As part of the Keep Rockland Beautiful-sponsored Great American Cleanup 2013, we will meet for a few hours in the Village (Downtown and the Greenway) to do some spring cleaning. Bring plants to plant, gloves, and a trash picking attitude.
When? April 14, 2013 at 10:00AM | Where? The Four-faced Clock @ New Main Street & Maple Avenue
Check out the pics from 2012 and 2013 below (thanks to Alex Guarino and Tom McGuire for taking them – that’s why they’re not in the pictures!):
Jakriborg, Sweden, a medieval village of 500 families and a major tourism destination can fit within a relatively small area in the Village of Haverstraw. Such an exercise in scale really shows how zoning can have such a major impact on the built environment and the economy. How many Jakriborgs can your town fit? Better yet, how many Jakriborgs can a nearby Walmart parking lot fit? Now, think about the economic consequences of this. . . My inspiration for this graphic came from an article posted here at the Small Streets Blog. http://blog.smallstreets.org/post/18496915718/turn-this-parking-lot-into-a-village
In Cleveland, local residents installed bike lanes and street furniture along a particularly desolate street in order to enliven their city with a more pedestrian friendly atmosphere. In the past I’ve written about pop-up urbanism as a way to create sense of place in a downtown area and spark a new interest among residents in using the street as a place to meet, exercise, relax, and be human. Tactical urbanism is a new phase of downtown citizen activism, where residents take matters into their own hands and reclaim the streets for people. Would something similar work along Main, New Main, or Broadway in downtown Haverstraw? See the short film below to catch my drift:
Do Cars Belong Downtown? Haverstraw in 1940.
Jane Jacobs was one of the first writers to document the effects of cars on urban fabric. By “urban,” I mean “old-fashioned” or traditional towns and downtowns. Densely populated cities and villages throughout the United States were beginning to take steps to incorporate automobiles into the built environment. Planners and politicians began to see parking garages, wider streets, more lanes, and asphalt parking lots as essential infrastructure in all places. The more successful and desirable a city or village was, the more parking was required. Ultimately, though, this mindset led to the demolition of millions of acres of the nations’ most precious neighborhoods. Really? Yes, “cars erode cities” and our desire to be in downtowns. (more…)
Wouldn’t it be great if a resident or a visitor to the Village of Haverstraw could walk, jog or bike to and from the artsy Garnerville Arts & Industrial Center, also known as GAGA? There exists a major opportunity to directly link Downtown Haverstraw with GAGA along the Minisceongo Creek. Currently, the Millenium natural gas pipeline runs in an open right of way adjacent to the Creek from GAGA’s “Creekside” sculpture park to the long-ignored sculpture park in front of the old ‘Hornick’ factory at the junction of Broadway and Samsondale Avenue in the Village. Let’s call the path “Downtown2GAGA.” The following image is a “walking shed” study of the proposed pedestrian path:
Downtown2GAGA
Also, visit this google map, so that you can explore the proposed path route: http://g.co/maps/zvaus
Oil Depletion & Production Decline
More and more analysts are blaming financial market turmoil, real estate market stagnation and decline, and high rates of unemployment on expensive and volatile prices for oil. Since oil and other sources of energy are embedded in every aspect of our economy, this claim has a lot of teeth. In your opinion, how might the growing price of oil affect the Village of Haverstraw? Might we see an influx of new residents as suburb dwellers seek ways to avoid driving expensive cars? Might a rebirth in local manufacturing and commercial river traffic emerge? Perhaps the future of the Village will look much like its past?
Filmed and edited by Catherine LoBuono of Sojourner Productions, Inc. Catherine is a resident of the Village of Haverstraw and a proud supporter of Haverstraw’s Harvest Farmers Market.
http://sojournerproductions.com/
Haverstraw, N.Y. Built on Brick. It’s time to show your pride for the Village with an authentic, Printed in Rockland T-shirt. I also have canvas tote bags with the same logo printed on them available. T-shirts are $15 and tote bags are $5. Please, feel free to comment below or email me with your name, address, phone, and size request. I will email you back with payment information. Spread the word too! This is a great way to represent and market Haverstraw to those who are currently unaware of how amazing the Village is and how great it will be in the future. Contact me at jared.t.rodriguez@gmail.com or on my cell at (845) 548-5524.
The New York Times has released a fairly interesting article on the revival of cottage industry, which has begun to meld with the world of high-fashion and high-design. Rural Craft is the new “it” for urban dwellers these days. . . and chic is more and more looking like it’s beyond passe. But in all seriousness (let’s talk English here), cottage industry and rural craft seems to be a real opportunity for the Village of Haverstraw and the rest of the Hudson Valley. Might I remind you, our banks are lined with clay!
LONDON — Seeing villagers digging up clay and turning it into pots in Peru persuaded the Dutch designers Nadine Sterk and Lonny van Ryswyck to do the same in Europe. They planned to collect clay from several countries to show how it changes from place to place, but once they started digging in the Dutch countryside, they were astonished by what they found. (more…)
