

Air Hudson

The following two aerial photos are reproduced by permission from Claverack resident and pilot Steve Walsh, who took these during a recent Winter flight over the County. The first is of Hudson looking from the top of Warren Street west toward the River:

The second shows Fairview Avenue looking north toward Greenport, with the high school and “Boulevards” on the left and Route 66 angling off on the lower right.

Many thanks to Steve for the eye-opening pics.

Saturday Art: Christian Boltanski

Christian Boltanski, Les Suisses Morts (1990-91)

Is demography destiny?

Clearly, Hudson and Columbia County have changed a great deal in the past decade. But how, exactly?

The 2010 Census figures for Columbia County still aren’t available. But one can get some sense of how a place has changed over the past decade by taking a look at shifts in its voter registration... Below are some simple observations based on a comparison of the Hudson voter rolls in 1999 vs. today in 2011:

• The total number of Hudson voters dropped* by 142 registrants between 1999 vs. 2011.

(Note: In the middle of that decade, voter rolls temporarily swelled over 3,800; but that included a large number of voters who proved to be “inactive,” i.e. still on the rolls but not actually still living in Hudson. These are slowly weeded out by the Board of Elections via mail checks and occasional challenges by candidates.)

• Enrollment in the Democratic party went up by 56% and Independence Party** rolls increased by 93%—while the number of Republicans fell -25% and Conservative enrollment dropped a whopping -73%,

• 51% of all voters in Hudson today have only been registered locally for 10 years or less.

• Meanwhile, only 17% have been registered for 20 years or more.

• The balance of voters in the various Hudson wards has shifted somewhat:

• In 1999, 56% of Hudson voters were female. Today, that number has evened out slightly, falling to 54%.

• 14% (approximately 1 in 7) of those registered to vote have never actually done so.

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* Drops in population or voter enrollment are often lamented as a sign of a community in decline, but this analysis often proves too simplistic. For example: Imagine a house in terrible condition, owned by a large extended family which hasn't paid its property tax bill for several years, who have a host of “fence disputes” with their neighbors, and who rent out the basement apartment to known crack dealers for cash. The house gets sold, the back taxes get paid, the problem neighbors use the remaining proceeds to move to another town, and a retired couple renovates the house—in the process, pouring many dollars into the pockets of local contractors such as roofers, electricians, plumbers and painters. In that scenario, a formerly-derelict house is back on the tax rolls, back in good condition, and lived in by people who care about their surroundings. So while the population of the block may have decreased, the block and the City would appear to be better off.

** Many who consider themselves "independent" voters mistakenly enroll as a member of the confusingly-named Independence Party, which is actually a political organization. Those with no party affiliation are recorded by the Board of Elections as "NOP" or "NPE" voters (for No Party or No Party Enrollment).

Hudson 101: The Cement Plant Battle (Part 3)

[ Click for Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 | Part 5 ]

NOTE: This piece originally appeared in last year’s environment issue of Our Town (the Columbia County quarterly), under the title The Bullet We Dodged: How the Cement War was Won.* I’m offering it here in several installments over the next week, in a somewhat expanded form, and with added visuals and links, both for those who lived through the tumultuous years of 1998-2005, and for others who moved to the area more recently—who may wonder what all the fuss was about...

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THE HISTORIANS • Willard Place resident Don Christensen came to Hudson in the 1980s with no intention of getting involved in local affairs.

Relentlessly curious, and with fine radar for irony, Don had always wondered how the once-fabled South Bay, which he could see from his back window, had been transformed from a stunning and economically productive inlet, into a degraded, polluted, landfilled swamp. Now the threat of SLC turned this casual question into a matter of fight-or-flight urgency.

Going through old deeds at the Columbia County Real Property Department, dusty files at the County Historical Society, spinning through acres of microfilm in area libraries, checking the archives of historic sites and museums, and quizzing astonished bureaucrats at obscure agencies such as the NYS Office of General Services, Bureau of Land Management, Division of Lands Underwater, Don unearthed the true history of the Bay. His research raised serious questions about the SLC’s title to illegally-filled acres along the river, and resulted in a major exhibit at the Hudson Opera House—Seeing South Bay. Don became keenly aware of the tendency of the past to repeat itself in Hudson. For one example, in the 19th Century, quarrier Fred Jones convinced Hudson officials to let him trash the Bay by running a railroad trestle across it by first threatening to lay the tracks on Allen Street—a strategy we’re now seeing deployed again by Holcim in 2010.

Don’s solitary work was performed against a more communal backdrop of interest in local history led by residents such as Carole Osterink, Ellen Thurston, David Kermani and others at Historic Hudson. Their keen interest in preservation was complemented by that of Kinderhook’s Ruth Piwonka, responsible for most of the nominations of Columbia sites to the State Register of Historic Places, who spotted many holes in SLC’s inventories of historic resources threatened by the plant. Groups such as Hudson River Heritage in Red Hook (then headed by Kate Kerin) and The Olana Partnership (led by Sarah Griffen), collaborated to make preservation another key reason to stop the plant.

THE GO-GETTERS • While some preferred parsing the SLC application, or searching the internet for the company’s latest environmental atrocities, others knew that the war could not be waged solely at our keyboards. It was essential for the opposition to have a human face, and to reach people who, at the turn of the 20th century, might not yet have email.

One method devised for this purpose was leafletting and buttonholing neighbors on Saturday mornings at busy post offices around the region. Each week, I’d arrange to meet residents of a specific town— say, Cyndy Hall in Claverack, or Joan Hintermeister and Sally Drummond in Germantown—to meet me at their local PO, Our non-confrontational presence reached out to new constituents, showed our commitment to the cause, and put a human, recognizable face on the movement. It became a lot more difficult to believe the company’s smears about opponents if you’d actually met one.

Opponents eventually gathered over 16,000 petition signatures, which were patiently transcribed back at the office after each weekend’s haul, by volunteers such as Gabi Hermann, Chet Stark and Alice Platt. The signer’s name would be hand-written on an envelope containing a bumper sticker, a flyer, a donation form, and a copy of the petition for the signer to circulate as well. Before mailing, an employee such as Ann Birckmayer or Maiysha Kramer would enter the name and contact info into the database for future follow-ups.

Meanwhile, Jock Spivy and Ally Anderson-Spivy of Kinderhook were rounding up signatures on a separate National Cultural Petition supported by artists, historians, curators and others alarmed by SLC’s threat to the Valley’s “spectacular scenery and its seminal role in the development of America’s culture and ideology.” The signatories ranged from locallybased but internationally known figures such as poet John Ashbery and painter Ellsworth Kelly, to celebrity  Uma Thurman.

Activist clichés about “taking it to the streets” meant more than marching down Warren Street. Working with members of Columbia Action Now (an allied group in the northern part of the County) such as Spencertown's Hannah Hanani, we took our fight to the sidewalks of Manhattan for a 2001 protest outside the Swiss consulate. Armed with proof that the proposal would not be allowed in the home country of SLC's owners, residents held signs with humorous slogans like “Build it in the Alps” and "Chocolate, yes. Mercury, no,” provoking a panicked meeting with consulate staff and a great deal of exposure in the European press. Similarly, with the help of Jay Rasku of New England's Toxics Action Network, Hudson residents like Leo Carlin stormed the belly of the SLC beast, delivering thousands of petitions by hand to chilly staffers at Holcim headquarters in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Both actions were intended not merely as good political theater, but were part of an overall campaign to influence the company's leadership to withdraw. Self-professed capitalists such as Dick Jenrette of DLJ, Christopher Burge of Christie's and Craig Fitt of UBS, wrote jointly to Holcim board members calling the Hudson Valley a bad business bet.

THE CREATIVES • Aiding in the Spivys’ effort were photographer Lynn Davis and screenwriter/ novelist Rudy Wurlitzer, who constantly lent their creative talents and connections to the cause. The pair must have turned a few heads when they traveled to places like Midlothian, Texas and Devil’s Slide, Utah, cameras in hand—Lynn with her black leather jacket and long white tresses, Rudy with his shambling gait and radical sense of humor—bringing back proof of what life was really like in cement towns.

They returned with photos of monstrous cement blight, and videos of downwind residents sharing stories of sick cattle and cancer-stricken relatives.

Many of Rudy and Lynn’s friends, such as photographers William Wegman and Annie Leibovitz, and musicians Philip Glass and Patti Smith, donated their talents to billboard campaigns and benefit concerts.

The arts were also enlisted at more grassroots levels. Photos of the Hudson River by Freehold’s Thomas Teich were exhibited to help opponents pay to open a storefront office.

Aerial shots of the local quarries and waterfront, as well as existing blight in Catskill and Ravena, were taken by B. Docktor. Opponents circulated blank plywood signs and stakes and Lisa Durfee, Alan Hamilton, Bridget Rockwell and two dozen others handpainted their own “Stop the Plant” signs, which were then bid on by other members. These contrasted strongly with the mass-produced signage underwritten by a company that had to pay people to distribute and display its PR materials.

THE MARKETEERS • In the first months after announcing the project, SLC’s launched media onslaught was intended to make resistance seem futile. But with the help of the many advertising and design professionals hiding out in the nearby hills, opponents were able to start to level the PR playing field.

St. Lawrence outspent opponents by millions, but fortunately, their materials were both clumsy and insulting to viewers’ intelligence. One early pro-plant TV ad seemed to have been recycled from the 1950s, starring a housewife removing a sheet of chocolate- chip cookies from the oven and exclaiming, “I just don’t know how anyone can oppose it!” Our side received key early assistance from marketing guru Ken McCarthy in Tivoli, and graphic designer Frank Aultman. Separately, the pair convinced us to be more ambitious than passing out a few hundred flyers here and there. Ken pointed out that so long as each mailing paid for the next one, it was free publicity. His experience in direct mail also suggested, contrary to conventional wisdom, that we should err on the side of more information, not less—an approach which proved effective, since many were craving detailed rebuttals of the company’s ubiquitous slogans.

Frank similarly urged that we leave behind the bake sale mentality common to grassroots groups, and make two big leaps forward in awareness- raising. He designed an attention- grabbing flyer featuring a map showing where pollution from the proposed plant would likely fall, paired with detailed info about the potential health risks and the company’s track record. The investment in this 5,000-piece mailer, paid dividends for years to come, catapulting the group’s membership from double- to quadruple-digits, and providing supporters with a new sense of momentum. Frank also designed a series of billboards strategically located at all the major entrances to Hudson, one of which was vandalized on Thanksgiving morning.

OurTown’s Enid Futterman worked closely with Tom Mabley and filmmaker Tarquin Cardona to craft a second image campaign for the battle’s next phase. Enid expanded the slogan to: “Tell the Truth. Stop the Plant,” words which thereafter appeared on all of our materials and paraphernalia. The team produced two powerful TV ads to complement the print campaign, focused on children living with asthma and the lack of projected jobs. While the budget was a tiny fraction of SLC’s, the ads gave supporters a sense of empowerment, reached new constituents, and freaked the company out enough to compel them to produce a limp parody.

John Isaacs designed the graphics for the TV campaign, billboards and “Stop the Plant” lawn signs incorporating the new slogan.

In 2003, Germantown-based filmmakers Barbara Ettinger and Sven Huseby began making a documentary about Hudson, eventually shown on PBS under the title Two Square Miles. While they set out to make a portrait of Hudson without reference to SLC, they soon discovered it was impossible to interview anyone for more than 20 seconds before the cement plant came up. While their approach was carefully neutral, the presence of film crews all over town, had an interesting effect: People tended to behave a bit better when cameras were rolling.

NEXT UP: Converts, businesspeople, experts and go-to-guys and gals join the fight, as plant opponents gain the critical mass necesssary to stop the plant. Click here to continue...

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* Readers who want to read the full, original OT article as edited by Enid Futterman and designed by John Isaacs can download it as a PDF right away by clicking here. A full, week-by-week chronology of the fight can be found at Stop the Plant.com.