KHS graduation ceremony
At its essence, the deadly Covid-19 pandemic boils down to this — we are biological organisms locked in a battle of wits for survival with a micro-organism that has no brain.
In the United States, the micro-organism is winning.
In early April, the European Union, which has a population of 447 million, and the United States, which has 330 million persons, each were recording more than 30,000 new cases per day.
On June 19, the United States, which already has lost at least 117,000 dead, recorded 31,360 new cases in one day as infections trend upward. The European Union has dropped to and is holding steady at only about 4,000 new cases per day.
What’s the difference?
For one thing, we have too many citizens who live in a fantasyland divorced from the realities of microbial science, which tells us the peril is still with us and that disciplined distancing is still required.
For another, ineffective and irresponsible leadership.
Locally, Exhibit A is the decision of New York state to allow and the Kingston Board of Education to schedule a graduation ceremony at Dietz Stadium on July 17.
Even if one takes the leap of faith to suppose the wearing of masks and social distancing for this event will be scrupulously observed, the fact is that the one thing that seems to tie together all of the recent surges in U.S. cases is gatherings. And, with the possible exceptions of weddings and funerals, there’s nothing quite like high school graduations to promote unregulated gatherings in private homes and backyards.
If the whining and entitled parents who are said to have pressured the Board of Education into this folly want to imperil the health and very lives of their family members, one might coldly conclude that’s up to them. But the harsh truth is that the short-sighted decision to approve this event is an institutional failure that imperils us all.
Most of the members of this community have voluntarily sacrificed for months to try to tamp down this epidemic. And, now, this? A district enticement to gather on the taxpayers’ dime and potentially spark an outbreak? That is both irresponsible and a terrible message to the community about what it will take over the long haul to continue to stay safe.
As the Washington Post reported on June 19 (https://wapo.st/2Yij3uQ), “health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored. ‘It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,’” said a top infectious-diseases specialist in New Zealand, which has heeded the science and has had a total of only three cases over the last three weeks. “’I can’t imagine what it must be like having to go to work knowing it’s unsafe.’”
Well, there is little psychological barrier when you live in a fantasyland governed by feckless decision-makers.
Just try to remember — it’s the virus in this fight for survival that doesn’t have a brain.
Tony Adamis
Kingston
House divided
We were disappointed last week on Emancipation Day that we were unable to feel the unconditional euphoria that we should. Our ambivalence was a result of questioning whether slavery has really ended, or instead, has become legalized.
Although police brutality against blacks is abhorrent, it is only an extreme manifestation of a racist society.
We were also reminded this week of a housing policy in poorer neighborhoods called “redlining.” This hundred-year-old practice discriminates against many black, brown and poor people because they are unable to acquire mortgages or loans. Although it has been determined to be illegal, the effects are still felt today: poor education, high unemployment, lower quality of life, poor air quality and excessive heat.
As we enter summer and our first real hot spell, let’s remain conscious that “redline” neighborhoods which contribute less to global warming, experience hotter temperatures. They have more concrete and asphalt, fewer trees and parks and less access to air conditioning.
We were shocked to hear that extreme heat causes more deaths than all other city deaths combined, and this situation will only worsen as our climate changes. And while most of us live and work in the comfort of our air conditioning, the other side of the house is not so fortunate.
Dan and Ann Guenther
New Paltz
New Paltz School budget vote
I have some concerns about the unorthodox voting methods used during the budget vote. Last year (2019-20) the vote in New Paltz passed by 782 to 320. This year, with prompted absentee ballots, deadline extensions, ballot boxes left outside schools, etc. I have concerns that serious fraud was committed. The vote this year was 2374 to 887. Even with coronavirus layoffs, that level of interest in a school budget vote is not believable, sorry. I believe considering that our democracy is important; an investigation should be conducted to verify that all these votes are legitimate. The school district usually has no problem passing the budget, but perhaps some overzealous individuals may have tampered with this one. Plenty of people working from home could be appointed to get to the bottom of this. If any fraud is discovered, the people should be prosecuted. If it is safe to eat outside and go to Lowe’s and the supermarket, it is safe enough to have normal voting methods.
Greg Thompson
New Paltz
Let’s work together
I am white. I am American. I have lived in a white America — let me say “segregated” community — for almost 80 years. I am Jewish. Many of my Jewish relatives live in Israel. They have lived in an Israeli-Jewish community their whole lives. We have grown up in two societies that have been wonderful for us — as white in the US and as Jewish in Israel. But this historic moment has brought both of us to a fuller awareness of our own conditioning to the systemic oppression structured into each of our societies.
On the streets of New York City, in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, voices black and white, Jewish and Arab, are crying out. “No Justice! No Peace!” Parallels in our two societies are being raised. “George Floyd” and “Ilya Halak!” “We can’t breathe!”
I am humbled to see our minds and hearts opening, our societies on the verge of historic change. As a senior, still social distancing, still sequestering at home, what can I do? There are films I can recommend about our police systems: Arrested for Being Black (13 minites) and Detaining Dreams (21 minutes).
Arising out of the mutual segregation, suffering and suffocation in our societies, breaking through the occupation of our minds, we can participate in this moment of awakening, and work together to combat racism.
Jane Toby
Catskill
No mask, no business
I have decided to no longer patron businesses where employees don’t wear masks and/or where they allow the public in without wearing masks. Surprisingly, the list is growing. If they don’t care about my well-being, I don’t care about their financial solvency.
Misha Fredericks
Gardiner
Part of a revisionist history
Recently, there has been discussion about taking down the bronze statutes of Henry Hudson, Peter Stuyvesant and George Clinton on Academy Green This is a complicated issue fraught with strong feelings and powerful history, and I understand why some may claim that removing these statues is an erasure of history.
Yet for me the problem stems from the fact that these three statues are the only monuments representing our history in Kingston. There is no representation of black leaders or the black community, which has been integral to the identity of Kingston. There are no representations of the working people who actually built this city, and there are no women cast in bronze towering over us. Yes, these statues are part of our history, but they are already part of a revisionist history that excludes the contributions of those who were not white, powerful men. These three men alone gaze over us, as if they singlehandedly built this city and our civilization. They did not!
If changes are to be made to Academy Green and I believe its centerpiece should be a monument to the Esopus Lenape people, the original inhabitants of this land. Nowhere in this city is there any representation of the indigenous people who lived here for centuries. They are given no plaque, no museum, no statues. There is nothing substantial displaying, documenting or memorializing their communities, their agriculture, their tradition or culture.
That’s not a misrepresentation, that’s an erasure of history! They are not here to speak for themselves and this is their land. We should be compelled not to forget that.
John House Wilson
Kingston
The statues on Academy Green
The idea of the removal of the three historical statues on Kingston’s Academy Green Park is ridiculous. The statues of Peter Stuyvesant, Henry Hudson and George Clinton were donated by Ulster County’s Mrs. Emily Chadbourne in 1950, and are well known in Kingston and the Hudson Valley. Mrs. Chadbourne brought the statutes up from New York City/ They are over 100 years old.
The statues portray historical heroes who lived way before the Civil War and the Confederacy. There is not any evidence to show that these three great men shard the idea of lynching or fighting against our country of the United States of America.
The statues on Academy Green symbolize the greatness and history of America. The unfair criticism against them is very questionable and unsure.
After hundreds of yearsm the three historical figures are not able to defend themselves against unfair objections. Henry Hudson did discover the great Hudson River, George Clinton became vice president under Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (buried in Kingston), and Peter Stuyvesant became the Dutch director of New Netherland that became New York. These are remarkable achievements. If they made some minor mistakes, they are far outweighed by their excellent achievements.
By removing these statues, we are crossing the line. These three great men have nothing to do with the peaceful demonstrations today as they are from a completely different era. These statues are a milestone and landmark in our Colonial City.
I strongly support the magnificent statues on Academy Green, and I am very proud that they represent the great city of Kingston, the first capitol of New York State.
Ron Woods
Kingston
Care to recycle?
If we don’t care how we do it, soon we won’t have that option.
Yesterday, at the Hurley transfer station it was distressing to see the contents of the Glass Only dumpster, a jumble of plastic and cans mixed with bottles and jars.
In the one for Plastic and Cans there were bottles, too, carelessly chucked in together. If that keeps happening, very soon we won’t have any recycling facilities there any more. What pains me is another example of how we – yes, we privileged whites — can be so arrogantly thoughtless and complicit in the state of the world.
Jude Asphar
Woodstock
Development totally inappropriate
My husband John and I have been full-time residents of Ulster County for 40 years, and have been visiting Onteora Lake more times than we could possibly count. We hike, canoe and photograph there, and like so many others we watch beavers and turtles, deer and porcupine, bears and bumblebees, great blue herons and baby ducks. And we often marvel how fortunate we all are to have this magnificent protected area to renew our bodies and minds.
We are familiar with the industrial project planned for 850 Route 28. We also realize we need large concrete and steel elements to rebuild our ailing infrastructure. But the location chosen for this project is simply inappropriate, and it will irrevocably ruin what so many organizations, donors and volunteers managed to preserve for all of us and future generations as well.
The idea of preserving the most important parts of our natural landscape and environment started 180 years ago and has deep routes in the Hudson Valley. This display in Montgomery Place reminds us of the threats the headlong rush to industrialize can have for a community and the wisdom of preserving places of special natural beauty.
The above outline of the history of this early initiative lends concerns and credence to what so many residents of our area try to accomplish today.
We hope the planning board in 2020 will respect the enormous efforts already made to preserve this valuable natural area as vigorously as those made in 1841 across the Hudson. The development of 850 Route 28 into an industrial complex — even though the site is virtually surrounded by a highly treasured scenic and recreational area which serves us all — is totally inappropriate.
Yva Momatiuk
John Eastcott
Hurley
It’s all about justice
“I can’t breathe,” the last words of George Floyd and Eric Garner, is a literal truth for communities of color as well as for too many individual black people brutally murdered by police. As reverend Lennox Yearwood Jr. explained, 66 percent of black people live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant. We know that the destruction of hurricanes Maria, Harvey, Katrina and Superstorm Sandy had a direct impact not only on marginalized and vulnerable communities but on communities of color, which reinforces that racial justice and climate justice are linked. But, to be clear, it’s all about justice.”
New Paltz Climate Action Coalition supports Black Lives Matter and the voices of those who are risking their health and lives, crying out for racial justice in towns and cities throughout our nation and around the globe. We addressed the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as the larger context of intense racism, at our recent weekly meetings.
People are disturbed and outraged. We have written letters demanding the arrest and prosecution of the four officers involved in murdering George Floyd. Members are now writing letters demanding justice for Breonna Taylor (Her killers submitted bold-faced lies on their police incident report and they are still on the police payroll). Collectively, we agreed to join in protests supporting Black Lives Matter in New Paltz and Kingston.
What good will it do to run our society on clean renewable energy if we are only, as Bill McKibben puts it, “Using solar power instead of coal to run the same sad mess of unfair and ugly oppression?” Police brutality and the climate crisis are bound together by the lethal impact they both have on our most vulnerable populations. Yet the climate movement has been slow to take on the issue of white supremacy in all its manifestations as part of the fight for climate justice.
Solidarity in this struggle for life itself is a two-way street. We climate activists need to show up for the fight against police brutality and in the larger battle against white supremacy. Let us listen to the voices from communities of color in the Hudson Valley and nationally, demanding justice for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castille, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Jamar Clark, Botham Jean, Laquan McDonald, Eric Garner and so many more who’ve lost their lives to police brutality and to systematic, institutionalized racism.
Let us stand together now, in loving solidarity, in all our strength, breaking out of the silos that separate movements in order to fight for racial justice and to save our planet.
Iris Marie Bloom
New Paltz Climate Action Coalition
New Paltz
Procrastinating
At a recent Woodstock town board meeting, [town supervisor Bill] McKenna announced that the Department of Labor has a shared work program to reduce hours for some workers and has allowed for unemployment pay for them for the hours they did not work, at no cost to the town. The program called for our town to lay off/reduce hours of certain employees.
Councilman [Richard[ Heppner’s concern about the program related to the punctuality of the payments made to those employees. McKenna’s response to Heppner’s concern was: “Hopefully this government runs as good as Woodstock’s government.”
If I were in Heppner’s position, I would have been less concerned if McKenna had said, “Hopefully, this government runs better than Woodstock’s government.” For example, the next item on the agenda authorized the supervisor to finalize a Central Hudson’s proposal that would save us taxpayers over $5000 a year. What many of you do not know is that Central Hudson presented the same proposal to Woodstock in 2018. The delay has cost Woodstock taxpayers $10,000.
Howard Harris
Woodstock
A tribute to my dad
Do you remember, years ago,
When I was very small?
You took me to your office
And I met your friends, and all . . .
And later in the evening,
Just to make the trip real swell,
We went swimming out in Brooklyn
At the old St. George Hotel.
Then on several more occasions,
( I no bigger than an elf )
You convinced me I was capable
Of travlin’ by myself.
On motorbus and subway
And by walking fast, I came.
Then you took me back to Brooklyn
For a Dodger baseball game.
And, do you yet remember,
I was still a little cuss.
You used to take me fishing;
You didn’t mind the fuss.
And, once, when after casting —
I hooked a monster bass,
You helped me keep from losing him
And land him on the grass.
You always took an interest
In everything I did.
You always made me realize
I was such a lucky kid.
So, most of all, this Father’s Day,
I’m telling you, I’m glad
For everything you are to me
I’m happy you’re my Dad.
William Hayes
Saugerties
Thanks to Bob Fagan
On behalf of the parishioners of St. Joseph’s Church here in New Paltz, I would like to offer my great thanks to Bob Fagan for all that he did to arrange for our church services to be broadcast on the town’s public-access television channel, as well as putting the tape of the service on the town’s YouTube channel and thus allowing us to share that with our parishioners. This was a very important part of keeping this church community connected during the lockdown and helped our parishioners very much in dealing with the stress of the situation with the coronavirus.
Bob did a wonderful job and was always a pleasure to work with. Thanks as well to Don Kerr for his including St. Joseph’s a couple of times in Slice of New Paltz, particularly in helping us get the word out about the services our food pantry provides.
St. Joseph’s is proud to be part of the New Paltz community!
Fr. Salvatore Cordaro, Pastor
St. Joseph Church
New Paltz
A balancing act
Man’s inhumanity to man is balanced by woman’s humanity to woman.
Sparrow
Phoenicia
The land of uncertainty
With the pandemic continuing to sicken thousands, the economy struggling mightily, daily protests throughout our country about police brutality and systematic racism, and a president who “fiddles while Rome burns,” we are clearly going through a major upheaval like never before. This turmoil is threatening the core of our society as we have been raised to understand it.
The unrelenting tremors are causing most of us to question everything, and the confusion and anxiety often breeds sleepless nights, depression, emotional explosions at home and a general depletion of our immune systems. We all may be in fear of getting the coronavirus, but our whole disturbing experience of our current world is intensifying many of our feelings, which tends to increase irritability and impatience and the result often is more aches and pains and other more serious ailments. What can we do?
The core underlying feeling is uncertainty like most of us have never experienced before. But giving the energy a name gives each one of us power to reclaim some control over our individual lives. We don’t have to react as if the worst is right around the corner.
If all the world’s a stage and we are all characters in it, then we can become more aware of how we act. Yes, we are clearly dealing with great uncertainty, but how do we react to uncertainty? Some of us run around like a chicken without a head, while others honker down and do their best to quietly weather the storm. We are all reacting to this transition time. It’s not fun, but becoming more aware of our reactions may help us shift our knee-jerk reactions to more conscious responses.
Let’s face it. We are all “dancing in the land of uncertainty.” So take a few deep breaths, and then choose the dance that works best for you!
Marty Klein
Woodstock
Methodist pastor resigns
I cannot in good conscience continue to serve as the convener of the New Paltz Area Council of Churches (NPACC), nor do I perceive fruitful ministry springing from my continued presence within the Council. Therefore, after careful prayer and reflection I am resigning from the Council and my leadership role therein, effective immediately.
As I reluctantly accepted the role of convener, I was very transparent in seeking substance over symbolism. As such, I proposed that as a group we publicly declare white nationalism is incompatible with Christian teaching. Despite months of consideration, this was not a position we could agree to support. Deeply troubling to me, as it seems it should be self-evident.
In the ensuing months, as our community and the wider world have been wracked with the dual pandemics of Covid-19 and the full weight of systemic racism, this body has still been unable or unwilling to make any substantive statement. This silence as black and brown people are dying at the hands of police and through the injustice that has left minoritized communities at higher risk of acquiring the novel coronavirus. This silence as people from all faith traditions, walks of life and on nearly every continent have mobilized to acknowledge the harm done, commit to learning about the sin of white supremacy and how each and every person, but especially white people, are complicit in that harm and begun to seek solutions to repent.
This only serves to highlight how tragic it is that the NPACC, like the Romans, the Sadducees and the Pharisees of old, have chosen to protect their position rather than join with Jesus in the revolutionary act of standing against empire and the oppression off of which it feeds.
There is no Palm Sunday parade, no service of Christian Unity and no picnic that can make up for this gross disregard for the first and foremost responsibility of a Christian: to worship God and God’s creation by seeking to right the sinful wrongs we have done to one another, grow in beloved community and in so doing draw down the Kingdom of Heaven. In fact, these activities without those foundational principles make a mockery of the faith and do much to explain why it is that so many Americans perceive brunch and soccer as more fulfilling ways to spend their Sunday mornings.
Especially as the sole regular attendee who is not identified in the community as a white person, what message do I send to those who rightly perceive this hypocrisy by continuing to attach my name to it?
There are those among you who have been present, with or without your congregations, at public protests. I want to acknowledge and thank those of you who have done so. While I cannot continue to participate in the NPACC, I remain available and eager for opportunities for shared ministry, collaboration on issues of social justice, and modeling the revolutionary love of Christ that comes first and foremost to and for those at the margins.
Blessings in your future endeavors.
Rev. Jennifer Berry
Pastor, New Paltz United Methodist Church
New Paltz
Removal of statues
Since Nancy Pelosi is the leader of the Democratic Party and since the Democratic Party has historically been the party of slavery and repression of African Americans in inner cities, will speaker Pelosi demand the removal of all statues and portraits of Democratic heroes from congressional offices and public spaces and local Democratic leaders demand the same in community spaces?
Paul Jankiewicz
Ulster Park
Trying to change history
By taking down the portraits of former speakers of the House who joined the Confederacy, Nancy Pelosi has now become a character in George Orwell’s 1984 whose job it was to remove any mention or photos of anyone who the party declared a non-person. This was a way the Party and Big Brother controlled and rewrote history.
Rather than trying to cover up history, we should teach it and learn from the mistakes. What’s scary about what she is doing is she’s attempting to repeat history where a small number of slaveholders ruled their states and started a war to maintain it. Now Nancy wants to control what history we’re allowed to know. Anyone associated with slavery should become a non-person and instead we should know their history, warts and all.
Why stop with Washington and Jefferson? how about Woodrow Wilson, who was a racist? FDR, who illegally interred Japanese Americans? Lyndon Johnson, who was a segregationist when he was a congressman and only changed to enhance his chances to become president? And then there was JFK who was a misogynist.
When we’re done, the only perfect people will remain which means we’ll have no history.
John Habersberger
New Paltz
EMT unethical behavior
As a former Town of Shandaken resident, I was extremely upset by a recent public social-media post from the town ambulance EMT-B lieutenant Dennis Frano. The post showed a picture of an obese African American woman wearing a t-shirt that stated, “I Can’t Breathe”. The caption on the post read, “Finally, a protestor I may agree with.”
The unethical, unprofessional, racially charged nature of EMT Lt. Dennis Frano’s post raises some deep concerns. Do people of color in Shandaken, or the surrounding areas that he serves, have a reason to feel safe and respected in his care? Lt. Dennis Frano’s post also casts a shadow of doubt and concern on the Town of Shandaken ambulance service ethics as they relate to racism and people of color.
I am also interested to know if Lt. Frano’s behavior aligns with the NYS policy of ethical conduct for a public service provider? As a former citizen born and raised in this upstate New York area, I am deeply disturbed and concerned about this unprofessional, unethical display of behavior from a state employee whose job requires a mindset of utmost unbiased sentiment regarding race and ethnicity, such that undoubted safety can be had by all.
Julia Larg
Hollywood, CA
Pandemic reflection
As of late in the stillness of my home, I find a stillness within myself. Going “somewhere” has been the GPS for most of my life. Although I have lived in the same small town the majority of my 72 years, my mind has not, nor has my soul.
The hummingbird that has come to the feeder brings joy that I would not have felt a few months ago. The bird song around the house was once background static and not the heartfelt cry of love. Or stay away, there’s a hawk. Or please come back to the nest and feed me.
Our car sits like an old rundown tractor that stopped in the middle of a field and has not moved for years. No longer does it carry me to destinations of distraction. What is within sight outside my windows and doors is what the world has wanted me to smell, see and touch.
The love in my home has begun following the same patterns as the basil and tomato plants we’ve planted. Roots are pushing deeper, promises of blossoms are being made. Storms are daily being forecasted, and the wires leading into our house crackle with warnings of change, fears of clashing political egos, and hurricanes and tornados, showing their largest teeth.
I go down into the basement to make a walking stick, or fix a broken door latch, or feed my imagination by pounding on a sculpture of two ravens in love.
The lessons of what can be found in the darkness have been offered to me all my life. Only as of late either my age or the pandemic slowed me enough to flip back through the pages of my life to read the places I have underlined. Chapters of recovering from going to war, navigating a divorce, healing from a brain tumor, major surgery on my heart. All have had the aftereffects of unearthing love, truth, wisdom and exposing the value of my internal world, being the only place I can influence how I truly live.
Is there weather inside my self? Yes, clouds carry rain and grief, earthquakes have shaken my bones. But the weather man is me, and I cannot forecast what is to happen. I can influence the aftermath of these events that shook and rattled my being. I now know that after the storms new life can grow, the sun will shine, I still hear promise in the voices of the winds. I decide if I am to clean up the fallen limbs and sweep the path back into my self, I get to express gratefulness of having survived again.
Larry Winters
New Paltz
Equality in a repressive society
Trying to get Americans to understand what it is like for Palestinians living in a racist police state should be getting easier now that we see how black people are treated in America. Black communities have been underserved and over policed for more than a century, condemning their children and grandchildren to grow up as second-class citizens.
This is the same caste system that Palestinians have faced since the State of Israel occupied all of the Holy Land. Palestinians get substandard schools, underfunded medical facilities and job discrimination. Moreover, they are continually targeted by the police for extrajudicial killings in the streets and in their homes.
They live a life of perpetual bondage to fear and depravation. Their children are arrested, beaten and made to confess to crimes that they didn’t commit. Each time a Palestinian child leaves the house, there is a possibility that he or she won’t be coming back.
Black Americans and Palestinians have both watched as corrupt and loathsome national leaders have targeted them for political advantage. Both peoples have at times rebelled, demanding equal rights and equality in a repressive society that offers little of either.
One day we will rise up together and overthrow these corrupt and racist leaders in Israel and the United States. We will march in the streets, as brothers and sisters, to reclaim our democracy for we the people. Until that day, we will organize for our final victory over the racist demagogues who seek to divide us.
Fred Nagel
Rhinebeck
America snoring
Gobsmacked, Oh no, I hear America … America snoring! We’ll have a fireside chat ‘bout our country’s lunacy n embrace the mantra “Oh, say, can you see ….” While acrobatically pledging allegiance to everything but what’s important to thee. Speaking truth to power, I gotta lay in this bed made for the brave and the so-called free – Why? ‘Cause America is (fill in your favorite expletive) snoring … . I hear, yes I hear America snoring, snoring. America’s asleep…
End the madness and bring the monster down, a shared societal explosion needs to tear down the walls of systemic racial bias and humanistic corrosion…
Witnesses; carrying street signs of ironies, and an audaciousness of urgency with slogans, social commentary and the most piercing and affecting revelations. Injustice is the same as freedom for many when racism pervades daily American social and cultural life, rendering many of its citizens political invisibleness’ coupled with physical harm and despair because of the powers that be.
You’d think that America would have learned over the last 20 years that trying to fight a native population like BLM on their home soil doesn’t go well. It is time for truth and equal justice for all individuals in the USA. Enough of this constant strategy of divide and conqueror…
Is it better to be apart (at a distance from the main body) than be (a) part? A national community must join in unity and unf@*ck America in Twenty-twenty!
Neil Jarmel
West Hurley
High Falls green gone?
The photo accompanying this letter is of a painting I did in 1990 of the High Falls village green with the Depuy Tavern in the background. At the time I painted it, I proposed that the Canal Society excavate the portion of the canal in front of the Depuy Tavern and expose approximately 100 feet of the canal’s large stone wall that had been buried over time. Such a project would have enhanced the society’s proposed museum while maintaining the beautiful central village green for the local community as well as underscoring the important role of the canal in High Falls history.
When title to the canal house was passed to the Canal Society in 2015, I had been led to believe that the society would work with the community and raise funds to revitalize the village green and create a wonderful park and town center. My painting depicts a December holiday celebration focused on the existing tree in its present location, with the canal sufficiently excavated as it once was, with enough water to allow residents of Marbletown to skate in the winter.
Unfortunately, it now appears that the village green will be destroyed and the tree removed for the sake of a visitors’ center, with, as described by one of your readers in the June 5 letters, “a facsimile of a canal barge, a paean to the abuse of orphaned children used to operate the barges.” This is what people will see as they drive through High Falls. The tree, always so invitingly decorated during the holiday season, will be shunted to one side of the road and likely hidden by the remaining trees in Grady Park. It will no longer be a focal point of the town.
It seems to me that if the Canal Society wants to erect a canal-related sculpture, that sculpture should be located in Grady Park, as that is where the first canal route was located in High Falls in 1823. Remains of the lock are still there and could be incorporated into the sculpture. It also seems to me that the hamlet and the town should be invited by the Canal Society to provide their input on the immense impact that the destruction of the village green and the installation of a sculpture in the center of High Falls that depicts “the oppressed and marginalized people who were instrumental in building the canal” will have.
I would also encourage the High Falls Civic Association to spearhead a discussion of what members of our community wish to see or not see take place and invite community members to participate vigorously.
John N. Novi
High Falls
Join the family! 
