SARATOGA SPRINGS — So long, Longfellows. Say hello to Brookmere. 

The parking lot is empty now. The buildings, trimmed in green and topped in clay hues, vacant. A large roadside sign that stands in front of the compound that has played host to so many the past quarter-century reads Thanks For The Memories, underscored by a promise: Stay Tuned For What’s Next.   

The approval of plans to convert the former Longfellows Hotel and Restaurant into the Brookmere Hotel are advancing through the city’s Land Use Boards. Construction is anticipated to commence this month. An opening has been targeted for fall 2024.  

Plans include the demolition of specific select structures – including the removal of an entry canopy, a covered entrance (porte cochere), and the existing Longfellows restaurant and banquet facility.

In its place, the transformed resort, renamed Brookmere, will house an 88-room hotel, a 200-seat ballroom, a Spa, and a 65-seat restaurant open to both spa and hotel guests, as well as the general public.  

Overall, the site’s footprint will expand from 65,000 square feet to 90,000 square feet.   

The project was first introduced in January to the Saratoga Springs Planning Board. The select structures have since been deemed to not have architectural or historic significance and the Design Review Board approved demolition of those select structures in May. 

Post-demolition, a new addition will be constructed that will connect the existing 18-room inn to the 32-room hotel. The existing inn and hotel will also be renovated.  Additional plans include a new entryway and lobby, lounge, restaurant/bar and ballroom. Offices will be added to the basement section of the addition and guest rooms added to the second and third floors, bringing the total room count to 88. 

The development is a collaborative effort between many entities: Bonacio Construction, Spring City Development – formed in 2021 as a restructuring of the real estate development arm of Bonacio Construction, the Atlanta, Georgia-based interior design firm Sims Patrick Studio, as well as the local design firms Balzer & Tuck Architecture, and the LA Group. Hay Creek Hotels, which is headquartered in New Hampshire will manage the resort.  

Longfellows, a popular local restaurant and hotel complex at 500 Union Ave., closed its doors in January, shortly after co-owner Steve Sullivan announcing its pending closure and the acceptance of an offer from a group of investors/operators to purchase the property. The property sold for $4.9 million, according to county deed records recorded on Jan. 13. 

“It’s been a great 26-year run,” Sullivan said at the time. Over its 26 years in business, Longfellows accommodated thousands of hotel guests and hosted over 2,400 weddings and countless catering events.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The city stages regularly scheduled meetings by three Land Use Boards that review development activities within city boundaries. Those boards are typically where new development projects, or alterations to existing developments are discussed.   

The Saratoga Springs Planning Board is a 7-member citizen board that has jurisdiction over the development of most new multi-family, commercial, institutional and industrial projects. 

The Saratoga Springs Design Review Board is a 7-member citizen board which reviews development activities within city boundaries – Historic Review, and Architectural Review.

The Saratoga Springs Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) is a quasi-judicial 7-member citizen board that reviews requests for waivers from existing regulations in the zoning ordinance. 

Multiple workshops and meetings are held monthly related to all three boards. The meetings are open to the public. For a specific schedule of meetings and agenda items, visit the city website at: Saratoga-springs.org. 

Fans of horse racing who attend this year’s Belmont Stakes will find many things that are familiar, and comforting.  Post-Pandemic Life still is rife with many uncertainties:  to take a day off, and experience things as we knew them before Covid, is a gift.  At Beautiful Belmont Park, Canada geese still soar the skies, landing on their Infield Pond with ballet-like beauty, and grace.  The neighing of thousands of horses in the barns greet fans as they arrive, soothing with their ancient song.

Race fans, especially New Yorkers, are particularly proud of Big Sandy, Belmont’s  magnificent dirt track.  The geese’s Infield is enormous:  large enough to land a 747.  The track itself is deeper than most tracks, due to NYRA’s proprietary recipe:  more sand in its mix (with clay and silt) than other tracks = more of a challenge to runners.  (That recipe makes Big Sandy deep-enough to unnerve horses and jockeys who’ve never experienced it before.)  

Big Sandy is the quicksand over which Secretariat flew with otherworldly speed, 50 years ago this month.  Big Red, stared Big Sandy in the eye, and didn’t blink.

This year’s Belmont Stakes will offer familiar, comforting sounds both to those on-track, and to the millions worldwide who’ll see the race on their TVs, computers and smartphones.  On June 10th,  the legendary Sam Grossman – Sam the Bugler – will grace his Belmont winner’s circle once again. 

In 2022, he stepped back a bit to tend to personal matters.  These days, he’s channeling his tremendous talents and energies into teaching music in a public school, north of Miami – sharing his wealth of knowledge and passion with a new generation of young musicians.  (Sam’s fans won’t be surprised by this information; he has a long reputation for generosity of spirit.)

He doesn’t dismiss the idea of playing occasionally at Saratoga, of course, and he’ll play other NYRA special occasions.  But as of this writing, June 10th is the chance for  race fans to witness the master’s joyous return to his home turf, playing his song.  And – bonus! – this year, Sam will play First Call (Call to the Post) with his twin brother, Irv Grossman and his close friend, Bethann Dixon.  The dynamic trio brings special magic to those 34 notes, notes that have set hearts and imaginations afire at tracks all over the world since at least the late 1850s.  On June 10th, on-track or virtually, fans can request: 

“Play it again, Sam.”  Once more, with feeling.

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The public is invited to submit questions for incumbent city Mayor Ron Kim and mayoral challenger Chris Mathiesen in advance of the city’s Democratic Party Primary, which will take place June 27, with Early Voting beginning June 17.  

The “Meet The Candidates” event will take place virtually, from 7:30-8:30 p.m. on Monday, June 12. The event will be live streamed on Zoom webinar and hosted by the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County – a local chapter of the League of Women Voters of New York State and the national League of Women Voters, a nonpartisan organization whose stated mission is to encourage informed and active participation in government.

Questions: The public is encouraged to submit questions for the candidates by June 9, 2023, to QuestionsLWVSC@gmail.com with “Mayor” in the subject line. Questions should be addressed to both candidates, represent a broad range of topics and not contain personal attacks.

The general election will take place in November for the two-year mayoral term. The Saratoga Springs Republican Committee has endorsed John Safford as the GOP’s candidate for mayor.  

In Saratoga Springs, there are just over 8,300 registered Democrats eligible to vote in the June 27 Primary. The city counts just over 5,800 registered Republicans, and 5,500 “blank” voters – or those registered to vote with no party affiliation, according to the Board of Elections.     

BALLSTON SPA — Six minutes after sunrise Tuesday morning, members of the county Sheriff’s Office Special Operation and Narcotics Unit assisted the DEA in executing a federal search warrant at 312 Foxwood Drive. The warrant relating to a six-month long narcotics investigation.

“The Special Operations team announced their purpose and authority and entered the residence,” explained Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo. “A person inside the home began shooting at deputies.”

The person inside, identified as 23-year-old Anthony Zaremski, was the subject of the investigation leading to the search warrant.

“He struck two deputies with gunfire, at which time deputies returned fire,” Zurlo said. “Mr. Zaremski was pronounced dead at 9:15 a.m. at Albany Medical Center.” 

The two injured deputies, who Sheriff Zurlo declined to name, have served with the department for five years, and two years, respectively. One was struck in the chest with a round that was deflected by life-saving body armor; the other suffered a shattered femur as a result of a serious gunshot wound to his thigh, Zurlo said.

The prognosis for both is excellent, he added. “The quick thinking and instinctive actions be the members of the Special Operations Team in rendering aid to the deputies – including applying two tourniquets to the deputy shot in the thigh – was nothing short of heroic.”

A DEA officer, who is also a medic, applied first aid to Zaremski until he was transported to Albany Medical Center.

Zaremski had a lengthy criminal history record, Zurlo said, including attempted murder, and criminal drug and loaded firearm possession charges. “We encountered a dangerous subject this morning when we entered that residence.”

Tuesday’s actions were part of an ongoing criminal investigation dating back six months and involve four search warrants in the Saratoga/Albany region.

“The seizures that resulted from today’s operation resulted in hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills and ecstasy pills, multiple kilograms of cocaine and nearly 50 rifles and handguns,” said Frank Tarentino III, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s New York Division covering the State of New York. “The amount of Fentanyl pills we seized today is equivalent to roughly 60,000 lethal doses removed from the streets of this community.”  

The tally of seized items is from the first three warrant searches. Any items seized from the fourth location – where the shooting occurred Tuesday – are not included in that tally, Tarentino said.

Sheriff Zurlo said he would not comment whether anyone else was present inside the home, other than that no children were present.    

“This is the first time I think, in the history of the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office, that we had two members shot,” Zurlo said, at a presser held in Ballston Spa Tuesday afternoon. “There are no words to sufficiently describe how grateful I am that this is only a press conference and not a eulogy.”

SARATOGA — The Gerald B. H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery holds its 24th Annual Memorial Day Ceremony Saturday, May 27. The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. with a cannon salute. 

“We’re going to honor and commemorate the service of the men and women who served. We’ll have a full-blown ceremony with a rifle salute, we have cannons here, music, song, speeches, replay presentations,” says Scott Lamb, cemetery director at Gerald B. H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery, located in the town of Saratoga. 

Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery is New York State’s sixth national veteran’s cemetery and the 116th in the National Cemetery Administration. There are currently over 26,000 interments, which began in July 1999, over its 350 acres, 90 acres of which have been developed. 

Saturday’s ceremony will include Master Sgt. John Leavitt, U.S. Army retired Vietnam Veteran as Keynote Speaker. Special guests also include WWII Veteran Ken Bailey, and Korean War Veteran Paul O’Keefe. 

The ceremony is open to the public. 

“It starts at 11 and we ask you give yourself a little extra time to get here a bit early,” Lamb says. “It is a well-attended ceremony and usually 1,500-plus attend. It’s a beautiful ceremony and we’re supposed to have beautiful weather. If you’re looking for a very relaxing ceremony, to sit in a chair, listen to some songs and hear a few people speak and commemorate and remember our men and women who have faithfully served, it’s a great place to do it.” 

The cemetery was renamed after the late Congressman Gerald Brooks Hunt Solomon, who advocated for the cemetery to be in Saratoga. 

“It was originally going to be in the Utica-Rome area. Congressman Solomon advocated for it to be here, close to the Saratoga battlefield,” says Lamb, a Navy Veteran who served from 1990 to 1998. Solomon was buried at the cemetery Oct. 31, 2001. Three months later, President George W. Bush signed legislation renaming Saratoga National Cemetery as the Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery.

The ship’s bell from the USS Saratoga, CV-3, was installed as a memorial at the cemetery in 1999. The USS Saratoga was launched in 1925 and spent 20 years at sea, including action during World War II. An American gray granite memorial was erected in 2001 to honor veterans from Saratoga County. The American Veterans (AMVETS) donated a carillon in 1999, and a granite and bronze memorial was erected in honor of U.S. submariner veterans in 2002. The cemetery also has a walkway that features a variety of memorials erected by veterans and fraternal organizations in honor of events and fallen comrades.   

More than 1.4 million veterans live in New York and more than 225,000 reside in the Albany/Saratoga area. Many of the questions the national cemetery in Saratoga is asked comes from veterans inquiring whether they are eligible for burial there. 

“A lot of veterans don’t realize that they are eligible, along with their spouse, if married, and any dependent children. You don’t need to have served in war – you just have to have been honorably discharged and most folks don’t know that,” Lamb says. “There is some paperwork involved, and we encourage folks to look at that. I’m a veteran myself, and I did it to see how long it took. It was a very easy process, and I got an official letter back that basically says I’m deemed eligible for burial when the time comes.” 

When a Veteran, service member, or family member qualifies for burial in a VA national cemetery, they receive certain burial benefits at no cost to their family. “After you come through the cemetery everything is paid for by the government – that’s the opening and closing of the gravesite, the placing of the headstone or marker, the perpetual care, the maintenance – all paid for, for you and your spouse,” Lamb says.  

The cemetery in Saratoga conducts approximately 1,300 interments a year and has space available to accommodate casketed and cremated remains. Since 1999, the cemetery counts a total of about 26,000 interments and has ample space for expansion. Eligibility information for veterans may be found at: www.va.gov/burials-memorials/eligibility.

Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery is open daily from dawn to dusk and is located in the town of Saratoga. For more information go to: cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/geraldbhsolomonsaratoga.asp. Follow on Instagram: instagram.com/gbhs_saratoganatcem, and Facebook: facebook.com/NatCemSaratoga.