Last year, several dozen David Cassidy fans – some of whom embarked on their journey from a few thousand miles away – descended on the Spa City last year to celebrate the life of David Cassidy. The popular singer died in November 2017 at the age of 67.

The inaugural event, billed as “A Celebration of David Cassidy’s Life,” was initiated by Cassidy fan Samantha Cox, from her home in Indiana. “I chose Saratoga because he was into horse racing and he mentioned it as his favorite place in the world,”said Cox, adding that she took on as her New Year’s Resolution a mission to do something to honor Cassidy’s life.

Cassidy appeared on The Partridge Family TV series, which aired on ABC from 1970 to 1974, and subsequently launched a solo music career. He charted more than one dozen Top 100 hits in the early 1970s, both as a solo artist and in his role as a member of the Partridge Family.  Cassidy’s passion for equines frequently brought him to Saratoga, where he bought his first yearling and where in 2001 he purchased a home.

This year, a gathering to honor Cassidy will be held May 19-20.  

Sunday May 19

10 a.m. - Re-dedication of the David Cassidy Benches at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Union Avenue, Saratoga Springs.   

6 p.m. to midnight - Author Johnny Ray Miller will sign copies of his book “When We're Singin',” and will be joined by Michael V. Pomarico – the multi-daytime Emmy Award winner who for over 27 years directed the soap opera “All My Children.” Live music will be performed by 45rpm and the event will include a silent auction. Up for auction: a boat once owned by David Cassidy, donated by his friends Dr. Jerry Bilinski and his wife, Darlene. Horse trainer Gary Contessa is also scheduled to perform on stage for a couple of numbers.  Location: King Neptune's Pub, 1 Kurosaka Lane, Lake George. Tickets: $35.   

Monday May 20

Noon to 4 p.m. at King Neptune's Pub - Johnny Ray Miller and Michael V. Pomarico will return for a brunch catered by King Neptune's Pub.  The celebration of David Cassidy's life will take place with people giving testimonials of how much David meant to them, live and on video. The silent auctions will also continue. Tickets: $50. Proceeds will go to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, Columbia Greene Humane Society, Adirondack Save A Stray.

For more information on all events and to purchase tickets, go to:  www.kingneptunespub.com.

GREENFIELD – They’re always on call, never get paid, and immediately respond to crisis in the community.

Gordon McGrath, Robert Roxbury, and Jackie Atwell have each served as volunteer firefighters for more than a half-century. On Saturday, May 11, alongside young firefighters Jerrid Marshall, and Matthew Petkus, the three men will be recognized by the town of Greenfield for voluntarily serving their community for 50 years. 

Gordon "Mickey" McGrath joined the Middle Grove Fire Company when he was 18, following in the footsteps of his grandfather – an original member of the company. To date, McGrath estimates he has answered more than 4,000 calls.

Robert “Bob” Roxbury this year celebrates 51 years as an active firefighter, the past 20 in the role of fire police, where he currently serves as District Captain. Aligned with the Porter Corners Fire Co., Roxbury joined the company as his wife was in the Auxiliary and because, he says: "it's important to support your community.”

Jackie Atwell joined the Greenfield Fire Co., at the age of 21. Atwell’s father was his biggest influence in becoming a firefighter, letting Jackie – since the age of 8- hang out with him at the firehouse.   This year he marks his 51st year with the company.

The town of Greenfield is located approximately five miles north of Saratoga Springs and has a population of approximately 7,400 residents. Geographically, it is the largest town in Saratoga County, covering more than 41,000 acres.

It was a fire in 1946 which proved as main catalyst for the establishment of the Greenfield Fire District.  When a blaze destroyed a home on Maple Avenue - just outside the Saratoga Springs Fire Department district – it was left unattended because the city’s department was prohibited from responding to the fire due to insurance reasons. The towns of Greenfield and Wilton were at the time dependent on “bucket brigades” to battle fires. The Greenfield Fire District was subsequentially formed in 1947 and counts four fire companies:  Greenfield Center, Porter Corners, Middle Grove, and Maple Avenue.  

All three men continue to be active in the department, answering the emergency calls for fires, car accidents, medical events and search and rescue missions on both water and land.

A community recognition dinner honoring Atwell, McGrath and Roxbury, as well as volunteer firefighters Jerrid Marshall (7 years of service) and Matthew Petkus (6 years of service) will take place Saturday, May 11 at Brookhaven Golf Course, 333 Alpine Meadows Road, in Porter Corners. Appetizers at 6 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m. and recognition at 8. Tickets are $30 adults, $18 children 5 to 11 years of age; under 5 are free. For more information, contact Diane Czechowicz at 518 587-2410.  The event being staged in memory of local man Don Young.                   

SARATOGA SPRINGS — A new five-story building targeting a prominent Broadway location signifies the most current new mixed-use development anticipated to be built in the city. The .73-acre site on the west side of Broadway is bordered by The Stadium Café to the north and Druthers to the south. 

The multi-story building at 385 Broadway will feature approximately 10,000 square feet of retail/commercial space on the first floor, and 69 multi-family residential units on the upper levels. The proposed project moved through the city’s Land Use Boards in late 2018. 

Demolition of the existing 22,000-square-foot building is expected to begin in the next few weeks, with construction slated to begin as soon as demolition is completed, according to the Albany Business Review. The project is being developed under the name Broadway 385 LLC, a partnership that includes Tom Newkirk, owner of Saratoga National Golf Club, and Peter Rosecrans Jr. of Burns Management. Rosecrans did not return a phone message seeking comment for this article. 

An earlier proposal presented to the city in July 2018 called for 72 apartments - 27 of which were designated as “micro apartments. Revised plans depict an overall decrease of the number of residential units to 69 - with micro-units measuring 500 to 650 square feet. The proposal also notes the providing of 49 parking spaces.

Two of the building’s current tenants – National, and Frivolous are expected to take up residence on the ground floor of the new building, which will have the potential to add a third tenant. 

The building at 385 Broadway was sold at a bank foreclosure auction to Newkirk for $2 million, according to a Daily Gazette article in December 2011. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Richard Lofstad figures this summer will mark his 10th year, give or take, as a vendor of seafood at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market, which celebrates its official season opening on Saturday at High Rock Park.

Lofstad, who grew up in a Hampton Bays, Long Island commercial fishing family, makes frequent trips between Long Island and Saratoga Springs – the latter being home to his two youngest children – 6-year-old daughter Joy and 4-year-old son Stian – and his Moby Rick's Seafood establishment on Lake Avenue. 

“My main source of income is catching fish,” explains Lofstad, whose family produced about 6-1/2 million pounds per year of seafood during the 1980s and ‘90s. In March, he narrowly avoided physical tragedy, but sustained a blow to his business when the veteran captain saw his 55-foot boat seriously damaged during a storm off the coast of Montauk. 

“I got the boat almost three years ago when I was up in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. I bought it from the owner and put in all-new everything: new engine, new generator, electronics, hydraulics,” he says. At the suggestion of his then 3-year-old daughter, Lofstad painted the boat pink and purple and named her All For Joy. Overall, he figures he spent about $350,000 getting the vessel up to speed. Annual insurance on the boat would have set him back another $18,000 annually. Given the amount of funds dedicated to making the boat operational, the insurance would have to wait. 

Two months ago, he was navigating All For Joy through a storm off the coast of Long Island. “It was the first Sunday of March. The boat was floating for 2-1/2 hours and we were steaming at five miles an hour, keeping up. One compartment was flooded, but the rest was fine,” he recalls. 

“The boat was just so heavy and low because of the water and the fish holds that I couldn’t get away from the waves that were piling on deck. The winds got stronger and stronger. They started blowing about 35. The waves were like 10 feet sticking up and just pouring on deck,” Lofstad says. “She just couldn’t right herself. I got off and then – boom – she rolled, literally flipped over, 10 seconds after I got off it.” 

The U.S. Coast Guard command center issued an urgent marine information broadcast and launched a Coast Guard Station Montauk and Station New London rescue boat crew following a radio call from the vessel. Lofstad was picked up by the rescue crew. 

The boat was well-built, he explains, flipped over, but never sank. She drifted 20 miles to the west on the incoming waves and then drifted back east and ran aground, upside down, at Fishers Island on the eastern end of Long Island Sound. 

“(The Coast Guard) flipped it over, resurrected it and handed it back to me and now the boat’s in Greenpoint, NY,” Loftsad says. The cost for repair is prohibitive. “It’ll cost like $200,000 and I don’t know if it’s worth it to fix it. I don’t have the money and the problem is nobody’s lending money for a fishing boat, so, I’ll have to figure something out.” 

This year’s weekly Saturday market will feature over 65 vendors selling fresh produce, flowers, prepared foods, and more. At Wednesday’s market, weekly from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., nearly 30 vendors will be providing the same range of items. Beginning in 1978 with a handful of vendors in a parking lot, the market has grown to be one of the largest in the area. For more information, go to: www.saratogafarmersmarket.org. 

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Fred Astaire trips the light fantastic with Ginger Rogers on a dayglo brilliance that emanates across the frame. A pensive Snow White, encircled by a half-dozen dwarfs, hovers atop a Russian banner as the Evil Queen ominously glares from the shadows. Here is Lucille Ball exuding a technicolor presence in announcing MGM’s Ziegfield Follies in 1945. There, is “The Sound of Music” from Germany, “Dirty Dancing” from Poland, and Clark Gable in “Dancing Lady,” a promotion that comes from Belgium.

“I’ve always been fascinated by posters from this period,” says Mike Kaplan, who has collected vintage movie posters for several decades.    

“The key to collecting the vintage ones began in the late ‘70s when I went to a store called Chic-A-Boom, a memorabilia shop on Melrose,” Kaplan recalls. “There was a stack of movie posters against the wall. The first one was “Irish Eyes Are Smiling," a musical from the ‘40s and it had a full-length still photography image of June Haver, who I had a crush on as a teenager. So, I bought that one and in a way that began the second phase of the collection.”

Kaplan estimates he has 3,000 to 4,000 posters in his collection. More than 100 will be displayed in Saratoga at The National Museum of Dance at the exhibition “Art of the Dance: Posters from Hollywood’s Golden Age from The Mike Kaplan Collection.”  The exhibit will open May 10, a date that also marks what would have been Fred Astaire's 120th birthday.

“The great thing about the posters is people will be exposed to artwork from so many different countries interpreting American movies in different ways - so you get completely different interpretations of a movie from France or Italy, Germany or Japan,” says Kaplan, who grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. “There is also the size of the posters. They vary from country-to-country. People walk in and for the most part their jaws drop seeing the imagery, the size and the amount of care that went into the artwork.”   

More than 100 dance movie posters will be mounted in three of the Museum's galleries. The posters range in date from 1918 to the 1980s with the majority representing the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. 

Kaplan was 9 or 10 years old when his family vacationed in the Saratoga region. Today, he makes his home in Idaho. He has penned a pair of books -– “Gotta Dance,” and “Gotta Dance Too!” -  depicting the posters and their history. During the 1960s, he worked as marketing strategist on two iconic Stanley Kubrick films.

“With 2001 (A Space Odyssey), I was working at MGM as a publicist. I don’t think people remember this, but the film was not well-received initially. It wasn’t positioned properly. People were expecting some kind of traditional science fiction movie; instead it was this contemplative, metaphysical journey into time. The audience and the critics weren’t prepared for it. It threw people, but I just loved the movie. I thought it was one of the best films ever made and I still feel that way,” Kaplan says.

“With ‘Clockwork Orange,’ I wanted everything to be perfect so there wasn’t any misinterpretation of the movie and having everything choreographed out to the nth degree – which Stanley appreciated and loved doing because he was such a perfectionist. So, we got on very well. Kubrick was just a great artist and whatever he touched was of importance. There was just a phenomenal response to it,” Kaplan said.  

Selections of the posters have been on view in major venues such as Lincoln Center and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Art of the Dance at the National Museum of Dance will be the largest and longest installation of this collection to date, on view until spring 2020.

In addition to Astaire, several major dance and musical stars from the 20th century are highlighted such as Gene Kelly, Ginger Rogers, Shirley Temple, and The Nicholas Brothers. 

 The opening reception for Art of the Dance: Posters from Hollywood’s Golden Age will take place on Friday, May 10 at 7:00 pm. The cost is $10 per person and free for members. The National Museum of Dance is located at 99 South Broadway. For more information, 518-584-2225, or go to:  www.dancemuseum.org.

SARATOGA SPRINGS – Touching upon themes of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, her love of dogs, her disdain for pop culture and a human planetary existence altered in dramatic ways due to a changing climate, artist/composer/musician and film director addressed a large crowd gathered inside the Tang Museum’s Payne Room where she told them, apocalyptic visions aside, her focus is: How Best To Tell The Story.

“The world is made of stories. Our own stories. Other people’s stories, (so) how do you tell a story like that, where, you know, this is going end?” Anderson said. “We’re the first people in the history of the human race who can see our own extinction coming. The first ones. Stories are things that are told to others but in this case, this is a story that’s told to no one. The first story that is:  Told. To. No one.”

Anderson’s appearance April 17 was the night two feature of the Tang Museum’s three-day Bardo Now series. George Saunders, author of the 2017 novel “Lincoln in the Bardo,” appeared via video chat on night one, in conversation with Donald S. Lopez, Jr., professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan and author of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead: A Biography.”

The series’ closing night featured a concert by guitarist Tashi Dorji and percussionist Susie Ibarra, performing an experimental duet conceived for the event as a musical bardo exploration.

The 90-minute presentation showcasing Anderson, a practicing Buddhist, was staged as an “in conversation” event with Benjamin Bogin, the director of the Asian Studies Program at Skidmore College.

“It’s the living bardo that’s thrilling to me,” said Anderson, when asked to connect Tibetan Buddhist themes with her creativity. “As a musician, I think the way I can most experience what you would call a bardo is in just this moment - because you don’t know what you’re going to play next,” said Anderson, noting that she doesn’t subscribe to the standard narrative form of beginning, middle and end. “That seems artificial to me. The fractured story is what I do. I respond to work where we don’t really quite know what we’re doing and what will happen next. That’s also why I’m also drawn to virtual reality. You’re making it up as you go along.

“When I first began to (improvise), I felt this incredible sense of freedom in not knowing what was going to come next, in responding to another person in a way that was absolutely in that moment - not in some other moment that you thought might be interesting - but right now. That was a big, big thrill to me as a musician.”  

Anderson screened an 11-minute segment from “Heart of a Dog,” her 2015 documentary which centers on Anderson's remembrances of her late beloved dog Lolabelle, and concludes with an image of husband Lou Reed, who died in 2013.  

“It was a film where my dog died – that was the core of it – but it was really dedicated to my teacher, Mingyur Rinpoche. One of the things I treasure about his teachings is his clarity, things like: it’s really important to practice how to feel sad, without being sad - and that distinction is a very important one because there are many, many sad things in the world and if you try to push them away, or pretend they’re not there, you’re an idiot! They will find you and they will get you,” she explained. “So, (Rinpoche’s) idea is: do not become that yourself.”   

Professor Bogin said he was struck by the film’s exploration “visually, sonically and poetically,” of bardo ideas, as Anderson narrated a series of paintings used in the film depicting Lolabelle’s journey through the 49 days of the bardo, “how memory starts flooding through the mind and you’re suddenly every single being that you’ve ever been in your life; the many beings that you are, simultaneously. 

“I think for most people who experience death, what an incredible privilege it is that that door opens…you get this chance to really look at it and feel it,” Anderson said. “I think sometimes experiencing time and death and love is sometimes easier when you look at what happens with animals and what the effects have on those creatures. You get that in a more immediate way.”

Anderson became a reluctant musical hit-maker in the early 1980s when her song “O Superman” climbed to no. 2 in the UK Pop charts alongside the likes of Rod Stewart, Elvis Costello, and The Police. It was a record she made on a $500 NEA grant in 1980.

“Anytime somebody said, ‘I want a copy of your record,’ I would walk it over to the post office. One day someone called, they spoke with a British accent, and they said: we need some copies of your record. I said, ‘OK, how many?’ They said: 40,000. by Monday.  And another 40,000 by Wednesday. I’ll. Get. Right. Back to you,” Anderson recalled. 

“So, I called up Warner Bros. Records – they’d been coming to my shows and saying: don’t you want to make a record?  I said, no, not really. But, I called them up and said: you know that record you wanted?  Can you make a bunch of them really soon? And they said: well, that’s not the way we do things at Warner Bros Records and Tapes. We’ll sign an eight-record deal. What?

“I got a lot of criticism from artists, for ‘selling out.’ A couple of months later, it was called ‘Crossing Over.’ And everyone wanted to do it.”

The song, based on a prayer by French composer Jules Massenet is about the power of technology, and of loss, Anderson said. “Technology doesn’t save you. If you think technology is going to solve your problems, you don’t understand technology - and you don’t understand your problems,” she said.

“It was really about the moment when we were going to go in and rescue the hostages. And America was going to go in and pull them out and American technology was going to shine. Then the helicopters crashed and burned in the desert,” she said, regarding the ill-fated military rescue attempt in April, 1980.

While that international success of the record made it easier for Anderson to create other things, she warns there is also a danger

“Pop Culture,” she says with disdain. “What happened? Corporate America has entered culture. It’s disturbing to me, because it’s Culture Light. It’s America’s Got Talent culture. Nothing wrong with that except when they come into your neighborhood and go: we love the community you built and now we’re going to buy it, we’re going to brand it, and sell it back to you. And we’re going to curate it while we’re at it and say what’s important and what is not.

 “We have to think about what we’re making. Now, often you see it’s just about the box office -how many people get through the doors – and it doesn’t really matter what the experience is. I do think that there’s art for everybody – but it’s a tricky thing, to make sure that it’s not just so watered down that it’s just feel-good stuff.” 

The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery is located on the campus of Skidmore College On exhibit through May 19: The Second Buddha: Master of Time presents the story of the legendary Indian Buddhist master Padmasambhava - widely credited with bringing Buddhism to the Tibetan lands. The exhibit features Tibetan scroll paintings (thangkas), textiles, and manuscripts from the 13th through 19th centuries.

SARATOGA SPRINGS – The North Broadway building that has served as a Masonic Lodge for the past 65 years is being placed up for sale.  

Rising Sun Lodge No. 103 was founded in 1809 and first held meetings at Reynolds Corners, located about four miles north of Gansevoort. The lodge moved to Wilton a decade later and in the 1820s relocated to Saratoga Springs, long before Saratoga Springs became a city. Several different venues  in and around Saratoga Springs were used for more than a century that followed, before eventually purchasing the building at 687 North Broadway in the early 1950s, where the Rising Sun lodge has been located ever since. 

“Past Masters” of the local organization have included prominent 19th century Saratogians Reuben Hyde Walworth, Carey B. Moon - of the invention of the potato chip fame , and Edgar Truman Brackett, among others.    

The lodge sits on just under one-half acre of land on a corner lot, features two floors, an attic, an unfinished basement and is listed at $1.3 million.

“It’s 8,000 square feet with an unfinished floor in the attic that could be amazing. We believe whoever buys this is going to finish that third floor,” said Joann Potrzuski Cassidy, licensed associate real estate broker at Julie & Co. Realty.

The main floor features 10-1/2-foot-tall ceilings in a Lady's Sitting Room, and a butler's pantry. There are a quartet of fireplaces throughout – although some work will be required to get them re-functioning. Its potential future uses are seemingly endless: from a single-family home with nanny quarters or a neighborhood bed-and-breakfast, to an organization’s use as a private school, religious institution, or senior housing facility. A unique split staircase to the second floor lends itself to potential as a condominium project – although that would require Special Use variance from the city’s Land Use Boards.

The single staircase splits on the first landing and leads into two, opposite direction leading staircases, each feeding into a different and separate wing upstairs. One leads to a big, unfinished attic that boasts arched windows; the other to a massive meeting room where members meet and sites an altar in the center of the room, seating for the Worshipful Master against the east wall, the Senior Warden against the west wall and symmetrical rows along the north and south areas where members are seated. The Masons use ritual in their meetings and a Volume of the Sacred Law – usually the Bible, King James translation sits atop the center-room altar, but Masonry is not a religion. 

The home was built in about 1904 for Harry S. Ludlow, of Troy, and designed by architect R. Newton Brezee – designer of dozens of Saratoga Springs buildings, including many residences still standing along Union Avenue and North Broadway.

The Masons, or Freemasons, call themselves members of the largest and oldest fraternity in the world. Specific details regarding the group’s origins are murky, although it is believed likely to have come from the guilds of the stonemasons in the Middle Ages, and possibly influenced by the Knights of Templar – described by the Masonic Information Center in Maryland as Christian warrior monks formed in 1118 to help protect pilgrims making trips to the Holy Land.  A formal organization was initiated in England in 1717 and spread to the colonies within a few short years.

Masonry has a reputation of being “secretive” – there are grips and passwords that Masons share with one another – but Amy Lynch, president of the Masonic Hall Association of Saratoga Springs, says the biggest secret is the good work they do, particularly in the medical field.

“We’re the best-kept secret and we do a lot of good in the community,” Lynch said.

Under the banner of the Masonic Family, the Rising Sun Lodge is involved with the Masonic Medical Research Laboratory in Utica; the Washington Commandry is part of the Knights Templar – whose  philanthropic projects involves the Knights Templar Eye Foundation; the Cryptic council works with Parkinson’s disease research, and the Royal Arch Masons are also part of a medical research program.

Of the women’s groups – the Order of the Eastern Star – whose members include women and men, has had a regional chapter for the past 122 years and maintains a campus in Oriskany that houses a day care facility for children and independent living accommodations. The Order of the Amaranth focuses its philanthropic energies on diabetes research.

Perhaps best know are Shriners International – the fraternity based on Masonic principles and support of Shriners Hospitals for Children, at 22 locations throughout North America.

Masonic Hall Association Board Member Harold Goodsell says Rising Sun Lodge No. 103 – which is not a tax-exempt organization - is looking to relocate close to but not in the city of Saratoga Springs, to a smaller building that would be more accommodating to members and may actually construct an entirely new building to suit its purposes. 

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