ET Calls SPAC Home
SARATOGA SPRINGS - Stéphane Denève was 11 years old when he sat inside a darkened movie theater and watched a young boy try to help a loveable alien find its way home. Thirty-five years later, that moment continues to carry a special emotional significance for Denève, and one that he hopes to share with thousands of others on Saturday when he stands atop the stage at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, flanked by four HD screens showing Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” and leading the Philadelphia Orchestra in a live musical accompaniment of John Williams’ score.
“I was born in ’71 so I saw the movie when I was 11. I loved it so much I cried in the theater. And during my childhood, I had a poster of ET over my bed,” says the conductor.
When it came to his own daughter, Denève and his wife ensured the first time she saw the film was during the staging of a performance accompanied by the screening of the movie with her father conducting the orchestra. “That was very special, being able to share that with her,” he says. “I was very moved by it.”
Conducting the orchestra in real time while the film is screening is not without its challenges.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m piloting a big plane,” Denève laughs. “The movie is moving forward and so you’re moving forward with it. You cannot stop and say: oh, let me do it again.
“There are hundreds of cues through the movie interpreting the score. It’s fun, of course, but it’s also one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done in my career because you want to be both precise and expressive,” says Denève, who in June was named as the next music director of the St. Louis Symphony.
Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s August residency, which kicked off Thursday with Tchaikovsky’s famed 1812 Overture, will run through Aug. 19 with a celebratory “A Night at The Opera.”
“It’s an incredible orchestra. It’s home for them, of course. You feel the connection they have with the audience. Some of the musicians even have their private homes in Saratoga,” Denève says. “You put a group together to do something special and I feel we are creating the tension, the rhythm and the dialogue between the instruments.
“When I am conducting I can feel the energy in the room. The energy of the audience, even though I have my back to them, is essential. You really feel when people are listening and the peak of tension, and attention, in the audience. I find that quite magical.”
Elizabeth Sobol, who is spending her first summer guiding SPAC as the organization’s president and CEO, says she is excited about all of it - from the scheduled appearances of Yo-Yo Ma and Marcus Roberts, closing night’s “breathtaking evening with exquisite arias,” and a night set aside to pay tribute to Gershwin.
“At SPAC you want to be presenting the best of all genres. Gershwin was the ultimate composer who brought popular and classical music together on the knife edge that made it such brilliant, amazing, universal music,“ Sobol says.
Saturday, Aug. 5 - E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (complete with film). Steven Spielberg's cinematic masterpiece “E.T. The Extra—Terrestrial,” will be shown on four HD screens and accompanied by a live performance of John Williams's Academy Award-winning score.
The Philadelphia Orchestra’s return to its summer home at Saratoga Performing Arts Center features three weeks of performances. The season, Aug. 2 – 19, encompasses wide-ranging classical and contemporary repertoire, world renowned musicians and conductors, family-oriented multi-media offerings and an opera evening. All performances at 8 p.m.
Some highlights: Friday Aug. 4 - Cirque de la Symphonie; Saturday, Aug. 5 - E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (complete with film); Wednesday, Aug. 9 - American Classics Day 1. An icon of classical music and arguably the world’s greatest living cellist, Yo-Yo Ma will grace the SPAC stage with his unmatched artistry; Thursday, Aug. 10 - American Classics Day 2. Maestro Marin Alsop n conducts an evening dedicated to the music of cherished American composer George Gershwin. Also: The Marcus Roberts Trio; Friday, Aug. 11 - American Classics Day 3. Duo Concerto for Vibraphone and Marimba is comprised of several Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays compositions arranged and orchestrated by Principal Percussion Christopher Deviney; Saturday, Aug. 12 - Raiders of the Lost Ark (complete with film). The film that gave the world one of its greatest movie heroes, Indiana Jones, will make its SPAC debut as John Williams's epic score is performed live; Wednesday, Aug. 16 - Sophisticated Ladies; Thursday, Aug. 17 - French Festival Day 1. Music Director of The Philadelphia Orchestra and Grammy Award-nominee Yannick Nézet-Séguin returns to Saratoga to lead the final week of programs; Friday, Aug. 18 - French Festival Day 2; Saturday, Aug. 19 - A Night at the Opera. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead singers from The Metropolitan Opera in an evening of glorious arias and sublime ensembles from the opera repertoire.
The full schedule of SPAC’s programming and events is available at spac.org.
Rod Stewart, Cindy Lauper Live at SPAC 7.22.17 – Twelve Things
Rod Stewart
Why We Like Him: With his trademark raspy voice and exemplary musical lineage, Rod Stewart is one of the top-selling singers of the 20th century. Of particular note: his run with the Jeff Beck Group in the 1960s and his stint with The Faces, as well as his solo albums, through the mid-1970s.
Heritage: Born of Scottish and English ancestry. Loves soccer. Knighted by Prince William at Buckingham Palace in 2016.
Set List: Twenty songs. Ten originals. Ten covers.
Visually: Sir Rod looks healthy up against the 72 years he has spent on earth: shirt unbuttoned to mid-chest, swatches of blonde zagging across his scalp, and a voice that mostly still manages fine and complemented on stage by a chorus of back-up singers. His shaggy-hair look also inspired more than a few fans to don Rod The Mod hair-wigs, although for the most part the wigs seemed less like the classic rooster-cut of the ‘70s and more like a Long Island housewife’s beehive hair-do that had been violated by a pair of sheep shears.
Memorable songs performed: The Faces’ “Stay With Me” still maintained some of its original joy-filled intensity, and was supplemented by the kicking of several soccer balls into the crowd. Renditions of Tim Hardin’s “Reason To Believe” and Cat Stevens’ “The First Cut Is The Deepest” were emotionally moving during the evening’s five-song acoustic set. “Maggie May” and “Ooh La La” were not.
Stewart name-checked blues legend Muddy Waters before performing the Hambone Willie Newbern song “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” – which dates back to at least 1929 - dedicated “Young Turks” to World War II servicemen, covered Tom Waits’ “Downtown Train,” and performed a duet with Cyndi Lauper on The Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart of Mine.”
“You Wear It Well” brought the crowd to its feet, and “You’re In My Heart” had them swaying, arms waving and taking the lead on the choruses.
Ill-advised: The drum solo during “Forever Young,” featuring two drummers no less, making the most boring thing in rock doubly so. Another low moment occurred when the band, sans Rod, played “Proud Mary” Ike & Tina Turner style - likely meant to be a tribute, but mostly just looked like a foolish parody. Coincidentally, both segments were used to occupy time so that Rod could go backstage and change into another outfit.
Overall: Entertaining, but lacking the emotional passion that set him apart from his peers during the early 1970s when he reigned as king. All the sharp edges were removed from the guitars, the band – in their matching suits and neat styles – looked more like Rod’s wait staff than musical foils, and Rod himself seems destined to grab the title of rock’s version of Wayne Newton. Clearly, he misses Ron Wood, who left to join the Rolling Stones in 1975. It doesn’t look like the Stones are going to give him back any time soon.
Most annoyingly is the known talent that Stewart once promised before he began his descent into the maelstrom of mainstream mediocrity. It was what promptedmusic critic Greil Marcus to proclaim decades ago: “Rarely has a singer had as full and unique a talent as Rod Stewart; rarely has anyone betrayed his talent so completely.” Not much has changed.
Cyndi Lauper
Why We Like Her: Fun, talented, and charming.
Heritage: Born at Astoria General Hospital and grew up in Ozone Park - both neighborhoods in Queens whose surrounding environs also spawned Tony Bennett, Simon and Garfunkel, Marty Scorsese, three New York Dolls, all four of the Ramones, and Steinway Pianos.
Set List: 11 songs, covering a span of recordings from 1983’s “She’s So Unusual,” to “Detour,” which was released in 2006.
Visually: The show began with Lauper swinging around an oversized traveling trunk while teetering atop a pair of high heel shoes, her dancing form framed by massive video screens that depicted Betty Grable days and classic Horror film nights. During her singing of “She Bop,” perhaps most appropriately, she shucked off her oversized top hat and her shoes and performed the balance of the set in bare feet, alternating between song and stand-up shtick, including a joke of sorts about a Nashville hotel that merged Dolly Parton with the Dalai Lama. She also name-checked Captain Lou Albano.
Memorable songs performed: The set began a bit rough – including one off-key tune which was halted and re-started for which a missing stage prop was blamed - but hit stride mid-way through the set and absolutely took off with the turbo-charged fury of “Money Changes Everything,” the joy-filled “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” – which also included pertinent social messages - a charming rendition of “Time After Time,” and an emotionally charged “Not My Father’s Son.” “True Colors,” Lauper’s beautifully haunting ode to humanity, provided the show-closer.
Throughout her set Lauper alternately whirled like a dervish, shared center stage with a dulcimer, and serenaded like a chanteuse. “Have a beautiful summer,” she told the crowd as she exited the stage. “Take care of each other and remember: diversity makes us stronger.” As one clearly moved row-mate inside the amphitheater expressed after Lauper’s finale: She really leaves it all up on that stage.
Rare, Vintage Fashion Photography Exhibit to Take Place at Brookside Museum
BALLSTON SPA - “After Hours,” an exhibit featuring the vintage photography of Bradford J. Smith, will be displayed Aug. 7-10 at the Brookside Museum.
Smith (1925–2016) was a photographer for over 75 years, during which he amassed a multitude of stunning photographs. A New York City fashion photographer during the 1940s and ‘50s by day, he shot nude portraits of aspiring actresses by night.
After Smith left his Madison Avenue studio, he returned to upstate New York and purchased a home in Ballston Spa, which today is the Saratoga County Historical Society’s Brookside Museum and fittingly, the site of the “After Hours” exhibit- where 50 of Bradford’s original vintage fashion and vintage nude prints will be on display and available for purchase, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the Saratoga County Historical Society.
Brenda Dentinger, Bradford’s daughter is carrying out her father’s dream to share his work with the world. “These are originals that Brad had safely hidden away for over 50 years. Most of these vintage prints have never been displayed and the fashion and nude work have never been shown together,” Dentinger said, in a statement. “My father loved to share his stories with people and I am delighted to honor his memory in this creative way.”
The exhibit is free and open to the public and will take place 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Aug. 7-9. The After Hours at Brookside Soiree will take place 7 p.m. Aug. 10 – during which Brookside will be transformed and attendees will have the chance to own a piece of the historic collection before it is auctioned in New York City in October.
After Hours at Brookside Soiree will feature a runway room with Bradford’s vintage fashion photography. Nude portraits will be discreetly displayed in a curtained-off area.
Tickets to the After Hours at Brookside Soiree are $50. VIP tickets are $150 and offer entry into the Soiree, the opportunity for pre-sale purchase of prints and a copy of the newly published companion After Hours book. Reservations may be made at AfterHoursVintage.com.
24/7 Cardiac Care: Saratoga Hospital Now Offers Emergency Cardiac Intervention
SARATOGA SPRINGS – Because minutes matter, an important service recently instituted at Saratoga Hospital that offers emergency cardiac interventions for heart attack patients has potentially life-saving ramifications.
“Saratoga Hospital is now at the tip of the spear of a public health effort to bring the most effective treatment ever invented to the world’s deadliest disease,” explained Dr. Patrick McNulty, director of Interventional Cardiology at the hospital.
The minimally invasive, catheter-based procedures is available 24-hours-a-day, seven days a week. What that means is patients requiring treatment for heart conditions won’t lose precious time being transported beyond Saratoga County.
“The best chance of survival is getting the blocked artery open as quickly as possible, so it’s a matter of how many minutes you have,” McNulty said. “The faster you can get to a hospital that has this effective treatment and get it done, the better chance you’re going to have of surviving - and surviving in a way that gives you a better quality of life that allows you to be functional.
“When I was starting my training, patients with heart attacks were admitted to the hospital just like people with pneumonia or broken legs,” said McNulty, who has conducted 30 years of cardiology training. “They’d be in the hospital 10 days or so, their heart would undergo enormous amounts of damage and they would have all sorts of complications. Most of the training in being a cardiologist back then was a matter of training to treat all of the electrical and mechanical complications after people had big heart attacks. This was 20 years after we landed on the moon, so this was not the dark ages - but still the treatment of heart attacks was pretty primitive.”
Clinical research trials were conducted during the 1990s and it was determined the fix involved getting people with heart attacks caused by blocked arteries into an operating room and conducting a minimum evasive operation to open the blocked artery with a balloon. Moving forward, the research indicated patients would be best served having an emergency operation. The issue then became how to make that procedure more readily available to people having heart attacks.
“It requires sophisticated technicians and physicians and nurses working as a team in a complicated medical facility at a large hospital,” McNulty said.
A little over a decade ago, when Angelo Calbone became Saratoga Hospital president and CEO, he says the question was: How do we move Saratoga Hospital into a position of what the community needs? “The vision of Saratoga Hospital for many years was as the hospital for Saratoga Springs. We wanted our scope and vision to be much bigger than that. We thought it was part of our responsibility as the only hospital in the county.”
A lot can change in a decade. Technological advances, such as robotic surgery, were brought in. Emergency rooms and the Intensive Care Unit were expanded and improved. Older operating rooms were replaced with new ones, built to accommodate members of the staff, surgeons, robots, and supplies required in present-day procedures. The hospital grew its regional footprint by adding off-site services in places like Wilton, Malta, Galway, Schuylerville, and others. It also developed a “medical group,” that incorporates professionals who had previously operated their practices independently.
“We have over 100 physicians now that work inside with us. We see them as our partner and they see us as their home organization,” Calbone said. “We had to get a little bigger and reach further out into the county. Ten-plus years ago, we said we’d like no one in the county to be further than 10 minutes from one of our services. By the time we’re done, over the next few years, we will fulfill that. We still have our eyes on two or three other places in the county where we can expand some programs and physician services.”
The hospital built upon its growing momentum and invested in a 50-50 joint venture with Albany Medical Center at Exit 12 in Malta, which Calbone said has been very successful and is a direct connection to being able to bring McNulty to the community and setting up its 24/7 emergency interventional cardiology service.
“Ten years ago, New York State did not have any hospitals offering coronary angioplasty for heart attacks except for hospitals that also did heart transplants and heart valve replacement surgery,” McNulty said. “Now, Saratoga Hospital offers a procedure so complicated and technically demanding that no hospital in the world offered it until 20 years ago, and only very large tertiary academic medical centers offered it 10 years ago.”
Hospital facilities were renovated and the Saratoga staff trained in March in preparation of the service. Since that time, the hospital has served 20 patients.
“Those 20 cases were 100 percent successful,” McNulty said. “The mean time it’s taken to get people in here, assemble the team, stabilize the patient, get them to the operating room and fix the artery in the last four months is 59.6 minutes, (less than the) 90 minutes that the government says you should be aiming for. And so now, after a year or two of preparing and four months of early experience, in the way that it provides this one critical service Saratoga Hospital is hitting the same type of quality benchmarks as some of the largest and most sophisticated hospitals in the country.”
Caffe Lena: Still Bringing Good Things to the World
This is an article from our publication: Simply Saratoga, out now! Or view it online!
You hear them advancing with trepidation, an apprehensive echo of footsteps atop the sturdy new staircase, creeping around the corner and anxiously peeking inside. Can the beloved space that has stood for more than a half-century ever
be the same?
“They’re wondering if it’s still going to have the right vibe,” explains Sarah Craig, who has witnessed the scenario over the past several months many times. “Finally, they do this big ‘Wow! It’s a more beautiful version of what it always was,’ says Caffè Lena’s executive director. “And it’s very gratifying to hear people have that reaction.”
Following a six-month renovation, the legendary café which first opened in 1960 and has played host to some of the folk music world’s biggest names, re-opened with a new look, and sound. Cameras were installed capable of producing hi-definition music videos, and a new digital soundboard punches up state-of-the-art tones. The listening room capacity has been expanded from 85 seats to 110, and the backstage dressing rooms are fitted with a shower - much to the delight of traveling musicians.
Many traces of the hallowed past have been preserved, or upgraded anew. The vintage wood entry doors have been relocated to the main room upstairs, where yesterday-meets-tomorrow in a frame of redbrick. Historic performance flyers were rescued and placed on display, and comfortable couches line the wall, providing a homey feel. Overall there is a funky gleam to the re-modeled space.
Craig remembers the January day in 1995 she first set foot in Lena Spencer’s hallowed café.
“It had this legendary reputation. It was famous and held in such incredible esteem, but when you walked in those front doors it seemed so…shabby,” she says. The bright lights grew dim, a pale-yellow hue clung to the walls and architectural signs of chipping and warpage were everywhere. When Spencer died in 1989, the cafe lost its guiding light. Craig came aboard and the café began to build anew. A nonprofit corporation was formed and purchased the building in 1998. In the new millennium, a $2 million capital campaign was launched.
“I’m here to nurture the café, to help it be what it wants to be in the world,” Craig says. “I’m excited at the possibilities of building community around music and launching new artists into the world.” One of those launch pads is the weekly Open Mic night, where anyone can come and perform, read, or share a story. It is a window into people’s lives, Craig says.
“You can be the most successful businessman in town and not the most talented guitar player, but you come down and do your thing at the Open Mic because it’s part of who you are, and you have the need to share it.”
“Some people who have played the Open Mic have gone on to some big things: Sawyer Fredericks, Hal Ketchum, G. Love,” says Joe Deuel, longtime photographer and soundman at the cafe. “It’s just endless how many great and notable shows were here. This place opened up a lot of the universe to me.”
Deuel first picked up a camera as a young boy and his image-capturing abilities have served the community well: his photos of Lena Spencer and Don McLean, Dave Van Ronk and Rick Danko preserve an important part of the music’s past.
The fifth-generation Saratogian first wandered into the café during his high school years in the early 1970s during a Utah Philipps performance. He returned a few years later to simply help out with picking up dishes, ended up “turning a few knobs” on the soundboard, and has been at the café ever since.
“Lena kind of stuck me on it and there was no getting out,” laughs Deuel, recalling with fondness Spencer’s days presiding over the room, chain-smoking Pall Mall’s, playing Scrabble and listening to music.
Despite the newness, the threads to the past are in plain sight. Some of the venue’s tables harken back to the venue’s origins – including most notably the “Dylan” table, where the then barely-in-his-twenties folk singer is famously pictured sitting with Spencer and Suze Rotolo during one of his visits in the early 1960s. The café has also adopted Al McKenney’s record collection. The beloved Saratoga figure often seen wearing his purple Caffè Lena T-shirt and red suspenders died in 2015 and left his collection - comprised of about 600 albums and 400 CD’s - to the café, where there are plans underway to launch a lunch-time music series during which people would bring their food and listen to the music McKenney left to be heard.
“There is so much need for optimism to be fostered in the world right now and I think there are a million ways we can serve the community,” Craig says. “I feel the music you hear at the café can trigger compassion and open-mindedness, set the stage for positive things to happen and provide the opportunity to bring good things to the world.”
Foreigner, Cheap Trick, Bonham at SPAC
SARATOGA SPRINGS - Does it feel like the first time, like the very first time?
Gorging on a setlist first unveiled between the years 1977 and 1984, Foreigner brought their 40th Anniversary Tour to the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Tuesday night, for better or worse sticking to a menu of hits that ruled the pre-Google airwaves.
But, does it feel like the very first time?
That all depends upon what you felt about it then. Foreigner has always been a polarizing band. Even at the time of their founding they represented a symbolic continuum of a middle-of-the-road arena rock that ruled the American mainstream. The first time I saw Foreigner was on a June day in 1978, opening for the Rolling Stones (who were awful that night) with 100,000 other people in a Philadelphia stadium undoubtedly constructed during the Fred Flinstone Era and subsequently condemned and mercifully demolished at some later date.
Cheap Trick, who also performed at SPAC Tuesday night, I first saw on a stage at The Palladium in New York City that same year, in support of The Cars. So, it is through this historic lens, perhaps, that gave the evening the feel of a high school reunion. This despite the comments of Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen, who introduced his band’s recreation of its debut album tune “He’s a Whore” this way: “Here’s a song from an album that came out before 90 percent of you were born.” Nice sentiment, but likely not accurate.
Adding a touch of surrealism to the back-in-the-day feel of the concert, Jason Bonham - son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham - opened the show with a nine-song set consisting entirely of Zeppelin tunes. Flanked by bass player Dorian Heartsong – draped in a Leo glyph T-shirt reminiscent of Mick Jagger’s “Gimme Shelter” days, and guitar player Tony Catania – bearing a New York City T-shirt similar to the one John Lennon wore for Bob Gruen’s iconic photograph, Bonham pounded his drum kit with a befitting sense of his dad’s original work while singer James Dylan delivered an uncanny spot-on recreation of Robert Plant’s vinyl vocalizations. Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience: the best Led Zeppelin cover band in the world.
Cheap Trick, which mostly remains intact member-wise (drummer Bun E. Carlos was replaced by Rick Nielsen's son Daxx in 2010) hit several high points during its 55-minute set. They performed crowd favorites “I Want You To Want Me,” “Dream Police,” and “Surrender” – to the band’s credit the only three songs repeated compared to its show at the venue last September – and a passionately haunting rendition of “Heaven Tonight.”
Singer Robin Zander, bearing a cop’s hat and a “Dream Police” stitched leatherette jacket played to the crowd and guitarist Rick Nielsen was his usual gregarious self, perpetually swapping six-string machines from among his armada of guitars, flipping guitar picks into the crowd, and during the lyric in “Surrender” when Zander sings “Got my KISS records out,” flinging (presumably a KISS) album jacket, ninja-like 15 rows deep, and inspiring a mad dash of concert goers scrambling for the souvenir.
The intermission change-over on stage was accompanied by the inescapable bleating of ‘80s tunes by the likes of Supertramp and Billy Joel, eventually leading to a tear-away curtain that unveiled the night’s headliners. Foreigner – led by sole remaining founding member Mick Jones - kicked off its set with “Double Vision” and “Head Games” and didn’t veer off course from the identical dozen-song hit parade they’ve been performing on this 40th anniversary tour. Juke box heroes? Or, cold as ice? That all depends upon how you felt about it that very first time.
City Immigration Issues: It's Complicated
Challenging. Extremely nuanced. And very, very complicated.
The city’s recently formed Human Rights Task Force hosted a Town Hall at Skidmore College on a stormy Monday evening regarding the impact of immigration in Saratoga Springs. The moderated panel discussion included regional business owners, an attorney specializing in immigration employment matters relating and local and state community leaders and representatives.
The prevailing sentiment of the informational meeting – which was attended by about 175 people and included an audience Q&A session – is that even as Saratoga Springs strives to be “a welcoming and all-inclusive community,” there are limits to what the city can do regarding immigrant workers – both documented and undocumented - given that federal laws supersede local ones.
“What we have done is everything we can do,” said city Mayor Joanne Yepsen. “This is a federal agency. This is The White House. And we don’t have legal grounds.”
Earlier this year, the mayor founded a city Human Rights Task Force – which focuses mostly on education, programming such as Monday’s event, and providing referrals to local agencies that can assist in immigration issues. In March, city Police Chief Greg Veitch said while the department will work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or I.C.E. if asked, local police will not detain anyone solely for a civil violation of federal immigration laws.
In June, federal agents conducted two separate operations in Saratoga Springs, arresting a total of 26 “unlawfully present foreign nationals,” according to the agency.
In recent months, two city based churches stepped forward with a sanctuary pledge for undocumented immigrants who are targets of deportation. I.C.E. typically operates under guidelines that recognize places like churches and schools as sensitive locations where agents would not normally carry out enforcement actions. However, there are no guarantees.
“Designating oneself as a ‘sanctuary’ doesn’t mean that people without immigration status are immune from federal law,” notes attorney Brendan Venter, an immigrant specialist with the Whiteman Osterman & Hanna firm in Albany.
More than 11 countries are represented on the backstretch said Task Force member Diane Barnes said Monday, adding that besides the racecourse, high-profile employers such as Skidmore College and Global Foundries also employ a good number of immigrants.
Panelist and local business owner Patrick Pipino spoke about the large immigrant work force in the food and restaurant business. “Good people. Hard working people. Why Saratoga? I think it’s easy to pick off people because we’re a high-profile community, and in my opinion there’s a new sheriff in town and he wants to show he’s tough on immigration.” Business owners are required to turn over employment records to federal authorities when asked and when they arrive with warrant in hand. Those detained are held locally in Albany for only a couple of days before being sent to federal detention in Buffalo, which makes timeliness of representation difficult where they can plead their case.
One resource available to anyone with immigration questions is at the New York State Office for New Americans, which is funded by Catholic Charities and offers resources in 200 different languages.
“First it will help refer you to an organization that will provide assistance on any immigrant-related questions. It’s all free and confidential,” New York Department of State’s Laura González-Murphy - who directs the New York State Office for New Americans - said Monday night. “We’re also going to be using that as a resource to connect with legal assistance, for an attorney.” The agency can be reached by phone at 1-800-566-7636. “People who know an immigrant can call, immigrants themselves can call. It’s for anyone who needs assistance,” she said.
“I think there is a humanitarian effort to this, because families are being broken apart in ways we haven’t seen before,” Yepsen said.
Lawsuit Filed Wednesday Challenges Siting of Code Blue Shelter
SARATOGA SPRINGS – A project to site a permanent homeless shelter on the city’s west side is being challenged by a group of nearly two dozen people who are taking legal action to halt its development.
Slated to be built on Walworth Street - adjacent to the current Shelters of Saratoga which owns the property, and funded by local business owner Ed Mitzen, and his wife Lisa - the two-story Code Blue structure to house about 50 beds has moved through the city’s Land Use boards and was anticipated to open Nov. 1, in advance of the winter season.
During the past few months, many who have spoken at public hearings in opposition to siting the shelter have delicately tiptoed through a not-in-my-backyard verbalization to urge that a shelter be built elsewhere. The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday against the city Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals, claims the project doesn’t fit into the neighborhood.
“The bottom line is it does not meet the definition of a neighborhood rooming house and it doesn’t meet the criteria for a special use permit – those are the two main claims,” said Glens Falls based attorney Claudia Braymer, who is representing those opposed to the chosen location chosen of the project.
“Obviously we want to help people who are homeless – most of my clients have expressed that to me - but it’s a matter of garnering good community support though, in finding the right location for it,” Braymer said.
Last month, city Republican mayoral candidate Mark Baker released a statement to say the shelter proposal “does not adequately respect our neighborhoods and current residents,” and suggested that a city shelter may bring more people in need from outside the community to Saratoga Springs.
Current Democrat City Mayor Joanne Yepsen, who in December 2013 helped spearhead the first temporary emergency shelter in the city, responded that Baker's accusation that the temporary shelter has contributed to the homeless problem was “misinformed, uncompassionate, and just plain mean spirited.”
Siting an emergency shelter at a permanent location has been a high priority following a series of temporary shelter venues that have been staged at St. Peter’s Parish Center, the Salvation Army building and the Soul Saving Station Church.
Officials at Shelters of Saratoga – who currently operate two other buildings on the Walworth Street property as well as a twice-a-week “drop-in” center – say having the Code Blue shelter in close proximity to the case-managed shelters maximizes the opportunity to provide a full continuum of services and more easily connect homeless individuals with the support services they need.
Between 2007 and 2015 homelessness in New York increased by 41 percent, according to the 2015 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Between 2014 and 2015 alone, New York State’s homeless population jumped by 7,660 - the largest increase in the nation for the one-year period.
The average number of overnight guests at the temporary Code Blue shelter this past winter season – 41 per night – was an all-time high. An executive order signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo directs emergency shelters to operate when temperatures drop below 32 degrees.
Neighbors: Snippets of Life From Your Community
Who: Chuck Vosganian, AKA “Rochmon.”
Where: Broadway.
Where are you from originally?
East Moriches, Long Island. I moved to the Saratoga area 30 years ago.
What’s changed in Saratoga since you’ve been here
A lot has changed in 30 years, but living right in town, being downtown, and being part of this community is really cool. My wife, Karen, teaches at Empire State College and when gets done at 5:30 we’ll take a half-hour, 45 minutes, and just walk around downtown. It’s just a vibrant downtown, there’s a lot to do.
What are you doing today?
Preparing for Rochmon Record Club, which takes place July 18 at Caffe Lena. What that is: one Tuesday a month we’ll get together and talk about a classic record. I do a breakdown about the history of the album, the history of the players, and I talk about the songs, play the songs, show pictures.
What are some of the records you’ve showcased?
David Bowie’s “Young Americans,” Creedence Clearwater’s “Cosmo’s Factory,” Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung,” Led Zeppelin “Houses of the Holy,” are some of them. In August, we’re going to do Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon,” and this month it’s Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours.” (Tuesday, July 18 at Caffe Lena). I’ve been doing music my whole life. My parents were musicians, I play drums, my son, Matteo, is in the band Wild Adriatic who are touring all over the place, and I’ve always been into the details. Doing this takes me right back to being a little kid sitting on the couch, in the sweet spot in the center the two speakers, holding the album cover and listening to the record.
CD, vinyl, tape - what’s your favorite format?
I love vinyl first. To my way of thinking there’s so much more information in there, you hear more things and it just sounds so much better.
Where did you get your nickname ?
It was a weird thing. Back when we got AOL Instant Messenger, my kids were all picking their aliases, and I picked Rochmon P. Nickname as an alias for myself. I don’t why I came up with it, but for some reason my kids held onto it and started calling me Rochmon.
What do you see in Saratoga’s future?
I would like Saratoga to continue to always be a good walking city. One of the things that makes it so much fun is walking down Broadway from one end of the street to the other. Parking is always going to be an issue; I’m not sure we can ever have enough parking, but just so it stays walking-friendly, so people can come and feel safe and see what there is to be seen. I love the diversity of the retailers on Broadway – I’d like to see a little bit more diversity there as well, but there’s a lot to do off Broadway as well, from Beekman Street all the way down to Congress Park.
Under Development
SARATOGA SPRINGS – The city landscape is poised to look a vastly difference place in the near future as a variety of high-profile development projects draw closer to construction approval.
A good number of the projects listed below are in the Land Use Board approval phase and slated to be heard by the city Planning Board this week. A list of upcoming meetings – and in some cases, meeting agenda items - hosted by the Planning Board, Design Review Commission, and Zoning Board of Appeals, as well as the City Council may be viewed at: http://www.saratoga-springs.org/.
West Avenue Mixed-Use Development
Ten new buildings, a five-story hotel, more than 400 residential units and nearly 30,000 square feet of retail space may soon rise from the rural landscape of the city’s west side, adjacent to the Saratoga Springs train station. A special use permit and a site plan review for the mixed-use development are being sought for the project. Two separate yet adjoining proposals have been submitted.
The Station Park project calls for two buildings to be dedicated as a mixed-use space with each building housing 36 residential units, and a total of 22,000 square feet of retail space. The 72 residential units would be for-sale condominiums. Additional development would include two buildings - each providing 57 units for senior housing and 33 units for senior assisted care, a 110-to-120 unit five-story hotel and spa, a pool and fitness center, and a free-standing building with an additional 6,200 square feet of retail space. Nearly 600 parking spaces would span across the location to cater to residents, retail workers and shoppers.
The second proposal, submitted by the Missouri-based Vecino Group seeks to develop one three-story building and three four-story buildings to stand just east of the Station Park proposal and near the Washington Street post office. The 160 apartment units contained within the proposal seem to fall in “workforce,” or “affordable” housing categories.
Code Blue Emergency Homeless Shelter
A proposed 6,400 square foot emergency homeless shelter is slated to be sited on Walworth Street, adjacent to the Shelters of Saratoga. Most recently, an appeal filed by nearly two dozen residents in opposition to the building of a permanent Code Blue emergency homeless shelter at that location was rejected in a 7-0 vote by the city ZBA. The project is seeking a special use permit for a neighborhood rooming house within the Urban Residential District.
South Broadway/ Saratoga Diner
The long-standing horse atop the Saratoga Diner on South Broadway has been removed for safekeeping and a proposal under consideration would see the demolition of the diner and the development on the three-acre parcel of 110 single and two-bedroom “affordable” apartment units, two floors of commercial space, and a new business incubator collaboratively partnered by Saratoga Economic Development Corporation and Saratoga CoWorks.
It is anticipated new construction will start next spring and the structure operational by the summer of 2019.
The project at the southern gateway to the city would include 46 one-bedroom units and 64 two-bedroom units, 7,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, 4,000 square feet of service establishment space and a 7,500 square-foot food beverage or brew pub, which will act as a visible anchor on South Broadway. Streetscape improvements will include street lamps, landscaping, and a total of 273 parking spaces for resident and commercial parking uses. The second floor will house 17,000 square feet of commercial space where two new tenants are expected to join SEDC’s 10,000 square foot “incubator,” a flexible co-working space to be inhabited by a rotating group of entrepreneurs and early-stage growth business teams.
Universal Preservation Hall Renovation
The historic building on Washington Street, constructed in 1871, is seeking a site plan approval. Plans call for UPH to close for renovations this fall and re-open one year later as an acoustically perfect theater-in-the-round showcase that will hold about 750 people.
Henry Street Condominiums
Preliminary plans call for the development of a five-story condominium building to house 30 units with 70 total bedrooms to be located at 120 Henry St., on subdivided land adjacent to the Four Seasons market.
Pink Palace Goes Condo
The Skidmore College dormitory commonly referred to as the “pink palace” has been demolished and the construction of The Residences on Union Avenue is in full swing. The five-building residential property with on-site parking will feature one, two and three-bedroom residences priced from $689,900 to $895,500 and are planned for occupancy by March 2018.
The Adelphi Hotel
“We aren’t just a hotel. We’re going for an upscale first-class hotel experience that currently doesn’t exist in Saratoga Springs,” Toby Mildé, president of Richbell Capital and RBC Construction said last November.
Richbell Capital purchased the building in 2012 for $4.5 million, and early renovations estimates ranged from $6 to $7 million. Five years later, that restoration cost is now about $30 million – offset by the use of state and federal rehabilitation credits. The date targeting the re-opening of the renovated 32-room luxury boutique hotel on Broadway has been delayed numerous times. The most recently scheduled opening was set for July 1, but this week laborers continued to work on the project.
Mildé could not be reached for comment. The July 10 issue of the Albany Business Review quoted Mildé as saying he anticipated opening the doors of the historic hotel during the second week of August.
