The aftermath of the fire at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds’ Eastview Farm in Stillwater. Photo by Jonathon Norcross.
STILLWATER — McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, a family-owned horse breeding farm based in Saratoga Springs, lost two hay barns and several smaller buildings in a fire last weekend at its Eastview Farm property in Stillwater. No people or horses were harmed. As of press time, the exact cause of the fire was unknown, though it’s believed to have originated in one of the hay barns.
A video shared with a local Facebook group on July 5 showed large plumes of gray smoke rising above a barn completely engulfed in flames. Horses in a nearby enclosure could be seen galloping away from the fire.
The farm’s co-founder Joe McMahon told Saratoga TODAY that he estimated somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 large bales of hay were lost in the fire, which destroyed much of the property’s storage facilities.
“We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the community for its swift response and unwavering support,” McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds said in a statement. “The quick action from our local first responders and volunteer firefighters was instrumental in preventing the situation from becoming worse, and we are forever thankful for their bravery and dedication. Your efforts made all the difference, and we can’t thank you enough.”
The company encouraged those offering support to consider donating to organizations like the Thoroughbred Charities of America or local fire departments.
“Your support during this time means more to us than words can express,” the statement continued. “We are truly grateful to be part of such an incredible community, and with your continued support, we will rebuild and continue to care for our horses to the highest standard.”
McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds was founded in 1971 and has produced a number of notable race horses, including 2003 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Funny Cide, and the Grade 1 winner Instant Friendship. The fire was the first in the farm’s 55-year history.
Backstage crew members prepare for the New York City Ballet’s annual residency at SPAC. (right) New York City Ballet Production Stage Manager Jacqueline Reid shows off a costume used in “Coppélia.” Photos by Jonathon Norcross.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Five tractor-trailers hauled lavish sets, hundreds of intricate costumes, and more than 1,000 gleaming ballet shoes into the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC) on Monday morning in preparation for the New York City Ballet’s (NYCB) 59th annual residency in the Spa City, which began on July 9 and concludes on Saturday, July 12.
Also arriving at Saratoga for the residency (though not in tractor-trailers) were more than 90 dancers, as well as dozens of members of the New York City Ballet Orchestra.
This year’s performances include the full-length story ballet “Coppélia,” which held its world premiere at SPAC in 1974; Jerome Robbins’ spirited “In G Major,” an audience favorite set to Giuseppe Verdi melodies; George Balanchine’s “Stravinsky Violin Concerto”; and Justin Peck’s newest work “Mystic Familiar,” which will have its SPAC premiere.
“Nowhere else in the world outside of New York City does the full company of dancers and musicians present a robust week of repertoire, every single year,” said Elizabeth Sobol, president and CEO of SPAC, in a statement. “SPAC is unique and incredibly fortunate to be able to bring these world-class artists to our community.”
Called “story ballet done to perfection” by The New York Times, George Balanchine’s “Coppélia” will feature scenery and costumes by Rouben Ter-Artunian, as well as lighting by Mark Stanley. Included in the cast will be around 30 local children, who began auditioning for their roles in early March.
“Mystic Familiar” is set to an original score by composer Dan Deacon, who also provided the score for Peck’s 2017 ballet “The Times Are Racing” and Francis Ford Coppola’s 2011 film “Twixt.” The set design will feature a backdrop by the Los Angeles-based visual artist Eamon Ore-Giron, whose work was featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial.
Here is the full NYCB performance schedule at SPAC:
Coppélia
July 9 @ 7:30 p.m.
July 10 @ 7:30 p.m.
July 11 @ 7:30 p.m.
July 12 @ 2 p.m.
“Mystic Familiar” + “In G Major” + “Stravinsky Violin Concerto”
July 11 @ 2 p.m.
July 12 @ 7:30 p.m.
For tickets or more information, visit spac.org.
SPAC Offering Free Dance Workshops
Last week, SPAC and the NYCB announced that they would offer a series of free dance workshops for children, teens, and adults of all abilities on July 10 and 12.
Held at the SPAC School of the Arts, the workshops are led by NYCB dancers and the choreography is inspired by “Coppélia.” Additional access workshops will feature modifications so that participants of all abilities feel welcome.
New York City Ballet Workshop Schedule:
July 10 @ 5:15 p.m.: NYCB Ballet Essentials Workshop, Access Workshop for Teens and Adults
July 12 @ 10 a.m.: Children’s Access Workshop
July 12 @ 12 p.m.: Children’s Workshop, In Motion Workshop
For more details on the workshops, visit spac.org.
An image posted to PJ’s BAR-B-QSA’s website announcing the restaurant’s closure.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — PJ’s BAR-B-QSA, a barbecue restaurant that had been in business for 42 years, officially closed its doors for good last weekend after being shuttered since late October.
In a statement posted to its website, the company said it had a pending sale on the property at 1 Kaydeross Ave W that is scheduled to close in mid-September.
The company also said it would retain ownership of its original recipes, trademarks, logos, and theme in the hope that someone might be interested in licensing them.
“Our journey began over five decades ago with a small catering business working out of our garage, and thanks to all of you, it evolved into a beloved local institution,” owners PJ and Carolyn Davis said in their statement. “From the very beginning, this has been a family effort, and we’re deeply proud of what we’ve built together.”
PJ and Carolyn thanked their son, daughter, the City of Saratoga Springs, the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, Discover Saratoga, and the local community at large for their support over the years.
PJ’s BAR-B-QSA had been a seasonal restaurant from 1984 until 2011, before staying open year-round in 2012. Its decision to close for the winter in October 2024 led to speculation that the business might stay closed for good.
The eatery hosted a variety of events over the years, including Classic Car Nights, Bike Nights, and charity events. It was also an official Buffalo Bills Backers location, serving as a gathering place for Bills fans to watch games.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Herbie’s Burgers, a growing smash burger chain that originated in Albany in 2021, has opened its newest outpost at the Ice House at 70 Putnam Street in downtown Saratoga Springs.
The company has seven other locations, including three in Albany, one in Clifton Park, and one in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Herbie’s burgers are made from grass-fed/grass-finished beef and its shoe-string fries are made from 100% Idaho potatoes.
Menu offerings at the Ice House location include both beef and vegan burgers, fries, chicken sandwiches and tenders, and milkshakes.
A trolley transports members of the Saratoga Springs baseball team from Congress Park to City Hall. Photo by Aidan Cahill.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — An unprecedented moment in Saratoga Springs history did not go unnoticed by city officials, who celebrated the dual state champion Saratoga Springs and Saratoga Central Catholic varsity baseball teams with a downtown parade last week.
The team’s players were ferried from Congress Park to City Hall via a police and fire-escorted pair of red trolleys. Once delivered to the steps of City Hall, the players and their coaches were honored with proclamations courtesy of Mayor John Safford. The date of the parade, June 25, was officially named both Saratoga Springs Central Catholic Varsity Baseball Day and Saratoga Springs High School Varsity Baseball Day.
In his proclamations, Mayor Safford said “we are all extremely proud of them, and we join with their fellow students, their teachers, and their coach in celebrating this great achievement,” adding, “may their legacy and spirit continue to serve as an inspiration for all of us.”
The Saratoga Central Catholic Saints won the Section 2 Class C Championship on June 14, defeating Deposit-Hancock 4 to 0. On the same day, the Saratoga Springs Blue Streaks capped off a 21-6 season by capturing the Section 2 Class AAA state championship, vanquishing Ketcham 8 to 5. It was the first time both teams had won state baseball titles.
A press release from the mayor’s office announcing the parade called the feat an “extraordinary achievement” and an “historic moment for our community.”
The championship Spa Catholic Saints team included the players:
Max Britten
Kihl Kelly
Pierce Byrne
Carson Moser
Luke Dejnozka
Jason Pescetti
Nacy Devincenzo
Ronan Rowe
Martin Elie
Brian Selig
Hunter Fales
Zach Streicher
Ryan Gillis
Tyler Weygand
And the Saratoga Springs Blue Streaks team consisted of:
Cover of the book “Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution” by Molly Beer, published on July 1 by W. W. Norton & Company.
Update: Due to a flood at the Northshire Bookstore, the event featuring author Molly Beer will now take place at Pitney Meadows Community Farm at 223 West Avenue in Saratoga Springs. The date and time of the event (Tuesday, July 8 at 6pm) remain the same.
SCHUYLERVILLE — In her 58 years of existence, Angelica Schuyler had one of her childhood homes in present-day Schuylerville incinerated by retreating British troops; maintained correspondence with American luminaries like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson; eloped with a British-born businessman with a shady past; befriended Benjamin Franklin in Paris; attended the first inauguration of George Washington; was the namesake of a town in western New York; birthed eight children; and served as the inspiration for a Tony Award-winning performance in a hit Broadway musical.
Yet, despite such an accomplished and remarkable life, Angelica Schuyler has always been depicted as a supporting character in the stories of other people’s lives: her father, General Philip Schuyler; her brother-in-law Alexander Hamilton; and her husband, John Barker Church. A new biography, “Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution” by Molly Beer, aims to cast this pivotal figure in a new light, one in which power is not just defined by battle victories and terms in elected office.
“[Historically], we think about power as being located in the men and women are connecting them, but now we talk more about soft power and social networks and connections and being locuses of power. Historically, she occupies this locus of power,” Beer told Saratoga TODAY. “A rubric for greatness is completely male specific, but when we talk about what power looks like now, she checks a lot of those boxes.”
Angelica’s power often lay in her extraordinary social and diplomatic skills, which allowed her to form connections with everyone from passionate patriots to loyal monarchists, from Americans to Brits to the French. Beer believes these talents may have arisen from Angelica’s outsider status as a Dutch New Yorker.
“From early childhood, she is seen as a foreigner,” Beer said. “She’s always navigating the Dutch-British divide and I think people who are used to crossing cultural lines get good at it.”
All of this isn’t to suggest that Angelica was without flaws. Although historians and gossip-mongers have long speculated that her relationship with Hamilton may have been more than friendly, the true blemish on the eldest Schuyler sister’s legacy was her use of enslaved people, a sin from which Beer doesn’t shy away. Beer never found any evidence of Angelica speaking about the issue of slavery directly, and it’s hard to piece together what Angelica’s thoughts may have been. On the one hand, she was a client of the famous hairdresser Pierre Toussaint, a formerly enslaved Haitian-American. On the other hand, enslaved people worked at the Schuyler family farm that still stands in the Village of Schuylerville (then called Saratoga). This farm reminds visitors of early America’s inability to rid of itself of a practice that the French (with whom Angelica spent much time) found abhorrent.
Despite these grim reminders of past crimes, historic sites can also serve as inspiration. Beer grew up in Angelica, New York, the town named after the eldest Schuyler sister, and her school bus drove past Belvidere, a mansion built for Angelica and her husband, every day.
“I always knew that this is where this historic woman who had to do with the forming of the country had lived,” Beer said. “The effect for me was that even if you’re from this place and even if you’re a girl, you can matter in the world. If you read books and you study hard and you’re brave, you can go do stuff. For me, that was important. One of the reasons I wrote the book was because I thought that would be useful for other girls to know.”
Beer will discuss all things Angelica Schuyler at the Northshire Bookstore on Broadway in Saratoga Springs on Tuesday, July 8 at 6 p.m. For more information, visit www.northshire.com/event/northshire-saratoga-molly-beer-angelica-love-and-country-time-revolution.
The Schuyler Estate, where Angelica spent parts of her childhood, is open to visitors on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. For more information, visit www.nps.gov/sara/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm.
Attendees of the 2025 Yaddo Summer Benefit gather under a tent on the nonprofit retreat’s lawn for dramatic letter readings and a musical performance by singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant. Photo courtesy of Yaddo.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Yaddo, the famed 400-acre artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs, drew a crowd of more than 450 supporters and raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars at its annual summer benefit last Thursday night. Both the number of attendees and the fundraising total were all-time highs, the nonprofit said.
Guests were treated to a buffet of bites and mixed drinks prior to the event’s main act: a series of dramatic letter readings performed by actor Oliver Wadsworth, singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant, and Yaddo President Elaina Richardson; followed by an intimate performance at the piano by Merchant, who sang for the first time solo, her 2023 original song “Sister Tilly.” The letters were written either by or about some of the retreat’s most acclaimed artists-in-residence, such as Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Sylvia Plath, Leonard Bernstein, Langston Hughes, and many others.
This summer, Yaddo will be hosting a number of events, including Wine & Roses (offering live classical music paired with regional wines on July 17, July 31, and August 14), select Sunday yoga classes in the gardens through October, and a rare open house on September 27. The Yaddo Gardens will also be open to visitors until October 9. For tickets, event details, or to learn more, visit Yaddo.org.
Images provided by the Saratoga Springs History Museum.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — A spinning roulette wheel. Doors slamming shut. A whiff of lavender perfume. Apparitions in the windows.
Over the years, there have been dozens of people who have reported seeing, hearing, and feeling the presence of otherworldly spirits in Saratoga’s Canfield Casino, which is now the site of the Saratoga Springs History Museum.
Saratoga TODAY collected just a few of these experiences, as relayed by the museum’s Executive Director James Parillo:
° Three people heard the chiming of crystals dangling from a lamp stationed in an empty room;
° the sound of what could be casino chips hitting the floor, heard “over and over again”;
° pounding on the side of an elevator that was once used inside the Adelphi Hotel;
° mediums communicating with unknown entities that smelled of perfume;
° people who feel pressure in their chest or have difficulty breathing when they reach the museum’s third floor;
° a woman who felt a room become ice cold before seeing the apparition of a man who descended a staircase;
° people in Congress Park who say they saw a woman in Victorian clothing looking out one of the casino’s windows;
° seven people who heard audio over a radio receiver of gamblers placing bets;
° three staff members who saw a “lady in a white dress,” believed to be the spirit of Reubena Walworth, a nurse who tended to Spanish-American War vets and later died of typhoid fever.
Whether one finds these stories to be convincing evidence or not, there’s no denying that Canfield has become a hot spot for ghost investigators and paranormal enthusiasts. In 2010, the “Ghost Hunters” TV series on the Syfy network featured the Canfield Casino in one of its episodes, helping to popularize the site’s status as a haunted locale. Nowadays, Parillo said he gets biweekly requests from YouTubers hoping to film inside the museum.
In an effort to satiate the public’s curiosity, the museum has announced the return of its popular “Ghost Tours of the Canfield Casino,” running from July 2 through August 29, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
This season’s tours will aim to “immerse guests in Saratoga’s spectral history with new stories, local legends, and chilling accounts of real paranormal encounters,” the museum said in a press release. Participants will be guided through the “opulent yet eerie” halls of the casino, hearing tales of mysterious events, often from people who have experienced them firsthand.
“It’s important to us that whoever is telling the stories has experienced something,” Parillo said.
The tours are for visitors ages 10 and up. Advance reservations are strongly encouraged. For tickets and more information, visit www.saratogahistory.org/ghost-tours-summer-2025.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — Grasso’s Italian Ice is officially back in business this summer, despite the company’s signature 1954 International Harvester truck still undergoing repairs.
Grasso’s announced on Monday that it would partner with the folks at Olde Saratoga Miniature Golf and Rustic Pizza to sell Italian ice at their location at 556 Maple Ave in Saratoga Springs beginning Wednesday, July 2. “Old-school” flavors like lemon, cherry, root beer, and black raspberry will be available.
Last year, Grasso’s launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to fix its aging truck. The company said it didn’t quite raise enough and that repairs are still ongoing. The truck is expected to hit the streets next year.
“To everyone who donated to our GoFundMe: thank you from the bottom of my heart,” the company said on its Facebook page. “You helped keep this tradition alive.”
As previously reported by Saratoga TODAY, the Grasso family traces its Italian ice origins back to the 1920’s, when Ralph Grasso emigrated from his native Tufino, Italy and settled in Brooklyn with his brother, landing in Saratoga Springs a few years later. Grasso worked in the construction and masonry trades and began making lemon ice, which he sold on his off-days and weekends as a side business.
Two airplanes inside the airport’s new 20,000-square-foot hangar. Photo by Aidan Cahill.
SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Saratoga County Airport unveiled its new terminal building and hangar during a ribbon cutting ceremony last Thursday, marking the completion of a $35.9 million construction project that began last year.
“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here on behalf of Governor Kathy Hochul as we celebrate this incredible milestone today,” said New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez. “It is truly, truly breathtaking,” Dominguez said of the terminal’s interior space.
Although the airport does not host commercial flights, the facility features spaces and amenities open to the public, including a conference room, outdoor patio, and upstairs restaurant that provides views of the runway.
“This space is for everyone to enjoy, especially people who live and work here in Saratoga,” Dominguez said.
To fund the project, the county was awarded $27 million by the state, with an additional $2 million coming via federal funds. The remaining balance of the $35.9 million budget (the price tag was initially quoted at $35.2 million in 2024) was provided by Saratoga County.
“Data from the state DOT indicates that Saratoga County Airport alone, before all this transformation, generated over $9.7 million in local economic activity,” Dominguez said. “But, with this transformation, we anticipate that this investment will yield even greater returns moving forward.”
According to Dominguez, the construction project generated 390 local jobs.
The new terminal building includes several waiting areas, rental car facilities, and office space. The entrance/lobby area is adorned with artwork depicting mountains and horses, as well as posters promoting the Saratoga Battlefield’s augmented reality feature. The hangar includes 20,000 square-feet of space and has solar panels on its roof to help reduce the airport’s carbon footprint.
