A
Major Conflagration
The blaze and its aftermath forced the closing of State
Route 28 between the 212 turnoff in Mt. Tremper and the
214 turn off in Phoenicia for over eight hours, with all
traffic diverted along Old Route 28, otherwise known as
Old Plank Road, and Main Street, Phoenicia.
A second detour has been necessary since the Bridge Street
Bridge in Phoenicia was closed due to damage sustained in
the April 2 and 3 “Cutoff Storm” flooding.
According to Michael Shew, the Emerson Inn’s night
manager, alarms in the building went off sometime after
5:00 AM Monday. He ran to the kitchen but was unable to
enter because of the intense smoke and flame, called 911,
and got the four couples staying as guests for the night
safely out of the building. Shew said that sprinkler systems
on the second and third floors “were working”
properly, but that the fire appeared to quickly overwhelm
them.
Phoenicia’s three fire companies responded to the
blaze, along with those from Big Indian, Pine Hill, Olive
companies #2 and 5, and Ulster Hose Company #5 with its
large ladder truck. The building was substantially engulfed
by the time the first firefighters arrived after getting
the call at 5:18 AM. According to Todd Carr of the Phoenicia
Fire District, four alarms went out through the course of
the morning, the latter two involving back up fire companies
to fill in for those fighting the fire.
“The fire took over four hours to bring under control,
and another 8 before all the hot-spots could be extinguished,”
Carr wrote in a press release late Monday. “Route
28 was closed for the duration. The building is considered
a total loss and is under investigation. Over 100 firefighters
from six districts were on scene with no major injuries
reported.”
According to the County’s chief fire investigator
John Russell, the blaze appeared to have started on the
south side of the building in the kitchen area, which is
where the county’s investigation over the coming days
will begin.
A team of at least half a dozen red-coated fire inspectors
at the fire site on Monday poured over materials from outside
the kitchens, where they surmised the blaze started in or
nearby several outdoor trash receptacles.
“Every system we had in place functioned correctly,”
said Wright. “Investigators will tell us what’s
happened. I have no theory.”
The 4-star Emerson Inn, completed in 2000 on the site of
the original 1874 Cockburn House Inn, was widely recognized
as the Catskill region’s premier luxury lodging establishment.
In addition to other recent honors, just this past Sunday
it was designated by Mobil Travel Guide as one of the state’s
3 leading hotel-spas, along with The Four Seasons and Peninsula
hotels in NYC. According to Wright, 52 people were employed
there.
The Inn had 23 rooms including 3 suites; a full bar and
restaurant and a wine cellar holding over 5,000 prime bottles
that earned accolades from several leading wine magazines
in recent years. Recent work on the inn included the creation
of a number of berms with natural vegetation to hide nearby
Route 28.
The neighboring Emerson Spa was unaffected by the blaze,
and was expected to be back up and running as soon as water
use was resumed at the location.
Also unaffected, oddly, were a number of paintings and works
on paper by local artists that were being shown on consignment
from Elena Zang Gallery of Woodstock.
“It’s a miracle,” said Zang of the art,
which had a slight smoky smell but no water damage whatsoever,
even though they were on the walls in the main reception
areas of the inn. Zang said that most of the furniture from
the showcase front of the inn was also completely undamaged
in the fire.
“The extent of the Inn’s damage is being evaluated.
However, company officials believe enough has been destroyed
to eventually merit the full demolition of the structure
and a complete rebuilding, which will commence as soon as
access is granted by fire officials,” noted Emerson
Place’s new PR Director, Paul Rakov.
“It’s 9-11 for us. It’s a tragedy. But,
we will rebuild quickly,” said Wright, who originally
estimated the loss at “about $20 million.”
In a subsequent press release, which then quoted the loss
at $7 million, Wright spoke of how the fire “is a
heartbreaking day for our entire Emerson Place family.”
Dean Gitter, the local developer who came up with the idea
for the Emerson as a companion to his other Emerson Place
holdings across Route 28 (formerly known as Catskill Corners)
was in New Jersey at the time of the fire and returned to
look over the damage Monday afternoon. Gitter, who is currently
awaiting a legal decision from a state Department of Environmental
Conservation judge as to what elements of his massive Belleayre
Resort proposal may require adjudication over the coming
months, faced another destructive fire while in the middle
of extensive renovations of the former Mt. Pleasant Lodge
across the road, in 1999. At the time the structure that
was to become the Lodge suffered a fire in an octagon-shaped
tower that investigators determined to be “of suspicious
origin.” No suspects were found and no arrests were
made
Much of the development now known collectively as Emerson
Place was funded with help, via tax benefits and loans,
from the Ulster County Development Corporation, which recently
sent a letter to the governor asking for his support of
Gitter’s Belleayre Resort project.
“It pains me that we may not be able to take care
of our whole staff,” Gitter said after releasing news
that the company would try retraining some of the Inn staff
for other jobs within the Emerson Place complex of stores,
restaurants, giant kaleidoscope and lodge. “Every
person that works here has played a part in the success
we have had. I simply do not know at this time what our
plan will be, but we are going to do everything we can to
keep the team together. They will always be part of the
family.”
A number of former Emerson Place employees called the Phoenicia
Times from around the country Monday night and Tuesday morning,
asking for news of the fire, and wondering why the state-of-the-art
fire containment systems put into place in recent years
had not proved more effective.
Boiceville
Sewer?
The following day a lecture on "Post-environmentalism"
will be given at Harvard University and the same topic will
be addressed at Yale on May 6th. There's a pattern behind
the scholastic talks with links to the meeting in Olive.
"Nothing is etched in stone," said Olive supervisor
Brendt Leifeld, in reference to the feasibility study for
the plant project being underwritten by New York City's
water department. "I don't know if it will be a sewage
treatment plant or a community septic system but, when we
signed the Memorandum of Agreement with the City (in 1997),
they picked out potential problem towns in the Watershed
and Boiceville was one of them."
That fact should end speculation that the plant is the product
of the DEP's concern about groundwater contamination from
developments upstream on the Esopus. In fact, in January
Shandaken approved their own projected $11 million plant
for Phoenicia. The culprit, it would seem, resides in Boiceville
itself.
"Onteora keeps having septic problems," said Leifeld
of the ongoing woes at
the school site which was supposedly repaired last spring
after reportedly paying a Poughkeepsie waste management
company $15,000 a month to pump out the system for 3 or
4 years. "That's why we're number one on the list."
Although sewage treatment plants are attended by a number
of environmental concerns, Leifeld's immediate anxiety fixed
upon the eventual price-tag for the plant's upkeep. Critics
of treatment plants like the influential Abby Rockefeller
have stressed the "immense energy and economic costs"
of centralized sewage plants to paid for down the road:
"We must remember that, when we have improved the quality
of a local body of water, the environment somewhere will
still pay a heavy price- in direct
proportion to the amount of pollution from which we have
saved the water that we undertook to protect. We will have
paid only to move the problem," she writes.
Rockefeller declares that "the more advanced the treatment
of the sewage, the more sludge will be produced, and the
worse- the more unusable and dangerous- it will be...If
landfilled, it will contaminate the groundwater. If incinerated,
it will cause serious air pollution. When dumped in the
ocean (amazingly permitted by the EPA until 1989), it will
cause- and has caused- great harm to marine ecology. And
'land application,' the latest
disposal tactic, may be the most insidiously dangerous of
all."
Town officials have yet to consider the responsibility of
disposing of sludge which some experts say can't be eliminated
safely- perhaps solutions like those applied to radioactive
waste- "solutions" like food irradiation, fluoridation
or fashioning sludge into bullets to be fired at terrorists
in other lands (as in depleted uranium shells) will ventured-
for now, it is the initial problem of operational costs
that are being mulled.
"The City builds it and, when it's done, they turn
it over to us," explained Leifeld. "Then it belongs
to the Town of Olive- (which) will be responsible for maintaining
it, hiring the help and all the rest of it. We have the
right to say 'no' but, 5 or 10 years down the road, if it
does become a
problem, the state will come in and say you have to build
it and then you've got the WHOLE monkey on your back. Those
are the threats they use but where the hell do they think
all this money is supposed to come from- when they take
away our reservoir? Plus, we have no place for expansion.
Where are we going to build? We can't even put in a laundromat
with all of the restrictions they have on us. We're just
like any other town, they say, but we're not..."
It is rumored that New York City's DEP, which contracts
over $1 billion to construction projects each year, is interested
in acquiring a saw mill near Onteora High School as a potential
site for the plant. Even with the current scarcity of available
land, however, the mill's position in a flood plain is problematic
for environmental reasons.
Beyond the toxic and unpleasant odor of hydrogen sulfide
associated with the operation of such plants, the presence
of large quantities of chemicals like chlorine and chlorine
dioxide gas are troublesome in areas which experience storm
water run-off situations- even in cautiously designed systems.
Additional contaminants, including oxygen-depleting organics,
nitrates, bacteria and metals (not to mention the controversy
of sludge disposal) are only the beginning of environmental
questions which raise their shaggy heads in relation to
water treatment projects.
LAST REPORT...
These kind of questions, and others- such as the town board's
vote last year of support for the Crossroads development
project- would have interested the
last holdout of Olive's Environmental Committee, Ann Altshuler,
before her retirement in spring of 2003. For decades, Altshuler
studied developments in environmental circles, attended
conferences and lectures, and dutifully reported items she
deemed of local significance at town board meetings.
"From the time I moved to Olive in 1971, I was interested
in how the town functioned," said the slender, soft-spoken
Altshuler before she relocated to a new home near her brother
in Chenango County. Intent on being more involved in the
community, she approached the then town clerk Ollie Crawford
who, she noted, "conducted his duties from the back
of his auto repair garage in Olivebridge." Since she
had a lifelong interest in wildlife and nature, Crawford
urged her to apply for an appointment to Olive's fairly
new committee on the environment then chaired by Ruth Hilth.
"Other members included Marcel Maier, then highway
superintendent, and Wally John, who chaired the committee
for a number of years later on," Altshuler recalled.
"There were many turbulent issues during the 1970s
and 80s and over the years, despite philosophical differences
at times, I have appreciated deeply the genuine commitment
to the best interests of town residents shown by our officials.
Disputes not withstanding, they have compromised and worked
together to maintain the fabric of this community while
adjusting to demographic and other changes which have taken
place over 32 years."
Altshuler remembers a hot button issue during her early
involvement which
packed town board meetings at the Olivebridge fire house,
where they used to be held, as the debate over whether to
resurrect a defunct racetrack in Olivebridge. Another committee
activity, spearheaded by then chair Henny Wise, was a stream
survey which enlisted a few teachers at Onteora and volunteer
students to gather water samples for testing in an effort
to analyze health factors.
"Early zoning also was something that started controversy
back in the early 1970s when our first actual zoning regulations
were written," she noted, recalling that she took some
part in the unofficial contributions to the process. "We
had probably our largest number of active members, I think
as many as 11 or 13 at one point, because in the 70s, nationwide,
there was heightened interest in things environmental. But
membership dwindled in
recent years."
In fact, as referrals of items under SEQUA review or less
than major subdivision concerns, opted to the purview of
the committee by the town board or planning board, slacked
off and more regulations were written, the committee quietly
ceased activities and faded away. Hand in hand with that,
to judge by the climate of last week's Earth Day observations,
has been a general decline in interest in the environment
nationally, along with a withering, in the last quarter
century, of the underlying selfless concept of giving back
to the community for services taken for granted.
"The committee's been inactive for the last 7 or 8
years," Altshuler said. "Nothing's been referred
to us; we've had no meetings. I, as an individual, the last
remaining member of the official committee but more as a
private citizen, attended meetings and added my 2 cents
from the environmental viewpoint when I felt moved to do
so. As far as the future of environmental oversight or advisory
capacities go, unless there's sufficient interest to reconstitute
the committee, I think private citizens are going to be
key- people who go to town meetings and follow, from month
to month, what goes on. Without a hot button issue, it's
a matter of watching people at work managing the town affairs
to the best of their ability- which to me, in and of itself,
is interesting."
Even Altshuler's reason for leaving Olive was partially
environmental. She cited the "parcelization of tracks
of woodland and otherwise fairly large open spaces being
sold off in larger parcels to second home owners and even
primary home owners coming here primarily from the City...
I'm just feeling that this is not the community I moved
into. I love where I live. I've got 14 acres of woods. I
know every twig back here and I've got good neighbors
but it isn't just about woods and wildlife- which is a big
thing for me. As I see more and more driveways going into
unbuilt woodlands; a different kind of people moving in,
it's becoming much more suburban in feeling. A lot of them
are very nice people, it's just that their expectations
are of a different view of lifestyle. It's rural where I'm
going- the way this area was 30 years ago or more- and I'll
miss the town. I've got a lot of emotional capital in this
place, as you can imagine, after all these years."
With no committee to offer advisory opinions on environmental
impact, the
absence of Altshuler's report at meetings leaves a hollow
spot in the environment of the meeting hall. Ann Altshuler
advised before her departure that those interested in keeping
alive the voice of environmental concern in Olive could
approach the town board about reviving the participation
of private citizens in the town's attempts to cope with
oncoming environmental dilemmas. Meanwhile, the theme of
an absence of such voices echoed not just in Olive but across
the nation on Earth Day.
WHO CARES FOR THE EARTH?
With the current trend to reverse environmental gains of
past decades, the
"demise" of the movement has been attributed to
plushly sponsored industry think tanks, bought and paid-for
politicians and the infiltration and partial co-option of
the grassroots environmental movement by phoney "astroturf"
organizations beholden to corporate interests (as described
in Stauber and Rampton's landmark 1995 book on the power
of PR, Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and
the Public Relations Industry.) Alarming defeats of environmental
initiatives in recent years has given some credibility to
the claim.
Last fall, an article by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus
called "The Death of Environmentalism" rocked
the ecological community by observing; "Environmentalists
are in a culture war whether we like it or not. It's a war
over our core values as Americans and over our vision of
the future, and it won't be won by appealing to the rational
consideration of our collective self-interest." Urging
the movement to adopt corporate perspectives and methods,
the authors riled many of their target groups, drawing spirited
response- most notedly, perhaps, from the Sierra Club's
Carl Pope.
Pope and others argue that what the article calls a failed
movement still raises passions in the general public and
billions in donations. It might be countered that too little
of this money is dedicated to the environment and the Sierra
Club itself, which spends $59,473 a month to lease its California
office, has already embraced corporate values and tactics
a mite too heartily. What is most needed, it could be said,
is a rededication to local environmental concerns at a grassroots
level. And that, in sum, is the bottomline of Altshuler's
message.
If Ann Altshuler was still in Olive, we could imagine her
advising Supervisor Leifeld, who was just elected to the
board of directors of the Catskill Watershed Corporation,
and the town board that consideration of issues like the
sewage plant proposal truly requires a close and careful
examination from more than one perspective. The proposed
plant promises to become very much the kind of issue she
refers to as a "hot button"- with solutions to
a variety of problems open to explore.
Perhaps the answers to questions like where to put the sludge
are right under our nose. Since the county and neighboring
towns are taking a cut of Olive's reservoir tax base, some
wags are bound to ask if maybe they'll want a share of the
sludge, too. But, at the moment, voices in defense of the
environment are notably absent.
A public informational hearing on the Boiceville sewage
plant is slated for May 19th.
Made
It...
Velilla and Sanin came to New York City
from Colombia in 1962. They set up an antique shop a few
blocks from their apartment, on 3rd Avenue at 31st Street.
Before long they were able to expand, operating two shops
at the same time -- one in Westhampton Beach and one in
Soho.
The story is familiar: eager for an occasional escape from
the city, they accepted an invitation from a friend to visit
the Catskills, and found the beauty irresistible. They began
to take regular weekend trips, and in 1985, bought the Phoenicia
cabin where they still live today.
In the beginning, they could have been called "weekenders,"
except that they were here on Monday and Tuesday, after
spending the weekend at their store in the Hamptons. The
rest of the week was spent in the city, although our region
was starting to have a strong hold on them. "We began
really falling in love with the area," Ivan says, "so
it was getting harder and harder to go back to the city."
Gustavo laughs, "We would call our employees at our
Soho store and make excuses why we had to stay up here an
extra day or two."
The most convenient excuse was usually related to business;
by this time they were selling antiques from a booth in
Winchell's Corners, and later from their store at Phoenicia
Plaza. Finally, in 1992, when their Soho landlord raised
their rent to $15,000 a month, they decided their days in
the city were finished; it was time to move up north for
good.
But the Catskill winters hadn't yet taken their toll.
It was 1995 that they found the perfect corner location,
at Wall and North Front Streets in uptown Kingston, and
eagerly moved their antiques business there. Sales have
been good in the years since, with their hottest items now
in the fine art category -- the paintings and drawings of
Mylo Quam, a prolific and stylistically daring artist who
lived in Shokan from 1965 until his death in 1996. In addition,
their collection of Murano Glass from Italy and a wide range
of Art Deco objects are always good sellers.
The trademark of the Velsani collection would appear to
be its eclecticism -- a rich array of periods and styles
in a crowded display that artfully mingles baroque religious
iconography and classic statuary with sleek modernist accents,
Pre-Columbian artifacts with American Country, African art
with Art Deco, and everywhere a touch of romantic decadence.
There is clearly a passion for beautiful objects here.
Both Ivan and Gustavo spend every day in the shop, and they
cooperate in selecting merchandise as well. After more than
40 years together, their tastes are virtually identical.
This complex range of items is collected from estate sales,
from shops in the U.S. and abroad, and through exchanges
with other dealers. Most of their customers are from New
York City, second homeowners in our area, and are typically
word-of-mouth referrals or walk-ins drawn by the unusual
window displays.
"We have a great landlord," says Ivan, "and
the community here is wonderful -- both in Kingston and
Phoenicia." Gustavo adds, "Our closest friends
are our neighbors in Phoenicia." In fact, several of
their neighbors were friends from the city who came upstate
to visit them and "never left."
Despite all this, there came a time a few winters back when
the dangerous, icy roads on the long drive to Kingston,
the labor of snow removal, the short, dark days that seem
to go on forever -- everything that a Catskill winter brings
-- had led Ivan and Gustavo to believe they must return
to Colombia, or perhaps move to Miami. They did their best
to be happy with that decision; they felt they didn't have
a choice. They even went so far as to put their beloved
cabin on the market. But then a real offer came in. "Suddenly
we got frightened," Ivan says. They couldn't sell.
They knew they didn't really want to leave -- they had to
find a way to stay.
The solution turned out to be rather simple: they rented
a small apartment in uptown Kingston, where they spend much
of the winter, and during January and February, they visit
family in Miami. "I don't know why we didn't think
of it before," chuckles Gustavo. So far, this solution
seems to be working; Ivan and Gustavo are permanent fixtures
in our community, and that's one more thing we can celebrate
this spring.
It’s
Time For The Reval
The reasons
for thje revaluatioin process are many. For one, it’s
been decades since the last one, and some have suggested
that the real estate market may have changed of late. Secondly,
such an action could remove any need for a repeat of there
Large Parcel actions taken by the county and school board
for the coming year; and lastly... Maybe that will be answered
on TTuesday.
When neighboring towns such as Woodstock have done their
own revals periodically, it has been rule of thumb for one
third of property taxes to stay the same afterwards, one
third to drop, and one third to rise. It’s hard to
say, as of now, just how that will pan out over the coming
months.
Also coming up, meeting-wise, will be a presentation at
the town’s May 3 meeting by representatives of the
Catskill Watershed Corporation, who will explain the benefits,
and several liabilities, involved in the offer being made
by the CWC and New York City to have a wastewater treatment
plant placed in the Boiceville area, replacing the community’s
reliance on septic systems and basically establishing the
hamlet, with its shopping center, bank, services and schools,
as the de facto “village” of Olive for the foreseeable
future.
The city treatment centers are complicated projects, largely
paid for by NYC as part of its 1996 MOA deal with upstate
communities over increased watershed regulations.
Ongoing discussions over such a treatment plant situated
in Phoenicia has run into some contention of late because
of the added costs for local businesses. Yet the region’s
older NYC-funded plants, in Margaretville and Tannersville,
have been credited of late with those community’s
economic resurgence.
For thoswho can’t make it to the Tuesday reval meeting,
or the coming presentation on what amounts to a Boiceville
sewer system, rest assured that we’ll be carrying
full reports within these illustrious pages, including all
sources for further information..
