New businesses illustrate Newburgh renewal. By A. Alfano.

Growing up in the outskirts of the City of Newburgh has allowed me to observe the urban renewal that has occurred in my hometown. In particular, I have been able to witness the renewal of downtown Historic Liberty Street, at one time a nearly commercially vacant street, now bustling with numerous small businesses.

The city of Newburgh, located on the western side of the Hudson River 60 miles north of New York City, is home to about 30,000 people. Settled in the early 18th century and a brief home to George Washington during the Revolutionary War, Newburgh grew into a bustling city during the 1950s. The city’s prosperous decades can be attributed to various industries, the remnants of which can be found throughout the city. As businesses began to move outside of the city’s limits and into shopping plazas in the town of Newburgh in the 1960s, the city’s economic decline led to increasing rates of poverty and crime.

While renewal efforts began in the early 1970s, major commercial results did not appear until the late 1990s when the Newburgh waterfront was revitalized into a street and sidewalk along the banks of the Hudson, now home to half a dozen or so upscale restaurants.

It was during this time, the early 2000s, where my personal memory kicks in. As a student in one of the few elementary schools within the city limits, I grew up surrounded by the urban reality of Newburgh. In 4th grade, my friends and I first learned what a ‘dime bag’ was after finding them lying around our school’s playground.

Although my father and his parents were born and raised in the city, I rarely found myself in downtown Newburgh during my childhood, with the exception of attending school or going to the public library. We had no reason to go; there were few restaurants that we frequented and hardly entertainment or activities. This trend continued throughout much of my adolescence and into my high school years. It is this urban fear and subsequent lack of consumer traffic that has prevented many investors and business owners from contributing to Newburgh’s economy.

However, this began to change in recent years. Historic Liberty Street, a downtown street that runs parallel to the river, and host to Washington’s State Headquarters Historic Site, draws a limited number of tourists and student groups regularly. In recent years, this historic street has become a shining example of urban renewal in Newburgh. “Liberty Street is becoming very well-known for its efforts in revitalization,” said Rick Milton, owner of Newburgh Based Mesh-Realty. The street, previously lacking commercial businesses, now hosts a variety, including restaurants, cafes, a florist, and more.

During my senior year of high-school, I had heard about a café that had opened in the city, but I hardly considered it and continued to foster my teenage caffeine addiction at a Starbucks in the more affluent Town of Newburgh. On a whim, two friends and I (bored of the typical suburban mall hang-out) decided to venture to this new café. We were incredibly surprised by its sidewalk seating, well-decorated interior, eclectic menu, and most importantly, location. In an area we thought we would have never otherwise set foot in, we found ourselves enjoying hibiscus iced teas and paninis.

Closed storefronts reflect the need for economic revitalization. By A. Alfanso.

My interest in urban renewal and gentrification in the City of Newburgh really took off,  on that spring afternoon at Caffé Macchiato. While the location is still very gritty in comparison to the manicured waterfront, it has a historic, city-like feel. Various committees have been established in Newburgh to promote the preservation of the street as well as encourage and fiscally support small businesses trying to open. “A number of the storefronts that have been vacant for years are now occupied,” said Mr. Milton.

The addition of the Newburgh branch of Orange County Community College should bring an increase in foot traffic to the area in upcoming years. The opening of the OCC extension will hopefully add a youthful liveliness to the area, as well. Mr. Milton estimates that currently, there is a 60/40 ratio of city residents/visitors patronizing Liberty Street.

How have people heard about Liberty Street’s revival? The same way I did— through word of mouth. Visitors are beginning to visit Newburgh from other cities such as Beacon and Poughkeepsie, said Mr. Milton.

The renewal effort on Liberty Street is just getting started. Of all the small businesses opening on Liberty Street in the past few years, Mr. Milton can only recall one failing, a remarkable statistic in today’s economy. With the help of advisory boards, dedicated small business owners, and local residents seeking to patronize local establishments, Liberty Street’s future looks promising.

Alyssa Alfano grew up in Newburgh and attended high school in Poughkeepsie. She is an undergraduate at Seton Hall University.

PART IV: In a series on the MNRRA

The Ford Parkway Bridge spans the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.

This is the fourth and final installment in a series of articles on the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA), a National Park designation that has been referenced as a potential model for Congressman Maurice Hinchey’s Hudson River Valley Special Resource Study Act (H.R. 4003).  This post focuses on the essential content and management goals of MNRRA’s Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP).

The CMP provides a framework to balance natural, cultural, and economic resource protection, visitor use, and sustainable development activities. Land management is a focal point of the plan.  The plan “will minimize adverse effects on the river corridor and conflicts between users while providing for a broad spectrum of land and water uses and managed growth. It will protect fish and wildlife resources and emphasize the importance of biological diversity in the corridor.”

Corridor management policies protect and restore the most significant visual resources, including historic structures and landscapes, and “the river corridor will have continuous public or private open space along the shoreline to the maximum extent practical, and it will be connected to the downtowns and neighborhoods by open space and trails.”

Additional public and private open space is a critically important resource in the corridor that will be stressed in plan implementation. “Such space will be provided through a continued local land and easement acquisition program. The goal will be to provide a continuous linear open space and trail along the riverfront in most of the corridor while protecting natural, cultural, and economic resources.”

While open space is encouraged in the CMP, the plan also recognizes the importance of economic activities and provides for the commercial use of the corridor consistent with the MNRRA legislation.  “Economic activity has the ability to preserve nationally significant historic and economic resources, and this is encouraged by the plan. However, this document is not an economic development plan for the corridor.”

Therefore, except in existing commercial and industrial developments, downtown areas, and historic districts, and the riverfront and bluff area, it is a vision of the CMP for the corridor to appear mostly natural from the river and its shoreline areas.  “In downtown areas and historic districts, development will be more visible, but still complement the aesthetics of the river corridor, appealing to area residents and serving as an attraction to visitors to the metropolitan area. Where the natural appearance has been altered in other areas, design guidelines and programs will be established to encourage shoreline restoration to a more natural appearance.”

The following is a summary table of the main issues the CMP addresses, based on the guidance provided by legislative direction and NPS policy.

Master Plan Zones (Courtesy of MoMA)

Cities by sea such as Amsterdam, Venice and New York are just a few examples of cultured urban centers that share a common dilemma: Rising waters due to global climate change.

Fortunately, sea levels are not the only rising force on our blue-green planet.

International initiative to address the problem is manifesting as a strong shared attitude. In fact, the nature of the issue gives the refreshing luxury of looking beyond the boundaries of traditional urban planning. In New York City, groundbreaking steps toward devising solutions include taking an interdisciplinary approach.

Specifically the disciplines of art, architecture and ecology.

Through October 11, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is showing “Rising Currents: Project’s for New York’s Waterfront,” an exhibit that poses climate change solutions through pioneering architectural design. With an artistic influence to the exhibit’s aesthetics and an ecological influence to the concepts presented, at MoMA, the urgent topic of infrastructure is anything but dull.

The museum serves as more than a high-profile venue for the multifaceted display. After collaborating with P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, MoMA instigated and facilitated the process that brought the eco-exhibit to life.

Completed in eight weeks, the work of five teams focused on five geographic zones linked to New York Harbor including the coasts of both New York and New Jersey. Identified in the exhibit as Zone 0-4, “Rising Tides” bridges the gap between practical and visionary with new models that strive to facilitate “natural self perpetuating infrastructure” intended to work with nature.

However, “Rising Currents” is much more than a fusion of disciplines.

A critical exhibition of regional significance, it is the first in a series of five and features local architectural design solutions with global impact (aka “Glocal”). A compelling project, “Rising Currents” also promotes the sub-culture where the creative arts foster social change and connect people to the issues. The exhibit’s accompanying blog provides an inspiring interactive forum open for public participation and the project as whole is sure to catch the eye of influential policy-makers.

Or at least it should.

While stimulus money is aiming for a quick fix on all fronts, this collision of ecology and design comes at a time when the lull in the construction industry gives unemployed yet nevertheless talented architects downtime in a down economy to visualize feasible and sustainable development for the future. With about 50% of the world’s population living in water surrounded urban centers, the time to rethink and ultimately revamp existing infrastructure is now.

Oyster Reef (By SCAPE: Courtesy of MoMA)

This exhibit marks a projected sea level rise of two feet by 2080, however striving to work with rising water levels is a new paradigm for dealing with inevitable effects of Mother Nature’s changing climate. In “Rising Currents” a few solutions include methods to creating a ”variegated shoreline,” “greening” the streets of Manhattan to absorb excess water, placement of an artificial glass reef base to enable a natural marine reef to develop and re-cultivating lost oyster populations since the little creatures filter water and serve as a natural wave break.

These innovative concepts are but a select few of the proposed solutions that “Rising Currents: Project’s for New York’s Waterfront” has to offer. The unabridged presentation requires a trip to the Museum of Modern Art to support a movement where museums capitalize on connections to culture and access to creative talent to address matters that are most urgent to society.

Candi Sterling is a NYC/Hudson Valley based journalist, performing artist and lifestyle consultant passionate about contemporary culture, social entrepreneurship and sustainability.

Related Media

Olana announces the opening of a new exhibition, In the Footsteps of Frederic Church: Photos by Larry Lederman.

The recently restored Olana Coachman’s House is now the home to an exciting exhibition featuring photos by Larry Lederman.  Lederman’s photographs of the New York Botanical Garden have been the source for the Garden’s highly regarded calendar for the last six years. The Olana exhibition features photos by Lederman of a number of sites that renowned Hudson River School artist Frederic E. Church painted and seek to explore his art and evoke his artistic vision. The images Lederman has selected for the exhibition are a representative selection of the range of Church’s subject matter and affirm for the viewer that many of the wilderness enclaves Church painted still exist, preserved as part of our heritage because of the beauty that he and other nineteenth century painters captured. The sites represented include, Mount Desert Island, Maine; Newfoundland; Niagara Falls, and scenes from Olana.

Church chose to paint wilderness to reflect the eternal. He shows wilderness as essential to nature, but reflects inevitable change. The photographs, in their ability to stop time and telescope distance show aspects that Church could not see, but they affirm his faithfulness to nature. What he saw as eternal still resonates with us, despite the changes that time and industrial development have wrought. And we, like Church, have come to recognize the fragility of our environment. The grandeur of nature and awe for it are what he brought to us to stir our souls. His paintings still do. The photographs are meant to do the same.

The coachman’s house is connected to the historic carriage barn and both are located near the main house atop the hill at Olana.  These were important structures during Church’s life.  The first buildings constructed in this location,served as the “bunk house” for workers during construction of the house between 1870 and 1874. Upon completion of the house the buildings were converted to farm use and housed John McKenna, the Churches longtime coachman and gardener and his family. Today the complex serves as the Museum Store, Orientation Center, and now home to this year’s photography exhibition.  The Coachman’s house is located just steps from the main parking lot at Olana. The exhibition is free and open Tuesday through Sunday from 10AM-5PM through October 31.

Signed copies of the photos from the exhibition are available for sale in the Olana museum store and online with proceeds dedicated to the preservation of Olana. A sampling of work from this exhibit can be viewed in the photos section of OurHudson.org.

From the New York Times:

A cleanup of toxic chemicals in the Hudson River has failed to consistently meet performance standards and needs to undergo “substantive changes” in its next phase, a panel of independent scientists said in a draft report released on Monday.

The panel, convened by the Environmental Protection Agency, also recommended that the second phase, scheduled to start in May 2011 and to last five years, be allowed to be extended to provide more flexibility. Officials with the E.P.A., which is overseeing the dredging by the General Electric Company under the Superfund program, estimate that the project may take 7 to 10 years, rather than the 6 years originally anticipated.

Read the full article here

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