Grab Your Wedding Dress and Dance!

Haverstraw’s throwing a wedding celebration to accompany its International Food Walk! The event is called ‘My Big Fat Haverstraw Wedding’ and will feature a few prominent Haverstraw fellows strutting their stuff in the latest fashion wedding gowns! This is a fun rendition of the popular Dancing Under the Stars series that has been held in front of Village Hall several times over the past couple years. It’s bound to be a fun evening!

What: International Food Walk
When: 4 to 9:30 p.m. Friday
Where: participating downtown Haverstraw restaurants

What: Dancing Under the Stars
When: 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Friday
Where: in front of Haverstraw Village Hall at 40 New Main St.

Village Rowing

Ana’s Botellas: Paint the Town

Floriana, or Ana Peguero has started a most interesting craft based on her heritage infused with environmental conservation. Ana paints reclaimed glass bottles for all kinds for different uses; this is more accurately called “upcycling” by the young greensters of today. Most of Ana’s work is inspired by patterns she remembers from her childhood and younger life in a central Dominican Republic village. Ana came to Haverstraw nearly one decade ago. Today, she resides in New City. Read her account below for some background on her life and her craft:

Rowing Club “Learn-to-Row” Day is a Hit!

The “Learn-to-Row” Day held by the North Rockland Rowing Club, sponsored by U.S. Rowing, was held down at the Haverstraw Ferry Landing on Saturday, June 6th. At least 40 new rowers were able to try the rowing machines and go out on the water in the crew shells. It was a great day of learning and exposure to the sport.

There has been great interest in the sport and the Rowing Club from many Haverstraw residents and other Rockland County natives. Feel free to contact the Rowing Club at (845) 942-1030, and ask for Susan or Jerry. Also, visit the website at www.northrocklandrowingclub.org ! It’s VERY fun and rowing exercises the entire body!

A Big Red Tomato Grows in Haverstraw

A Big Red Tomato has sprouted in Haverstraw Village. Reyes “Ray” Dominguez, a long-time Haverstraw resident, has created his most recent venture, The Big Red Tomato at 9 Main Street, right across from Lucas Candies. The new bar and grill boasts a tasty fusion of Latin, American, and international flavors. Ray has come a long way since his immigration from Mexico years ago. His story is an inspiration for us all, and the true entrepreneurial spirit of the Big Red Tomato is bright.

Union Restaurant Thrives

The Union Restaurant is thriving amidst the worst economic fallout since 1939. Paulo Feteira, the maitre d’hotel, and David Martinez, head chef of Union, have combined their talents to bring about this blast of Euro-Latin fusion cuisine. Paulo and David are together twenty-year veterans of Peter X. Kelly’s Xaviar’s Restaurant and Freelance Cafe of Piermont. The two men’s resumes have ushered up valuable and overwhelming name recognition for Union Restaurant and have poised the Village of Haverstraw to become a regional restaurant destination; evidence of this exists every Friday night when New Jersey license plates line Main Street and Westchesterians are commonplace. The Union is THE anchor restaurant of Main Street.

Village Poll #1: Haverstraw’s Future

There are a lot of optimists and skeptics in the region, all debating whether Haverstraw will complete it’s ‘renaissance’ in a timely fashion. I thought it would be interesting to see how the people actually feel. We can only hope that the Village will change for the better. I would say that I’m an optimist – so I already voted. Please, leave your vote here and check back to see what the overall sentiment regarding Haverstraw’s future actually is.

Please, try not to vote more than once. If you feel that strongly about this poll, get your friends to vote! I’d like the sentiment represented in this poll to be as accurate as possible. Thank you!

Bring Trolleys to Haverstraw

I wrote this Opinion Article for the Journal News in 2005. I made some changes to keep the content up-to-date. I hope you enjoy my optimism!

Trolley Car in Downtown

The Haverstraw Revitalization is on its way and the vision for this project is vast. Proposals include an aerial gondola, Haverstraw Bay Performing Arts Center, restaurants, a 20-foot wide/2-mile long waterfront promenade, 850-units of luxury housing, an expanded community center and village pool, tree-lined streets, outdoor dining, artist lofts, bed and breakfasts, novelty shops, a new hotel and spa, outdoor amphitheatre, an incredible fishing and ferry pier and increased ferry access to Westchester, Yonkers, Manhattan and beyond. Haverstraw is finally reclaiming is long lost fame. Just recently, in the Journal, residents at a village meeting about the Revitalization raised questions about parking and traffic flow.

Haverstraw Hosts the Creative Class

Urban Hipsters or the Creative Class? The Hudson Valley is seeing a boom in urban pioneers moving from New York City and into upstate downtowns that offer a diverse, “edgy,” and vibrant atmosphere set amidst Victorian homes, brick, and awe-inspiring River panoramas. The “creative class,” or young, late twenties and thirty-somethings that are serious about starting families are migrating to places like Haverstraw, Peekskill, and Beacon. The creatives are also mainly employed in their own businesses, mostly in the entertainment or arts fields. The Hudson River villages are boasting major savings in housing costs, and access to nature and urban downtowns. On the other hand, the urban hipsters that are so famously “plaguing” – if you can call it that – Brooklyn, Jersey City, and parts of Harlem, are a younger band of wanderers that are beginning to frequent the Hudson River Villages as well. I would say that hipsters normally come before the creative class, which then creates a setting that might draw more conservative/safety-seeker residents that might be found, say, in places like Nyack and riverfront communities in lower Westchester.

Main Street Ferry Terminal Designs Take Form

McLaren Engineering Group of West Nyack has been working diligently on the design of the Ferry Terminal, retail spaces, and parking garage that is to be situated at the foot of Main Street in the Village. The massive project will allow for the New York Waterway Ferry and New York Water Taxi service to move from the current ferry landing to the foot of Main Street and at Emeline Park for broader access by Village and regional residents. The project is viewed as a long-awaited catalyst to return the Village downtown to its former splendor. Many residents and commuters are excited for the new ferry facility and pier. Officials believe that project will be operational within the next three years. Here are notable renderings from the project:

Waterfront Plan Haverstraw

The Foot of Main Street

www.mgmclaren.com

A Tribute to Our People

As we ring in 2009, let’s celebrate Haverstraw’s diversity and its people. The following clip offers documentary photography generated from students ages 5-20 from Ken Karlewicz’s After School Photography Program in the Village of Haverstraw. The photo journalist project offers a unique glimpse into daily life in the Village.

The View is Clear on Broadway!

Finally, we have seen progress on Broadway with the demolition of the former automotive shop on the corner of Jefferson Street and Broadway and the vacant cinder block structure to the north of the Lady Warren Hose Company firehouse. The demolition of those structures has opened up a view to Bowline Pond. The structures were not historically significant and were mostly likely built after the 1970s. The site will eventually become a ceremonial entrance to the Haverstraw Village Greenway, which is to extend from Bowline Pond to Emeline Park and then to the southern end of the Harbors at Haverstraw.

The Village recently won a $1 Million grant from the State of New York’s Environmental Protection Fund to continue work on the greenway at Emeline Park, to connect that section of the path to the existing promenade at the Harbors at Haverstraw. When completed before the end of 2009, the promenade and surrounding park will become known as the Henry Hudson Quadricentennial Park in honor of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery of the river that bears his name.

Farewell to Bricktown Brewery

I am sad to report that the Bricktown Brewery at 4 Main Street shuttered its doors in the shadows of the worsening local and national economy. The restaurant had a good 5-year run in the Village, attracting new faces to the downtown that had yet to experience Haverstraw. Haverstraw eateries and stores have been hard-pressed in recent years to attract enough patrons to make their businesses viable. The Iron Horse antiques store was the last business to shut its doors on Main Street, following Chadia’s Home Furnishings. The Riverstone Antiques Center at the Stone Building aside the Village Hall has also closed shop, citing difficult economic times.

Haverstraw needs to attract new patrons that are willing to return with more business. Many patrons of Bricktown Brewery cite crime as the major deterrent. Patrons feel uncomfortable knowing that drug and crime problems plague the downtown. I recently have had conversations with many Haverstraw downtown patrons, trying to find the key to a lasting downtown revitalization. How did Nyack work? How has Greenwich Village, Brooklyn, and even Asbury Park turned into havens of artists, intellectuals, and young families? Haverstraw is missing that key. We must ban together to find the key to a vibrant, lasting downtown Haverstraw.

High Spirits at Bricktown Gospel

Bricktown Gospel Congregation

In the heart of downtown Haverstraw, Pastor Tim Tyree has been delivering sermons for the Bricktown Gospel congregation geared toward revitalizing the spirit of the Village. The Pastor believes that not only must the Village’s infrastructure be revitalized and rebuilt to its formal splendor, but the Village’s soul and its people need uplifting as well. Gleaming facades, clean sidewalks, and glowing storefronts are decidedly dull if these aspects of a revitalized city are not enjoyed by the people. Pastor Tim has put together a more full description of the Church, which works heavily to draw inspiration from the Village’s extraordinarily rich history:

Calendar Note: Hudson Ferry-Go-Round 9/14/08

Keep in mind that the 2008 Annual Hudson Ferry-Go-Round and Haverstraw International Street Fair are set to commence on Sunday, September 14th. Ferries run all day from 11AM to 6PM between Peekskill, Haverstraw, Ossining, and Sleepy Hollow. All-day ferry passes are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors, and FREE for kids aged 17 and under. The Haverstraw International Street Fair includes hundreds of local and regional vendors lining Main Street, Broadway, and the New York Waterway and NY Water Taxi ferry landing. Local stores will be open all day and will most likely host special events and hold limited sales. The street fair and ferry-go-round has been growing larger every year, with more than 15,000 patrons visiting last year. Events at other ferry landings include: “Ossining Treasures: an Arts Festival,” “A Taste of Peekskill,” the Sleep Hollow Street Fair. The public can board the ferries at designated ferry docks on a first-come, first-serve basis every 40 to 60 minutes. For more information, please visit:www.eventsonhudson.org