For your Monday morning, here’s an applecartload of local bits, pieces, odds, ends, fact, rumor and surmise... (I probably could get way more hits by doling these out one-by-one over the next two weeks instead, but why tease?)
• Rural Intelligence is rumored to be going on a hiatus (and if so, will be much missed);
• Über-restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten and mega-hotelier Ian Schrager are each said to sniffing around Hudson real estate (in particular waterfront real estate);
• In other food-and-hospitality news, the Fillis recently opened a spacious lounge/seating area in the back of their Claverack market to complement their growing pizza business (but I’ll be taking advantage of it mostly for morning coffee);
• Meanwhile, Café Le Perche in the 200 block of Hudson has obtained its liquor license, and will start to stay open until 8 pm weekdays, 10 pm or later on weekends (and is looking for some good evening help);
• Back in Claverack, the Won Dharma meditation/retreat center is holding an open house on September 4th from 3:30-5:30 pm for local residents (and curiosity-seekers);
• Over to Chatham... Former Charleston owner/chef Carole Clark will have an opening of her new “totems and vessels” at Solaqua on August 27th from 1-5 pm (in a raw industrial space which she says most will love, but some will find alarming);
• In Taghkanic, Moyra Botta is hosting the 2nd annual Columbia County garden party to benefit the AIDS Council of Northeastern New York, with tickets starting at $75-per-head (which is worth it just to gawk at her Phifer-designed house, pictured above, while also supporting a worthy cause);
• The Sunday Farmer’s Market in Philmont is a hidden gem which will remain open through mid-October (hidden, at least, if you don’t normally pass through Philmont on a Sunday morning);
• A fourth Bourne sequel, The Bourne Legacy, is said to be coming to shoot scenes in Columbia County, allegedly in “an old mansion close to Hudson” (but it may not star Matt Damon, so don’t rush off to look for him eating pastry on Warren Street);
• Work has resumed on the old Schroeder's site on Green Street (evidently to make way for yet another beer store);
• Tuesday is the deadline for independent nominating petitions for candidates running on their own lines (and it will be telling whether Linda Mussmann actually files Bottom Line petitions for Mayor, as was done for Geeta Cheddie and John Musall last week);
• The only two Hallenbeck for Mayor signs spotted thus far are on (A) the candidate's own house and (B) an old car parked in front of a defunct store on Fairview Avenue... in Greenport;
• Peter Jung’s Gifford’s Grave project to restore the family gravesite of one of the Hudson River School’s leading lights, is now complete (but will wait to hold a celebratory ceremony in 2012);
• MarthaStewart.com has a link to a visitor’s Tumblr post about their “dreamy weekend getaway to Hudson” (at the new Hudson Merchant House on Front Street);
• More photos of the Hudson Merchant House can be found at Laura Murphy’s SmugMug site, (which also features some fun pics of starlings and pigeons bathing in a large puddle on the roof of her 600 block building);
• Some ATMs in Hudson reportedly ran out of cash during the weekend of the NADA art fair at the Basilica Hudson (but as best as anyone can tell, most of it went to food, not art).
