When Morrison died, I was only sixteen. That seemed epic and tragic in 1971, and as such, corrupted my otherwise positive outlook at that age, when everything was on the upgrade in my life, and I felt I had the world by the tail. I had not seen The Doors in concert and felt crushed that now I never would. For years afterward I would listen to their music in a trance state, and I have to tell you, it meant more to me, and seemed to have more depth, than anything I'd ever heard from The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, or whomever else being touted as being the best of rock music.
Today I know there was a sloppy aspect to Morrison's performances and behavior and I do not idolize the man as I did as a teenager,.. but Manzarek always commanded my respect in being the thinker, the musical intellectual, and the primary arranger of the group. White Krieger's guitar was a stinging, lusty swagger that spoke like a blues siren, and John Densmore's drums seemed the crispest and slickest of all rock stickmen.
But in later years, Krieger became spacey as a hippie spoof and Densmore was bitter about the the crashing aftermath, and never forgave Morrison for his early demise. Only the keyboard guy-- Ray Manzarek-- evolved into a transcendent state.
In 1968, when "Light My Fire" hit the nation's airwaves, it seemed to be everywhere, Even though most of us had tinny transistor radios in our bedrooms, not exactly Bose speakers, you could tell that the roller-coaster jabbing of the organ was unlike any other rock group of the day, with the possible exception of Deep Purple. Jim Morrison's seductive baritone stole the show, of course, but Manzarek led the ride like a ringmaster.
Someday soon, maybe I'll take an hour on WEXT's "My Exit" and dredge up some of the longer, more obscure Doors songs that stuck with me long after the group's dissolution,
Over 40 years later, L.A. WOMAN, their last album recorded together, live in the studio, supposedly with no overdubs, remains on my Top 10 list of all time, despite falling well down the list on my favorite radio station's Top 500 Countdown recently. I'd like to express to the listeners and those at the station themselves why the staying power of The Doors is so potent and prevalent even now...
It's late on the east coast, Ray, and I feel your spirit here in the moonlight of mid-late May. Sorry to see you go, man, and sorry we never met. But there are keyboard hooks you injected into my soul long ago that will not be unfastened in my lifetime, and I thank you for those. Peace and safe travels beyond. Wayne
Saratoga's delayed Spring season...finally underway
Anyone born to the Northeast, or any long-term resident, has come to know that upstate NY can be cruel in fooling you this time of year. I got use to saying that there were normally "7 False Springs" in this area, before the season had truly changed. Transitional season means that there can be thunderstorms with 70 degree temps that bring frogs and toads on the roads and the sound of peepers from the swamps for the first time one day (like, say, April 16th) , and the next you have 20 degree wind-chills and hail squalls, and feel sorry for those amphibianss who popped out of the mud a bit too soon.
There are days when we all say, It's here, It's here! And we run up to it like Charlie Brown about to kick the football Lucy is holding, only to get it yanked away. That is what most of April was like. But now, in the first week of May, 2013, though it was snowing in Colorado yesterday, we are in the middle of a balmy 70 degree stretch in upstate NY. Still, we may get fooled again but I believe the delay is over, and the "false springs" are behind us.
I rejoiced internally last Saturday, in between appointment rounds, when I saw almost every long-dormant outdoor playground filled with activity. I saw girls playing soccer and softball, Little Leaguers eagerly practicing, lacrosse racquets in action, joggers jogging, and elders swinging tennis racquets. Geyser Road complex, Gavin Park in Wilton, Eastside Rec playgrounds, Skidmore's campus perimeter, Daniels Road soccer complex, Westside Rec, even southside fields adjacent to Saratoga's Racino I'd not seen used before, were at full capacity on my journeys that day. Even though my kids are older now and not engaged in such outdoor fests on a glorious spring Saturday, I felt vicarious delight that parents and kids had returned to light-hearted games, as an antidote to the horrific happenings in Boston, mid-April.
I keep having flashbacks, however, to
an indoor sport played this time of year--AAU Basketball--which had dominated
almost a decade of our lives from 2000-2009, when Miles was competing
year-round, at gyms all over the area, and on weekends up-and-down the east
coast at non-stop Tournaments. Those
days are gone for us, and we feel both nostalgia and relief that it is over
with! So much more time on our hands, less
constant travel, fewer fastfood stops and hotels-on-the-road, less expense, and
more time to work!! I don't know how we
did it, because when he was at his most serious, it was an 11-month-a-year
program.
I know there are a lot of parents of athletes out there who commit just as strongly to their kid's passion for what seems like a long parade of practices and contests... whether rowing, baseball, softball, running, football, hoop, golf, swimming or gymnastics... whatever it is, I know it becomes an addiction to the parents--to revel in watching your child PERFORM--that is tough to leave behind once they go off to college, or the service, or the workworld. But that is where my wife and I are now--and we wonder how we had time for "real life" or even a full workweek--when we were in the full throes of that fanatic fandom.
My daughter and my second son, however, are glad that those days are over, and we can now cater to them in different ways. Life with multiple children is a balancing act at any given moment, and I feel true compassion for anyone with more than 3 to schedule for, and chauffeur.
***
Perennial Dilemma of Spring: Yellow Flags, versus Dandelions...
The excellent weather that has finally arrived brings both good and bad. Whereas last year we were mowing the lawns in late March, it seemed, but it is May now and we are just beginning to worry about it. But I am kicking myself for not preparing for this moment a couple of months ago, when I should have written and emailed a letter to the members of our HOA, pleading the case for ORGANIC methods of fertilizing and pest control for our median and common areas, as well as on their own lawns. I cringe and grit my teeth when I see the "Little Yellow Flags" sprout up, in our neighborhood and others, as it means the chemical taint of PESTICIDES has returned for another round. I got out of my car, 9 miles west of Saratoga, way out in the countryside, and I could distinctly smell the contamination of commercial poisons, which had just been sprayed or spread that day. Anyone who tells me this kind of thing is safe has got to be oblivious. I find that the same people who will solicit fundraising for research for cures to common diseases are often the same ones who are treating their lawns with suspected carcinogens, and not seeing any contradiction in that. Personally--I don't want to focus on finding a CURE for cancer, for my own life and my family, I want to PREVENT it. And I don't mean to be callous about this--no one contracts those epidemic illnesses voluntarily--but I believe there is no mistaking a connection between a petro-chemically-saturated environment and the toxic buildups in our bodies that lead to dis-ease.
I am especially concerned about the
people who treat their lawns to make them greener and more homogenous--more suburban,
in other words--and then let their kids or grandkids or pets romp around on the
grass soon afterwards, because the company that performed the treatment told
them--"it only lasts 24 hours or so." O really?
Whether bare-skinned feet or shoe-bottoms or paws, there has GOT to be some trace amounts brought
back into their homes and insidiously absorbed into their bodies--but the
population continues to do what TV commercials are brainwashing them to
do-- FEED YOUR LAWN, LADDIE, FEED
IT! Or in the case of the Ortho commericials, shows a man squirting specific poisons at dandelions like they were guerrila insurgents. As with aboriginal cultures, wild flowers and perennials were here first.
My lawn, and that of my two nearest
neighbors, thankfully, is sprouting dandelions this time of year, which my wife
hates but I take pride in. I am a
contrarian, a naturalist, and co-existing with dandelions (referred to as "weeds" by the
advertising world) is acceptable to me-- the least of my worries, in fact. I can walk on my lawn barefoot and not come
away with anything other than grass-stains and organic dirt. That will be the extent of my environmental
sermon for now, except to add that the personal inconvenience of smelling the pesticides and bemoaning their yellow-flagged presence in my neighborhood pales next to my fears of what the chemical treatments are doing to the clear-running tributaries and streams in our immediate vicinity-- notably the sacred KAYDEROSSERAS Creek, upon which the mills of Middle Grove and other nearby towns were founded. When we first moved out here, the trout could be heard and seen jumping out of the water on a regular basis; now there are no minnows or fish of any sort visible, and a former Grade A Trout Stream now seems devoid of life. Coincidence?
As with the honey bees' colony collapse disorder, I have no doubt in my mind or my gut that pesticides and toxic chemical ubiquity are responsible, and I will try to convince as many people as possible in my lifetime to understand the connection between an organic lifestyle, and trying to improve an already-contaminated world that we are leaving our children. Peace to all who read this, and aside from my tirade on pesticides, I wish you all a joyous and healthy spring season.
With every stroke of the snow shovel, I was heaving heavy hunks of winter away-- not just the frosty layered corn snow, but also scraping up the ice chunks underneath, adhered to the concrete surfaces in its freeze-thaw cycle. If you had a good sturdy metal shovel you could get beneath that stuff and leverage it upwards in large wedges, and it was quite satisfying to pry it up and toss it off to the side. But it took some effort, and a bit of aggression. My mental state, however, required such exertion-- I had just broken up with my long-term girlfriend (almost 5 years together) and was inwardly freaking out about it (her idea, not mine). To keep my composure and feel I was doing something positive to get over and past the emotional upheaval and rejection, the physical ordeal was just what I needed at the time.
During the exertion, that phrase kept running maniacally through my brain-- "I'm helping Spring arrive; I'm helping Spring arrive..." as if Spring needed my help.
I had wrongly thought that I was going to marry that particular girl some day, and thought I loved her-- we had been through a lot together. But I wasn't saving any money and she was, and she was ready for a change, thinking things had gotten predictable and stale. So in my shell-shocked, humbled mind, I reverted to primal, Druid mode and started thinking of Spring as the point that would change everything, and renew my spirit.
That's what my not-so-great-nor-memorable poem was about....albeit was written in February of that year, roughly a month before Spring was actually due on the calendar. The catharsis of shoveling, and/or the poem I wrote to process it, seemed to help almost immediately. Within a week of that episode I had met another girl who became a great, enticing flame and a revelation in a lot of ways, and I would not have met her had I not been a free man again at that point. So certainly I knew that something cool could come from that symbolic sense of renewal...
So I thought of that period again, 30 full years ago, the day I began this episode of my blog-- Sunday the 24 of March-- by which time, in 2013, we are well past the Vernal Equinox already. Last Tuesday was, most likely, the final major snowfall of the season, when about 10+ inches of heavy, wet snow came down over the course of almost a full day, like we were in a perpetual snow-globe, or a scene from the Austrian Alps. It had turned cold after that so the quick thaw you usually get up here this time of year did not occur, and consequently the snow-pack, at least up in the elevated hills where I live, remained in place till now. Compressed and slightly softening with the sun's warmth today, the L-shaped part of our driveway still harbored a half-foot of white stuff. This is where I spent part of the afternoon, hacking and smoothly attacking the slow-blizzard's remnants, even though I knew it would melt on its own in a week even if I just left it alone.
So I began my mantra again, "Helping Spring Arrive..." This time I was NOT going through a romantic break-up, although a day before I hadn't been so sure. My wife and I were in our 25th year together, and it would be ten times as devastating now to have to start all over, compared to back in 1983. I had just said to an unmarried guy in my office the other day how proud I was to have persevered in a long-term marriage in an era when, as he put it, " like 70% isn't it?" of those who get wed end up splitting from each other. As the Dead said: ""Cuz When... Life looks like Easy Street...there is Danger at your door."
In this past Sunday's case, then, I decided I was not looking for romantic rejuvenation, unless it was with the woman who had accompanied me, with little complaint, through a quarter century so far. It was a different kind of springtime renewal I needed and craved... a surge and continuation of positive synchronous energy that allows one to not just accomplish more, earn more, & contribute more to the economy...but to help and serve more people than just oneself. To be centered in the proverbial flow we hear so much about but maybe rarely FEEL. To aspire to be a conduit for good, and problem solving; not mucking up situations but clearing them up. To believe the world was still a vital, exciting, and improving place, not doomed nor declining but bright enough for the coming generations to thrive in for years to come. New children, new families, more and more people who are spiritually attuned, and looking for the sustainable good life. This is my hope for 2013, in an era when a lot of people are expecting the worst and hoarding ammunition and thinking of drawing a line in the sand around themselves and their own family, instead of drawing together into a larger community. It's still touch-and-go I suppose as to the fate of the world, but if all politics (and economy) is local, the recovery is starting to do just fine around here. Check my real estate site for more on that, if you like.
********
On a side note, an increase in business demands due to this putative recovery has made me think hard about how much time I can devote to this blog. I am coming up on my one-year renewal for this site, and have to decide whether to continue or not. Some months there has been great readership, other times not so much. I have gotten a grand total of 7 comments for 34 pieces I've written here. Much as I love this site overall, the Blogs are a very small fraction of it, and I may seek out a more visible venue. If you like what I've posted here in the past year, let me know and that may help me decide. Thanks for reading, if you've gotten this far!
Take care and be well,
Wayne, for www.saratoga.com/WaynesWord2
Copyright 2013 Wayne Perras
Like most of the audience (I'm guessing), I knew them only from one song played prominently on WEXT, which is a haunting, jangly harmonic song called "1957"-- and that title is still a mystery to me. They were described as a "Folk-Pop" aggregation from LA, which is and was a gross understatement, but then attempts to categorize music are always a bit hazy. Local writer Brian McElhiney also helped pique our interest with a Thursday preview my wife picked up on in The Daily Gazette (a fine Schenectady newspaper, for those of you outside our immediate area), so thanks to him as well.
After a great and enthusiastically received warm-up set by solo artist (for this show at least) MaryLeigh Roohan, the headliners came out and launched into a torrent of intertwining guitars, rhythm, and drum-thunder which bore no resemblance to the adjective "folk". The closest "folk-pop" reference I could come up with days later was maybe The Byrds, circa 1966, but then then David Crosby, Chris Hilllman, Roger McGuinn, Gene Clarke and the rest did not have a female singer like Marlana Sheetz to balance their male rock energy either.
The group was touted as being thoroughly democratic-- no leader, or four leaders, depending on how you looked at it-- and everyone but the drummer (the excellent Curtis Marrero) took a turn at the front-and-center mike, and they interchanged instruments on a regular basis to prove their versatility, and create a variety of sound tapestries.
Robbie Arnett was seemingly the spaciest rocker of the bunch to start with as he strummed an acoustic with ferocity and roamed the stage, wearing mismatched print shirt and slacks that looked like rummage sale pickups. I would've thought he was the northern Cali guy of the bunch at first, but no, he was the L.A. representative. To his left on the stage was superb guitarist Andrew Heringer, with a close-cropped reddish-brown beard and hair, a neater look than the dark-haired leftover-hippie style that Arnett wore so well. The tallest member with long black bangs swept to one side was Graham Fink, who started out on bass and later played guitar quite emphatically as well, and seemed like the anchor of the group, while the lovely blonde Ms. Sheetz started out somewhat in the background on keyboards, picked up a guitar now and then along with percussive devices, and slowly moved more into focus after the boys got their rock groove going on the long instrumental opener. From the barrage of sound which with they began, I would've called the music "Psychedelic Funk" more than any form of folk, which was too tame a phrase for the power they exhibited right off the bat.
The song titles were not really announced as they started out, and only later, after acquiring the vinyl debut album did I put together what some of them were, but it didn't matter much while we listened; it was an enchanting sequence. On the second song Graham Fink caught my attention with an Edge-y guitar (like U-2-ish, I mean) and I never did figure out what that tune was. The third selection featured wicked harmonies as they sang a line "Maybe when we're older/ Can I still come over??" and that turned out to be entitled "Silent Way." Marlana stepped forward to sing lead at the start of a great tune called "What's The Matter?" which repeated that questioning line and then the lyrics:
"All your love is never good enough/ All your love is lost on me..." which caught my ear, and as it accelerated with intense, twining guitars into a frenzy at the end I recall Graham
Fink really taking over the vocal lead with full-throttle, reaming the chorus-- "WHATZ THE MATTER!! WHATZ THE MATTER!!", and inspiring a rousing reaction at the climax.
I might have the order wrong here but my scribbled notes-in-the-dark indicate a phrase with the words "olive branch" in the next song, with the chorus line: "I will never run, I will never run you away" and the liner notes tell me that was called "Son My Son", for whatever that's worth. My wife and I had been talking earlier in the day about where the peace-making significance of "olive branches" had originated, so I thought that was a sweet detail of synchronicity.
The following tune was another harmonic beauty, more of a ballad, called "Don't You Give Up on Me"-- which on the album features the female voice but in concert was a group vocal that gave us chills-- a song about hanging together in a relationship through thick and thin, apparently: "I'll dig our own little hole/ and put the walls around us/ and call it our home/ 'cause you're all I got/ and time won't stop." Nice.
Then they took a breath and performed a cover by a guy I didn't know named Sufjan Stevens, called "Chicago." Again, great guitars, and something I have to hear again on YouTube if I can, as apparently it's a common thread in their performances.
Another piece that started out ballad-like and evolved into what I likened to a Band-of-Horses vibe was noted as the last tune on their album-- "Autumn Tree." I was really starting to love Andrew Heringer's guitar work and high-quality vocals by this time-- if there was a star of the group it was him, for me, but there was no ego involved on his part at all-- they truly seemed a democratic bunch.
One of the supreme moments was the last tune they played before the encore-- a rousing vocal and instrumental extravaganza that I noted seemed to start with an electronic clave kind of sound as Marlana chanted something to the effect of: "As Years Go By..." which is from the tune called "Perfectly Aligned" on the CD and album, which then, if I'm not too confused, segued into a longer jam which then later featured all the singers aligning to wail:
"And even if your heart stops/ I'll be there to hold you up,/Even as the world turns/ I'll be there to watch the fire burn/ I slipped softly through/ All I've waited for my dear is you..." It was amazing, an uplifting ending, and I discovered later the last tune was called "Cutty Love." The lyrics from the album notes end like this, a cryptic Valentine's Day poem if there was one:
"All your doubts will fade away/Questions bred by years at bay/ I can be an answer to it all"
But what I remember was all four of them up front singing, led by Fink, who looked large enough to do so, on top of the thundering cascade, repeating over and over again:
"EVEN IF YOUR HEART STOPS, I'LL BE THERE TO HOLD YOU UP!" and I could not think of a more soul-rending testimonial to rock'n'roll love than that.
We all took some deep breaths and I looked around at the clapping, cheering crowd at that point-- noting that it was one of the most well-balanced in terms of age that I'd ever seen, other than at a Dave Matthews' concert at SPAC. There were many bearded and grey audience members, as old or older than me, and also college kids, 20 and 30-somethings, couples and groups of young fans, everything in between, and an even mix of males and females. Somehow, that was gratifying to me, as a testimonial to the egalitarian reach of WEXT, who had had Laura from the "Hello, Pretty City" show introduce MaryLeigh Roohan, and Chris Wienk-- one of the founding masterminds of Exit977.org -- introduce Milo Greene themselves.
When the band exited to the rear out a door that led to the parking lot, I recall thinking-- geezus, they're from California, they're going to freeze out there, and fortunately, they hustled back inside and played two or three more songs. The first was a Wilco tune about late-night drinking and subsequent hangovers, I believe, and had a real country feel. There may have been one other in between, but by then everyone was hanging on for the big closer, the most familiar tune they had save for last: and when they finally broke into the gorgeous opening stanza of "1957" :
"Your house that sits behind me/ is covered in... ivy green.../ the windows that we watch from/ are old and chipping at the beam..." it seemed everyone in the crowd wanted to harmonize with the enchanting chorus: "TAKES ME AWAY...TAKES ME AWAY...TAKES ME AWAY..."
and when the simple songlines continue-- (with Marlana and Robbie so earnest in mutual alignment, Andrew and Graham behind...) "the scent you wear moves in lines from/your apartment in-to mine.../ You act like you don't know me/ My God you tempt my anxious mind..." and then the series of ascending ahhh/ ahhh/ ahh/ ahs-- it became almost rapturous.
The "Takes-Me-Away" chorus returns again, till they sing a line we have all felt about SOMEBODY we were dangerously in love with in our youth-- "Would it be much better/ if I knew/ NOTHING about you??" a few times through, the tension mounts, and they take it out with a group harmonic chant: "I'LL GO I'LL GO I'LL GO I... I'LL GO I'LL GO I'LL GO I...I"LL GO I'LL GO I'LL GO I!" and then it abruptly stops, and they put down their instruments, and you know it is over, there is no more, and yet you want to hear it again. That is what good tunes are made of. Whew.
***
In listening to the vinyl version of their self-titled debut album which came out in 2012, I realize that the folk-pop (or cinematic-pop, as they prefer to call it) label is actually appropriate for the recording, although the concert was really pure rock. The vocals of Ms. Marlana are featured on the album more than they were in concert, and frankly she was subdued that evening compared to the more dynamic alpha males, but that was fine. The tunes are short and to the point on the vinyl, and they improvised upon and extended them out nicely with some jams. The short instrumental tunes on the recording, which are just interludes, really, like "Orpheus", "Wooden Antlers" and "Moddison"-- which was the name of their short film-- are vehicles for stretching out live as well. While the album has been stuck on my turntable for a week afterwards, it does not capture how good the concert was, just hints at it. I would see this group again in a heartbeat, and for $15. per ticket it was one of the best bargains of the year.
I spent some time on their website and was shocked how little they promote themselves individually-- no pictures with names, no brief bios, no traces of who wrote which tune or who is featured on any of them-- it is all a collective, inter-mixed with no pretentiousness or ego whatsoever. Even on the liner notes, all tunes are written by Milo Greene, their fictitious group moniker. I commend them on that, and how well they make it work.
Knowing their talent level, I guess I wasn't surprised to see that they had already been featured on The David Letterman Show (t.v. debut last July), The Tonight Show with Leno, and Conan O'Brien's Show, though I will forgive them for the latter, since I can't stand him. If it weren't for YouTube I wouldn't know any of that as I just don't stay up and watch late night TV.
My wife told their equipment manager, whom I had freed from the back of their traveling van--as we walked out to the frigid parking lot and heard him yelling inside!-- that we thought we'd be seeing them on Saturday Night Live someday soon-- and he is the one who gifted us the copy of the vinyl. Thanks to that dude, too. The only problem with vinyl is that you can't listen to it in the car on the way home, so I'll be looking for that CD soon. Check out this band if you haven't already. A couple hundred people in the packed Theater that night know what I'm talking about, right?
Thanks again to Chris Wienk and the WEXT staff, and the great hosts at The Linda, a dynamite place to see music, for introducing us to this band. Even though I'm writing this for a website promoting Saratoga Springs, NY-- keep in mind that we are all part of the Capital District in upstate NY, and Albany's music scene is well-worth a 30-40 minute ride on certain specific occasions!
PS-- For those of you reading this in the first week it is posted, WEXT will be featuring an interview with the bandmembers of Milo Greene, and presumably a few live studio songs, on Friday, Feb. 22nd, 2013, at NOON, during the beginning of Chris Wienk's time slot--check it out!
Copyright Wayne Perras 2013
YIPPIE!! I felt the primordial elation of an 8 year old, free to play for a winter day. But instead of putting on my snowsuit and galoshes as in days of yore, my mind started flooding with all the ideas of how I might spend the day...
Here was my partial list of Things To Do on a Snowday:
1) NOTHING! (This was my first choice, but the least likely...still, a tempting thought)
2) READ! (I had another William Kennedy book at hand, also "Cloud Atlas," or Thoreau's Walden to re-consider...or if I went the self-improvement route-- Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements," or Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" were beckoning to me for review. I also
had a pile of magazines to choose from-- two recent issues of Rolling Stone, a year's worth of REALTOR Magazine, and some beguiling OUTSIDE adventure mags I hadn't even opened up yet. There was also a new METROLAND, and the Cambridge, NY-based Hill Country Observer I'd picked up fresh at Spring Street Market the day before. Too many choices, still not enough time...)
3) BLOG! (My own writing output had been nil for a while, so why not catch up? I had a long unfinished piece on WEXT's Top 977 rock songs I wanted to wrap up and publish, but it was turning into more of a manifesto than a blog... and I had started another piece called, tentatively, "The Million Reasons Why I Can't Finish My Novel..." but I kept getting interrupted, which was exactly the point! Then I thought about writing my SnowDay List...this!--and yet still did not get to it till the next day, which shows how I procrastinate!)
4) RESEARCH! (I still had real estate chores I could tackle, as there are always new searches to be run for this client or that, to stay on top of what's out there, or comps to be studied for the presentation of the next offer I have to present...)
5) EMAIL! (Likewise, always a good indoor task which can be accomplished in any weather, wherever one is...as long as RoadRunner of the 4G network don't go down...but you know what? I do email religiously every day, so who not take one day off?)
6) HANDWRITTEN LETTERS! (I had a list of former clients and casual friends and unresolved would-be leads I could take the time to appeal to in an old-fashioned manner...how many Realtors still do this?? It would give me practice at writing cursive, which I hear is becoming a lost art among our youth...)
7) WORKOUT! (The weights in the basement, the bench, the kettleballs, were all awaiting me on a day like this...why not break a sweat?!)
8) CALL SOME PEOPLE! (Come to think of it, I still had some work calls to return, or appointments to set, or listings to arrange...aw man, I guess it can't really be a COMPLETE day off after all...)
9) UPGRADE MY SKILLS! (If I am going to thrive as a Realtor I know there are some technical tutorials I could be watching and studying today... DocuSign, Paragon's intimate secrets of the MLS, Internet Tracking mechanisms, etc etc etc... a perfect day to do it? Naw... not right now...)
10) GIVE MYSELF REIKI, and SEND SOME... (It would be a great time, I decided, to recharge my own Reiki battery, and to silently offer some healing energy to those who I know need it... a noble and worthy use of some rare quiet time...)
11) MAKE BREAKFAST! (Which is one of my favorite things, actually-- my current specialty being a slow-carb version: mushroom/yellow pepper/spinach/red onion and asiago omelette, with a side of natural chicken sausage and black beans simmered with
red pepper flakes...no bread, no pancakes or waffles like in the past... I feel energized yet not bloated...)
12) SHOVEL SOME SNOW! (Yes, I still perform the manual method, which would later augment my basement workout nicely, with some fresh air ingested at the same time, to balance my work at the desk...)
13) FEED THE BIRDS! (This would have to come first, as the snow coming down would obliterate whatever seed was still left on the feeders and the ground, and I had to offer more...)
14) TAKE A HIKE OUT BACK! (Pencil this is for later in the day, to go down and see how the Kaydeross Creek looks in the snowfall...)
15) TAKE A NAP! (I'd save this for later afternoon, after the workout, the shovelling, the hike, and hopefully a bunch of other stuff on the list... aren't snowday naps the best??!)
Well, truth be told, just making the list took me a while, and to some extent helped me prioritize, but also let me realize how busy a day off could be. So after I woke Bella to tell her to go back to sleep, and discussed with my wife whether we should worry about letting Daryn go up to SUNY/ACC up in Queensbury or not (we didn't), I began to accomplish some things on my list. I began with #13, the birdseed need, commenced to my own breakfast, #11, and then attended to an hour's worth of #8-- setting appointments for the days after the snowstorm.
Then I worked in a bit of #1 on the list-- NOTHING!-- simply listening to Dave Michael's chosen music on WEXT while watching the birds out back appreciate my scattered birdseed feast for them. That was pleasant, for a while, but then my anxious mind kept coming up with more urgent things to add onto the list--
#16 ORGANIZE TAX INFORMATION, (for my meeting with Tom Kubiak in two weeks, a great chore to perform when no other pressing matters were at hand);
#17 RUN INTO TOWN ONCE MORE FOR CERTAIN SUPPLIES, as we were low on the good Columbian coffee we love so much, candles and "D" batteries and all that "camping-out stuff" you need if you don't have a whole-house generator yet, like us...
#18 MEDITATE, AND JUST CHILL... (under the assumption that blizzards are God's way of slowing us manic Northeasterners down from our frantic patterns, and teaching us, however briefly, to look within, and hibernate for a day, OK!)
What I specifically left off my list was: WATCHING TV (avoiding more weather news, financial forecasts, tragic news here and there, ESPN recaps of previous day's action,
and old movies which some of my friends claim to be interesting, but which I can't tolerate... that would truly be a waste of the day.
I also AVOIDED reading the YAHOO Finance page for a change, the Top Trends of the Day, the Gossip on OMG! and TMZ! and anyone else's Blogs. That was refreshing, and
I wanted to keep my mind uncluttered. It worked.
Needless to say, not everything on my sacred list was accomplished, nor even dabbled in-- butit was still refreshing not to have to go anywhere (as I refrained from the supply run, and we decided to make due with what we had in the house). I did manage to pump a little more iron than usual, stretch out my lower back on the yoga ball, and shovel two or three times by the end of the day, feeling righteous about the physical exercise. And now, the next morning, I managed to file at least one of my intended blogs. There is more shovelling to be done as the storm is over now, and I have ordered my mind in certain ways, and breathed deeper, and slowed down a bit-- have you?? I hope so,for we all need it.I'm sure you have a huge list of things to do when there's NOTHING MANDATORY to do, too... let me know!
Take care, and I promise to come up with something more interesting soon...
Copyright Wayne Perras 2013
The town is changing week to week, and that's how often I am supposed to blog here, yet it's hard to keep up with the various movers and shakers of Saratoga Springs who make things happen. From the deep primordial construction pit on the center of Broadway has risen a half-skeleton of iron beams and risers which have required the use of the hundred-foot crane that has loomed like a majestic metal stork over the downtown area for most of this month. Hardhat steelworkers are doing their thing daily, no matter the weather-- you pass the site at 7:30 and they are well underway. Sonny Bonacio knows how to make things happen, and so do the subs and the partners he chooses.
His end-game on the end-of-the-block transition of Railroad Place at Church Street is moving a bit slower, but will ultimately be even more transformational than the fill-in site between The Cantina and Lillian's. This grand 11-screen intown movie theater strikes me as something that was long overdue, as Jimmy Kunstler correctly pointed out about 20 years ago in one of his localized diatribes about the shabby side of Saratoga's architectural progress. For as long as I've lived here, incoming traffic from Church Street to Broadway-- also known as State Route 9N-- has faced the, um, butt-end of the former Price Chopper's nondescript blockwall posterior, along with dumpsters and stacks of cardboard and misplaced shopping carts. Not a view the well-to-do, or any people of taste, would approve, and that's why it was lovingly dubbed the ghetto Chopper, as opposed to the suburban versions, I presume. While I don't think the facade will rival the new Barclay's Center in Brooklyn, the upgrade of a glassy cinematic entrance on that north-facing, prominent block, will certainly be
most excellent. I commend the Galesi Group, Bonacio's partner on the construction project, and Neil Golub of the grocery chain that invested in a major manner in this westside-of-Saratoga downtown project.
Down the hill from the Olde Bryan Inn, just below the Courtyard Marriott, across from the Old Red Spring, is another project underway-- a large new banquet hall facility that I believe is linked to the Marriott as well. Instead of brick and mortar it is almost entirely a wood frame complex, a very deep building with interesting roof lines. Almost within view of my office window, I watch it approach weathertight status, slowly, during this coldest time of the year. Off-season is construction season in Saratoga Springs.
On Lake Avenue across from the Hampton Inn's 6-story facade the backhoes and bulldoers were skimming the pavement on the site of the long-anticipated Pavilion Grand project, just west of The Parting Glass (which I hasten to add is still intact), and just east of The Saratogian's HQ, (for now). There may well be a large crane on that site soon.
Where Ellsworth Ice Cream plant once stood, the rubble field has not changed much in the last month. The ground is resting a bit there I guess, getting ready for a major spring makeover.
On Seward Street the upscale apartment complex is well-underway near Birch Run.
Those buildings too are wood-frame construction, and the site seems to be supporting a good number of carpenters, roofers, and tradesmen. The overused (in Saratoga anyway) descriptor "PARK PLACE" is worked into the sign on the corner of Morgan Lane and Seward somehow, but I hope the owners come up with something more distinctive than that when they actually get ready to rent out the units, which are still in the early stages of assembly.
Toby Milde's group is busy restoring The Adelphi Hotel, which I wrote about a few months' back. The vividly-named Fingerpaint Agency is taking over the Border's Building and doing a colorful renovation which will soon revitalize an empty space downtown. With another great bookstore going in across the street anyway, their is a net gain for Broadway with this diversification in tenants.
In short, things is still booming around here; if I may be grammatically incorrect, I am still telling the truth. Other upstate towns may hibernate, some are dormant year-round, but Saratoga Springs does not rest on its past laurels, it continues to evolve...
*****
William Kennedy's Latest, and One Old One...
Speaking of past laurels, Pulitzer Prize- and MacArthur-award winning author William Kennedy is more famous for celebrating the history, working-class legacies, and political chicanery of Albany, but the grandeur of old Saratoga Springs is brought to life in two recent books of his I've read this past month. In his 2011 masterpiece-- Chango's Beads and Two-Toned Shoes-- we are witness in the first chapter to an impromptu scat/jazz session featuring Bing Crosby and a semi-fictional pianist. Even though the episode occurs in an Albany mansion, they recall how they met in Saratoga during racing season at one of the Prohibition-Era Casinos functioning at the time. Later in the book, the main character, one Daniel Quinn, has his own Saratoga experience, after having met Ernest Hemingway in Florida, and Fidel Castro in revolutionary Cuba. Without giving a full review, which others have done better already, I can tell you it is a riveting, action-packed ride that I consider a crowning achievement for a writer I first met in 1980, when he was not particularly well-known and certainly not famous yet. Now 84 years old or so, he is an exemplar for how much can be accomplished in the 3 and a half decades AFTER 50.
The second book of his I turned to after being so enamored of "Chango's Beads..." was simply called "Quinn's Book" and is obstensibly narrated by yet an earlier version of Changos' main character-- also named "Daniel Quinn." Replete with phenomenal re-creations of Albany, Troy, the Hudson River, and the Erie Canal prior to 1850 in its opening scenes, it too alludes to Saratoga during many key points in the book, and the final section takes place in 1864 Saratoga Springs-- noted in the book as the first full summer season when the famous Racetrack was opened to the public. It details characters who may or may not have been modeled on Madame Jumel, Big John Morrissey (of Congress Park Casino fame), and other actual dignitaries of Saratoga's past. The United States Hotel porch, the Lakeside Inn on the shores of Saratoga Lake, and the Racetrack all figure into the story in a beguiling manner. Set a full century earlier than the book he published most recently, "Quinn's Book" was published in 1992 as a continuation of his "Albany Cycle" which most famously featured "Ironweed"-- made into a film with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep back in the '80's. Kennedy is one of the living powerhouses of literature in America at this point, and the Capital District is lucky to still have him residing here, still producing fine work, and reading at UAlbany and Skidmore once or twice a year. His body of writing is a treasure. And with these two books above in mind, he should be made an honorary citizen of Saratoga Springs as well!
*****
The Propitious Birth of One "Miles Perras"--
1992 was indeed a good year for creative production for my wife and I as well, as it turns out. My eldest son, Miles, was born during this month of that year, and his birth, as I've noted in brief fashion in my bio notes, was transformational to my life. I mean that in a couple of ways. Melinda and I weren't at all sure of the status of our commitment with each other, (as with many early-stage romances) much less the prospect of family to follow, in the spring of '91. We had our tumultuous times. She thought I might still be too flighty, or a committed bachelor, during our courtship and then in the co-habitation years, while I thought she was a bit too cautious and bitter about men in general after being married too young to the wrong guy in her early 20's. I was still struggling to figure out how to be a proper step-dad to her son from that marriage when suddenly we seemed to discover she was pregnant. Once I came to my senses, I had to learn how to be a real dad from the word Go. I was 36 years old, not a youngster, but not a geezer either. After the shock of learning the pregnancy was real, I buckled down on my job and began to work like a fanatic, whereas I'd been a bit casual about my career up till then. We took LaMaze classes together and did all those things new parents do, a bit choked up with anticipation, I must admit.
We were worried once January came in 1992 that the winter weather itself might pose a problem when it came time for Melinda to deliver, and god forbid we'd have to drive north to the Glens Falls' Snuggery during a blizzard, in the middle of the night. She was a week past the due date when we were still walking land together with a mutual real estate client that month, crazy as that seems in retrospect. Two weeks past the due date she was very large and when the water broke she woke me at 3:30 am or so on January 23rd and we urgently hustled up Route 9 before daybreak, fortunately with dry roads all the way. I was so relieved when they wheeled her into her room-- with a view of West Mountain-- before the doctors were even on duty for the day, and all seemed well. I had no idea what an ordeal it would be for her as the day stretched on, so to speak, but her cervix did not want to dilate. We had fully prepared for a "natural" birth but it just wasn't going to happen. She (or we) had nurtured a very robust baby, and he was too large, or stubborn, to slide down that birth canal on cue. Therefore a belated decision was made to induce, and then an even more belated decision for an emergency C-section, late in the evening, about sixteen hours after our arrival. I remember it was a Thursday night, and CHEERS was on the hospital TV as they ushered us up to a surgical room. I HAD NO IDEA AT THIS POINT WHAT TO EXPECT. I am proud to say the doctors let me stay-- in full gown, hat, and mask-- cradling my wife's head while she went through the ordeal of a caesarian birth, and saw her face through the whole process of fear, anticipation, mild agony, and relief, then delight. For both of us it was a magical, biological trial-by-fire, and I had never been happier that there were trained medical professionals in the modern world, and drugs to assuage my wife's pain. When Miles finally emerged in the doctor's hands from beneath the white-sheeted curtain, and made his first appearance he was purple! Purple and squirming and with a robust, almost chunky, little body-- over-ripe if anything-- and with eyes scrunched shut he seemed glad to be out of there finally but bewildered as to where he was. As with my other two children, I got to hold him and talk to him and greet him into this world, as they tended to my wife's incision. I had a feeling like the sum total of exhilaration of every Christmas build-up of my childhood rolled into one day. As I had come from a family of fairly slender if not puny babies in my family, his 9 lb, 10 oz. size came as a surprise. My wife had eaten carefully and taken tons of supplements and vitamins during that pregnancy, as she does to this day, and had produced a whopping, healthy specimen of a boy. I was thrilled out of my mind, and the euphoria lasted a long time. I thank my wife not only for going through that process but for letting me name him after one of my musical heroes from college and post-college years, Miles Davis, and like the best musicians and athletes, my kid has always had a fully inter-racial array of friends and
classmates, and teammates, and rivals.
This is not to take anything away from the miracle births I witnessed with my other two children, but for a father-for-the-first-time, there is no other single event which transcends seeing the first birth of a child. So, to anyone reading this-- or anyone I tell this story to subsequently-- no matter who you are or how old you are, or where you are in your life, never take lightly the advent of birth of a child-- it is truly WILD and SACRED and AWE-INSPIRING to the N-th degree. It gives you faith in the future of the world. This is what I decree, on the Anniversar-eeee, of my son's 21st Birthday. Thanks for being here, Miles, and being a stellar son for two-decades-plus..& good luck in your return to LeMoyne, for the climax of third-year classes.
That's it for now, Business is picking up and the Spring market is well underway, well in advance of any improvement of the weather.
I wish you all well till next time, when a musical topic of some sort will be explored...
Ciao-- Wayne, of Saratoga
Copyright 2013 Wayne N. Perras
Most of the major projects, as usual, are under the aegis of Sonny Bonacio, in partnership with various other entities. He has finished the 124-apartment building on the site of the former Price Chopper parking lot on Railroad Place, and it now starting in on the already-famous 11-Screen Bowtie Cinema Complex at the north end of that site, abutting Church Street. He also erected the long-discussed and oft-delayed parking garage on Woodlwan Ave. in record time, once they let him get going this summer. Adding about 440-car free parking within a block of Broadway was pure genius by the City fathers, and will only help ignite the success that was already smoldering downtown.
Only someone of Sonny's current stature (and no one before him, in my time here) could have gotten swiftly-approved permission to block off one lane of northbound traffic in the heart of the shopping district, between Gardiner Lane and Caroline Street. Like a mini-Manhattan construction site, the base pit was dug out 20 feet below street-level, it seemed, so that, when viewed from above, on the south side of the adjoining Walbridge Building, it looked like an archaeological site until they began pour concrete into it, marking the return of civilization on a spot where a badly-designed and then-decrepit parking lot had afforded the homeless a dangerous subterranean shelter for a brief span of recent Saratoga history.
Lillian's Restaurant to its south, and The Cantina, to the north, are the ground-level businesses bearing the most proximite brunt of the construction impact, but they should benefit greatly in the aftermath of this grand "fill-in-the-gap" project. The billboard ads on the fortress-like wire-mesh fencing out front proclaim it will be built in "Summer 2013", and Mr. Bonacio does not make idle promises along these lines. Another banner welcomes you to park instead at The NEW PARKING GARAGE ON WOODLAWN AVENUE, and given how hard a time I had finding a free-spot in said garage a few days ago, I'd say people were getting the message. I circled upward over 3 levels as you would in a pay-for-parking garage in Albany, and no space was available till I neared and hit the top. The four-story view from up there, looking over park of downtown and the backside of Broadway, proved to me once and for all that the Facade-Repair-Project signs I had seen adorning the main drag of this town in 1976 had resulted in this, roughly 36 years later-- a substantial and mature, densely-compact City which is entering a new age of prosperity for the rest of the 21st century.
What you are seeing in Saratoga now is the culmination of a movement that was begun in the late-80's really, when Bruce Levinsky started the condo-conversion trend of infilling the streetscape. Near downtown Mr. Levinsky turned a beautiful stone church at the top of Caroline Street and Circular into an 8-unit condo project, and did the same with another leftover church on the corner of Spring Street and Regent. He encountered considerable resistance as I recall-- who was going to buy CONDOS in Saratoga Springs?? What a strange concept... and did battle in City Hall on many occasions with the powers-that-be and and disgruntled neighbors on these and other projects. But the sum total of his efforts was part of the move toward improvement in downtown Saratoga, no doubt about it.
But it worked with the churches, and buildings that were historic and architecturally unique were put back on the tax rolls and became the home of new-urban Saratogaphiles who wanted "to be within walking distance of downtown" and did not care to own their own lawnmower or snowblower. In fact, it attracted a type of person who travelled elsewhere in the "off-season" and yet wanted a place for summer use, which had always been a Saratoga tradition anyway. The difference with condos was that no upkeep was required in the 9 months the owner was away-- for those that could afford the fee. Eventually, the idea caught on.
Mr. Levinsky went on to convert a few leftover original Skidmore Campus buildings on Union Avenue and Clark Street (formerly an arts building, with a stucco/tudor look to it) to condos as well, with varying degrees of success. The it seems almost a decade went by before Robert Israel picked up the concept and used it to continue the condo trend with a then-scruffy-looking lot on Railroad Place, perpendicular to Franklin Square. That was completed back around year 2000, and then Sonny Bonacio joined the fun and contributed 3 or 4 more projects to fill out that entire block on both sides, before he did 18 Division Street and then Congress Place, adjacent to Congress Park on the former site of the old (and beloved) YMCA.
But an infill project, or a downtown condo, is only as interesting as the urban scene-- if any!-- that surrounds it. The Bohemian scene that I first encountered here was represented by The Tin & Lint, The Parting Glass, Caffe Lena, D'Andrea's Tavern (where Zack's Stained Glass shop is now), The Golden Grill (now Bailey's Cafe), Barclay's (where Impressions of Saratoga, a gift and souvenir shop now holds forth), Sage's Casa 13, Madame Jumel's (now Dangos), The Montana Book Store, and Saratoga Trader's (the protogenesis of Gaffney's). There were also music joints like The (original) METRO, Our Place Pub, Jackslands, plus The Tin Shop, but not all of these survived-- and this contingent slowly became augmented by more upscale places. Sperry's and Lillian's were always there for the semi-genteel set, but then came One Caroline Street, 42 Phila (now gone), Bailey's Cafe, Wheatfields, and Maestro's (when original owner Joe Devivo ran the place), paving the way for restaurants like Chianti's I & II, Forno Toscano, Limoncello (in-filling the spot of an old KFC), Capriccio Saratoga (which was dubbed DINE before), and Max London's. There now is a mix of old stand-bys mentioned above, and newer, always changing, competition. The Grey Gelding, Brindisi's, and, recently, TizNow, are among those that have closed in recent years. Scallions, which once graced Broadway, occupying part of what is now Uncommon Grounds, moved over to Lake Avenue, just down the hill from the Fire Station. The Irish Times took over the great old brick building that long ago housed the Tin Shop at 14 Phila Street, and has seen a few brew pubs come and go since then. The Stadium Cafe a decade or so took over a spot on the west side of Broadway formerly occupied by a kind of countrified rock bar of ill-repute whose name escapes me. But I digress...
The point of this blog was supposed to be the current state of "infill" projects, but sometimes it turns into 35 years of memory lane.
Here are a few more spots changing as we speak:
The long-dormant Ellsworth Ice Cream plant, in the center of the westside, just a block west of Franklin Square, is now under demolition. The metal cooler sections were shredded for industrial grade recylcing, and they seemed to be sorting the massive debris field into wood frame components, concrete block & slabs, along with the metal pile. The brick section which was the original office bearing the founder's name, remained last I had looked. The remainder of that entire block-- bounded by Division/Beekman/& Cherry Streets, and Marvin Alley -- seems to be getting cleared within its fenced area, including the large parking lot and paved truck storage area.
While some people bemoan the loss of a family-owned business that was an excellent local employer and a vivid part of west-side life for a good part of the past century in Saratoga Springs, the changeover was inevitable, really. The plant had been a bit outmoded for years, and closed down four years ago. As witnessed by what I detailed in my last real estate-related blog-- 50 or 60 foot wide lots going for
$100K or more nearby-- this patch of land was too valuable to sit dormant for long.
The same improvement that took place 12 years ago on Grand Avenue-- when the infamous "roadhouse" Tom's Lodge came tumbling down and some classy new urban townhouses adorned the re-gentrified site-- will occur on a larger scale here. The advent of the new townhouse project there will reportedly be a collaboration between Peter Belmonte Builders, and The Eastside Group, led by Steve Ethier. Mr. Belmonte has built hundreds of excellent single family homes in Saratoga County for twenty years or more, appealing to upper-middle class buyers with evolving designs. Mr. Ethier has established himself with infill projects on the southside's previously underdeveloped zone-- contributing condos over near Pennell's Restaurant on Jefferson Street, and a sprinkling of single-family homes in the Doten Ave.area, as well as a nice duplex on lower Warren Street. Between the two of them they bring liquidity and a successful track record to a project that had hit some snags during the economic downturn for the once-ambitious original developer. His plan would have been to include first floor retail or offices with residential units above, but that proved impractical compared to the more basic demand for more in-town housing, walkable to downtown. It will be increasing the core density of population that the local stores and restaurants and bars and retailers crave, the same as Sonny Bonacio's Market Square project. Saratoga's population, which was static for most of my real estate career, in terms of those "within the city limits"... is now set to increase even more than during the condo-wave. The upgrade in new housing should continue the boon of the west-side, as myself and others have detailed.
*
"Pavilion Grand" Back on Plan...
Another long-stalled project has also taken a different tack, given the changing winds of the economy as a whole and Saratoga's specific demands. Full disclosure here: this project is co-owned by one of the owners of the real estate company I work for-- Ken Raymond, also a co-owner of Coldwell Banker Prime Properties. At first it was intended to be a ground-level, high-visibility Office for this company, with condos above, a five- or six-story building. But that was back when CBPP was based in the Post Office on Broadway, at Church Street, before the company took over the lease from RE/MAX Premier at 90 East Avenue, where we are now.
The site where Pavilion Grand will be built is on Lake Avenue at the corner of Pavilion Place, opposite the Saratogian newspaper's parking lot at 20 Lake, and the well-known Irish pub dubbed The Parting Glass, at 40 Lake Ave. It will face the still-newish Hampton Inn. Just to illustrate how much Saratoga Springs is changing: ten years ago there was Mohr's Mobil Service station at 32 Lake, across the street from a sprawling-but-ugly Chrysler Jeep Dealer which took up the whole block where the Hampton & its companion condos at High Rock Ave. now grace the space. This section was one of the most important infill projects in Saratoga's recent history-- an obvious upgrade in the true core (gut) of the City.
When Pavilion Grand breaks ground on a lot that was purchased from Stewart's Corporation for the mad sum of $1.15 million in 2007, it is now intended for first floor retail, 2nd floor office suites, and upper floor high-end apartments and lofts. There will reportedly be on-site parking as well. At the low spot down in the dip between Broadway and Circular Street, another (relative) high-rise will be a perfect balance to the heft of the Hampton Inn across Lake Ave., and will only lend interest and more pedestrian traffic to that area where not just The Parting Glass and Scallions and Jacob & Anthony's now exist, but Sperry's and The Living Room and Dango's are a short block behind there, on Caroline.
As one parking lot there on Lake, and another one on Broadway next to Lillian's get torn up to prepare for a new structure, there is one other lot that has gone the other way, near the Track, which will have higher and more pleasant visibility next year-- when Saratoga Springs will be celebrating 150 years of Horse Racing. I am talking about the corner of East Ave. and Union Ave., across from the main entrance to the Racetrack, where for years a bereft CITGO station stood. The ugly block building is now gone. The busted pavement all around it has been smoothed out and small cedars planted along the back perimeter. Stewart's Corporation, which was denied permission to put up one of its convenience stores there, should be commended for cleaning up the site, and much improving the view near the grand old tract in the process.
There is more I could add to this list, but I think I have hit the high points, and will update this particular story on a regular basis. The point is that Saratoga Springs continues to evolve and morph in grand fashion. As a wise man told me many years ago, long before there was tangible evidence of the recent boom:
"When the rest of the world looks like it's going to hell-in-a-handbasket, this town will be just fine, and thrive..." (Stafford Rouse, c. 1982)
--Copyright Wayne Perras 2012
Most of the major projects, as usual, are under the aegis of Sonny Bonacio, in partnership with various other entities. He has finished the 124-apartment building on the site of the former Price Chopper parking lot on Railroad Place, and it now starting in on the already-famous 11-Screen Bowtie Cinema Complex at the north end of that site, abutting Church Street. He also erected the long-discussed and oft-delayed parking garage on Woodlwan Ave. in record time, once they let him get going this summer. Adding about 440-car free parking within a block of Broadway was pure genius by the City fathers, and will only help ignite the success that was already smoldering downtown.
Only someone of Sonny's current stature (and no one before him, in my time here) could have gotten swiftly-approved permission to block off one lane of northbound traffic in the heart of the shopping district, between Gardiner Lane and Caroline Street. Like a mini-Manhattan construction site, the base pit was dug out 20 feet below street-level, it seemed, so that, when viewed from above, on the south side of the adjoining Walbridge Building, it looked like an archaeological site until they began pour concrete into it, marking the return of civilization on a spot where a badly-designed and then-decrepit parking lot had afforded the homeless a dangerous subterranean shelter for a brief span of recent Saratoga history.
Lillian's Restaurant to its south, and The Cantina, to the north, are the ground-level businesses bearing the most proximite brunt of the construction impact, but they should benefit greatly in the aftermath of this grand "fill-in-the-gap" project. The billboard ads on the fortress-like wire-mesh fencing out front proclaim it will be built in "Summer 2013", and Mr. Bonacio does not make idle promises along these lines. Another banner welcomes you to park instead at The NEW PARKING GARAGE ON WOODLAWN AVENUE, and given how hard a time I had finding a free-spot in said garage a few days ago, I'd say people were getting the message. I circled upward over 3 levels as you would in a pay-for-parking garage in Albany, and no space was available till I neared and hit the top. The four-story view from up there, looking over park of downtown and the backside of Broadway, proved to me once and for all that the Facade-Repair-Project signs I had seen adorning the main drag of this town in 1976 had resulted in this, roughly 36 years later-- a substantial and mature, densely-compact City which is entering a new age of prosperity for the rest of the 21st century.
What you are seeing in Saratoga now is the culmination of a movement that was begun in the late-80's really, when Bruce Levinsky started the condo-conversion trend of infilling the streetscape. Near downtown Mr. Levinsky turned a beautiful stone church at the top of Caroline Street and Circular into an 8-unit condo project, and did the same with another leftover church on the corner of Spring Street and Regent. He encountered considerable resistance as I recall-- who was going to buy CONDOS in Saratoga Springs?? What a strange concept... and did battle in City Hall on many occasions with the powers-that-be and and disgruntled neighbors on these and other projects. But the sum total of his efforts was part of the move toward improvement in downtown Saratoga, no doubt about it.
But it worked with the churches, and buildings that were historic and architecturally unique were put back on the tax rolls and became the home of new-urban Saratogaphiles who wanted "to be within walking distance of downtown" and did not care to own their own lawnmower or snowblower. In fact, it attracted a type of person who travelled elsewhere in the "off-season" and yet wanted a place for summer use, which had always been a Saratoga tradition anyway. The difference with condos was that no upkeep was required in the 9 months the owner was away-- for those that could afford the fee. Eventually, the idea caught on.
Mr. Levinsky went on to convert a few leftover original Skidmore Campus buildings on Union Avenue and Clark Street (formerly an arts building, with a stucco/tudor look to it) to condos as well, with varying degrees of success. The it seems almost a decade went by before Robert Israel picked up the concept and used it to continue the condo trend with a then-scruffy-looking lot on Railroad Place, perpendicular to Franklin Square. That was completed back around year 2000, and then Sonny Bonacio joined the fun and contributed 3 or 4 more projects to fill out that entire block on both sides, before he did 18 Division Street and then Congress Place, adjacent to Congress Park on the former site of the old (and beloved) YMCA.
But an infill project, or a downtown condo, is only as interesting as the urban scene-- if any!-- that surrounds it. The Bohemian scene that I first encountered here was represented by The Tin & Lint, The Parting Glass, Caffe Lena, D'Andrea's Tavern (where Zack's Stained Glass shop is now), The Golden Grill (now Bailey's Cafe), Barclay's (where Impressions of Saratoga, a gift and souvenir shop now holds forth), Sage's Casa 13, Madame Jumel's (now Dangos), The Montana Book Store, and Saratoga Trader's (the protogenesis of Gaffney's). There were also music joints like The (original) METRO, Our Place Pub, Jackslands, plus The Tin Shop, but not all of these survived-- and this contingent slowly became augmented by more upscale places. Sperry's and Lillian's were always there for the semi-genteel set, but then came One Caroline Street, 42 Phila (now gone), Bailey's Cafe, Wheatfields, and Maestro's (when original owner Joe Devivo ran the place), paving the way for restaurants like Chianti's I & II, Forno Toscano, Limoncello (in-filling the spot of an old KFC), Capriccio Saratoga (which was dubbed DINE before), and Max London's. There now is a mix of old stand-bys mentioned above, and newer, always changing, competition. The Grey Gelding, Brindisi's, and, recently, TizNow, are among those that have closed in recent years. Scallions, which once graced Broadway, occupying part of what is now Uncommon Grounds, moved over to Lake Avenue, just down the hill from the Fire Station. The Irish Times took over the great old brick building that long ago housed the Tin Shop at 14 Phila Street, and has seen a few brew pubs come and go since then. The Stadium Cafe a decade or so took over a spot on the west side of Broadway formerly occupied by a kind of countrified rock bar of ill-repute whose name escapes me. But I digress...
The point of this blog was supposed to be the current state of "infill" projects, but sometimes it turns into 35 years of memory lane.
Here are a few more spots changing as we speak:
The long-dormant Ellsworth Ice Cream plant, in the center of the westside, just a block west of Franklin Square, is now under demolition. The metal cooler sections were shredded for industrial grade recylcing, and they seemed to be sorting the massive debris field into wood frame components, concrete block & slabs, along with the metal pile. The brick section which was the original office bearing the founder's name, remained last I had looked. The remainder of that entire block-- bounded by Division/Beekman/& Cherry Streets, and Marvin Alley -- seems to be getting cleared within its fenced area, including the large parking lot and paved truck storage area.
While some people bemoan the loss of a family-owned business that was an excellent local employer and a vivid part of west-side life for a good part of the past century in Saratoga Springs, the changeover was inevitable, really. The plant had been a bit outmoded for years, and closed down four years ago. As witnessed by what I detailed in my last real estate-related blog-- 50 or 60 foot wide lots going for
$100K or more nearby-- this patch of land was too valuable to sit dormant for long.
The same improvement that took place 12 years ago on Grand Avenue-- when the infamous "roadhouse" Tom's Lodge came tumbling down and some classy new urban townhouses adorned the re-gentrified site-- will occur on a larger scale here. The advent of the new townhouse project there will reportedly be a collaboration between Peter Belmonte Builders, and The Eastside Group, led by Steve Ethier. Mr. Belmonte has built hundreds of excellent single family homes in Saratoga County for twenty years or more, appealing to upper-middle class buyers with evolving designs. Mr. Ethier has established himself with infill projects on the southside's previously underdeveloped zone-- contributing condos over near Pennell's Restaurant on Jefferson Street, and a sprinkling of single-family homes in the Doten Ave.area, as well as a nice duplex on lower Warren Street. Between the two of them they bring liquidity and a successful track record to a project that had hit some snags during the economic downturn for the once-ambitious original developer. His plan would have been to include first floor retail or offices with residential units above, but that proved impractical compared to the more basic demand for more in-town housing, walkable to downtown. It will be increasing the core density of population that the local stores and restaurants and bars and retailers crave, the same as Sonny Bonacio's Market Square project. Saratoga's population, which was static for most of my real estate career, in terms of those "within the city limits"... is now set to increase even more than during the condo-wave. The upgrade in new housing should continue the boon of the west-side, as myself and others have detailed.
*
"Pavilion Grand" Back on Plan...
Another long-stalled project has also taken a different tack, given the changing winds of the economy as a whole and Saratoga's specific demands. Full disclosure here: this project is co-owned by one of the owners of the real estate company I work for-- Ken Raymond, also a co-owner of Coldwell Banker Prime Properties. At first it was intended to be a ground-level, high-visibility Office for this company, with condos above, a five- or six-story building. But that was back when CBPP was based in the Post Office on Broadway, at Church Street, before the company took over the lease from RE/MAX Premier at 90 East Avenue, where we are now.
The site where Pavilion Grand will be built is on Lake Avenue at the corner of Pavilion Place, opposite the Saratogian newspaper's parking lot at 20 Lake, and the well-known Irish pub dubbed The Parting Glass, at 40 Lake Ave. It will face the still-newish Hampton Inn. Just to illustrate how much Saratoga Springs is changing: ten years ago there was Mohr's Mobil Service station at 32 Lake, across the street from a sprawling-but-ugly Chrysler Jeep Dealer which took up the whole block where the Hampton & its companion condos at High Rock Ave. now grace the space. This section was one of the most important infill projects in Saratoga's recent history-- an obvious upgrade in the true core (gut) of the City.
When Pavilion Grand breaks ground on a lot that was purchased from Stewart's Corporation for the mad sum of $1.15 million in 2007, it is now intended for first floor retail, 2nd floor office suites, and upper floor high-end apartments and lofts. There will reportedly be on-site parking as well. At the low spot down in the dip between Broadway and Circular Street, another (relative) high-rise will be a perfect balance to the heft of the Hampton Inn across Lake Ave., and will only lend interest and more pedestrian traffic to that area where not just The Parting Glass and Scallions and Jacob & Anthony's now exist, but Sperry's and The Living Room and Dango's are a short block behind there, on Caroline.
As one parking lot there on Lake, and another one on Broadway next to Lillian's get torn up to prepare for a new structure, there is one other lot that has gone the other way, near the Track, which will have higher and more pleasant visibility next year-- when Saratoga Springs will be celebrating 150 years of Horse Racing. I am talking about the corner of East Ave. and Union Ave., across from the main entrance to the Racetrack, where for years a bereft CITGO station stood. The ugly block building is now gone. The busted pavement all around it has been smoothed out and small cedars planted along the back perimeter. Stewart's Corporation, which was denied permission to put up one of its convenience stores there, should be commended for cleaning up the site, and much improving the view near the grand old tract in the process.
There is more I could add to this list, but I think I have hit the high points, and will update this particular story on a regular basis. The point is that Saratoga Springs continues to evolve and morph in grand fashion. As a wise man told me many years ago, long before there was tangible evidence of the recent boom:
"When the rest of the world looks like it's going to hell-in-a-handbasket, this town will be just fine, and thrive..." (Stafford Rouse, c. 1982)
--Copyright Wayne Perras 2012
Postscript (12/22/12): As of a few days before Christmas, the site of the former Ellsworth Ice Cream plant is now a rubble field, and all the prior building sections have been levelled. It will take a while to clear that debris through the winter, but in 2013 there will be a surge of activity on that site, and new housing possibilities will arise for those desirous of In-town new construction-- we Realtors will be taking names..
This project is going to be a radical transition of Saratoga's westside once again, as with the townhouses that were built on Grand Avenue on the site of the former Tom's Lodge (a leftover roominghouse/bordello from Prohibition days) in 1999, and almost as big in scale as the Washington's Crossing development out past Division Street Elementary School, which is nearing completion now after a long slowdown in the local housing market.
For those who prefer to rent here in Saratoga Springs, there is another new project I meant to include in this report-- on Seward Street, just around the corner from Saratoga Hosipital, and adjacent to the Birch Run townhouse HOA a few blocks from Skidmore, there is new construction underway with the unfortunately generic Park Place At Saratoga, which will be "luxury 1-2-&-3 Bedroom Apartments. This was recently the site of a green grassy expanse that looked like an unused park for most of the time I have lived here. I was told that two generations ago there was a hotel on the site near where Birch Run now sits, and at one time there was a St. Anne's School for Girls to the left where the older apartments are. More infill, more change.
And on the hotel front, there is building activity recently resumed on a well-cured foundation that sat dormant for almost 2 years, next to the Courtyard by Marriott, at 11 Excelsior Avenue, just off the Arterial between Exit 15 and downtown. At one point I heard that a famous former pro football coach was involved in the investment group building this adjunct to the current Marriott, but have not verified that rumor yet. This site is right across from the Old Red Springs, where High Rock Ave. comes , together with Excelsior Avenue and will be a visual improvement to the overgrown hillside that sat neglected for years, until the current revitalization boom.
On a sadder note, I would like to commemorate the passing (on Dec. 14th, 2012) of a legendary raconteur, restauranteur, and man-about-town: one Nate Goldsmith, aged 97. I will be writing a longer acknowledgement of what Nate contributed to this town in the past century, but wanted to note the basics here: from 1939 until 1983 he presided over the morning-noon-and-night restaurant dubbed "MOTHER GOLDSMITH'S" on Phila Street. This place was famous for years as being as close to a NYC Jewish deli as Saratoga ever had, and yet was so much more. It was a place where locals and Skidmore parents and track people and tourists from all over the world congregated and mingled and shared special occasions and famous Sunday brunches for 44 years. Nate also later opened up the larger site on South Broadway known as The Country Gentleman for many years, which afer he sold it became a seaood restaurant named The Weathervane, and now sits vacant, at the southern entrance to Saratoga Springs. When he owned that, it thrived.
Nate was also a noted harness track enthusiast, a supporter of numerous local causes, a part-time Realtor for a while in the 1990's, and was a member of the renowned Class of 1933, in Saratoga Springs High School lore. I will miss him, and will be writing more about him soon.
That catches me up for now... more soon.
Wayne for WaynesWord2
More interesting to me are the mourning doves, and I always root for them to find the most recent seed I've scattered, before the squirrels and bluejays come along to eat more than their share. Mourning doves not only make the coolest sounds with their wings, when they whoosh in and out, they seem the most graceful and elegant of the year-round birds, and somehow, the most appreciative of what I do as well.
The smaller birds are more abundant, and flit in and out much quicker and more regularly. White-throated sparrows, chickadees, all manner of finches, nuthatches and juncoes-- I am still trying to distinguish among the crop of what my friend Dave used to simply call "lgb's"-- little grey birds. What I like about them is their resourcefulness-- they will come closer to the house than any of the others, landing on the deck and cleaning up whatever seeds or crumbs have spilled between slats, making a opportunistic meal out of the smallest of scraps and leftovers. I have gotten to the point where I try not to waste anything that could be construed as "birdfood"-- dried-out corn-muffin crumbs, the residue of whole wheat crumbs in the bottom of each plastic bag, the sesame seeds that fall off a bagel, and the uneaten toast crusts that my family or guests leaves behind-- this is all "free or recycled birdfood" as I see it-- and much better for the support of backyard wildlife than to simply toss it in the garbage to end up in a landfill or a burn plant.
When things were really tough a couple years back, I developed a corollary in my moments of fear and worry-- if we fed the birds, the Universe would take care of us. I must have gotten that sense from my paternal grandmother, Memere-- who was notorious for her fanatic feeding of stray cats, back in Manchester, Connecticut, when I was growing up. She had nurtured her family through the Great Depression and was never well enough off to be considered a philanthropist, except to all those scrawny cats she supported. Any mere scrap or shred of uneaten meat or cheese rinds, chicken skin, gravy, trimmed fat or gristle, would be put outside for those mewing cats who gathered each morning and evening at her backdoor. Any milk leftover from cereal dishes or supoer glasses, same thing-- nothing was wasted. As long as some living creature in need could use the nourishment, it was gratifying to her, and nothing was discarded that had some nutritional value down the food chain.
The same principle goes for those of us who compost every shred of leftover vegetable matter-- salad trimmings, potato skins, pumpkin remnants, the inedible parts of carrots and celery stalks, tomatoes or fruits that go bad in the refrigerator. They are gathered up nightly and put out of the compost heap where the rabbits and chipmunks and deer have first crack at them, before decomposition sets in. We are lucky to be out in the country so we don't have to worry about rodents as city-dwellers might-- our compost heap is back near the stonewall, a hundred feet behind the house, so we keep the critters at a distance.
Since we don't have a stray cat population to take care of, the meat scraps and leftovers go way out back-- to the exposed rock at the rear of our property which I have dubbed the sacrificial stone dish-- this is at the edge of the deep woods, and I would guess I am feeding a fox or two, perhaps an elusive fisher we have seen slither by once or twice, and the omnipresent crows usually find whatever the predators leave behind, or missed. I've put out entire chicken or turkey carcasses once the soup broth was cooked, and a day later -- found no trace, bones and all, neatly spirited away. Somehow, this form of natural recycling is comforting to me-- we are sharing all forms of food products with predators, scavengers, four-legged creatures, herbivores, feathered friends, of all kinds.
What does this have to do with life in Saratoga? The answer, if I had to make one up (which I do for the sake of this blog at this moment) is to describe why I live 9 miles out of the city itself, instead of within its municipal limits. In our backyard, on the plateau below Lake Desolation, in the past 9 years, we have seen multiple wild turkeys (increasingly common now; rare in my youth), a red fox or two, pheasants and partridge, a few generations of deer. But more unique than that: a lynx, an elusive fisher (also called a marten), and, I swear, a well-muscled young grey wolf, trotting past behind the stone wall. Most manuals on NYS wildlife will tell the reader that 2 of the 3 mammals in that last sentence do not exist as visible populations in our area, but I personally believe they are wrong, as do a lot of my fellow residents out near the Palmertown Ridge foothills of the Adirondacks.
But the most bizarre sight occurred one night at dinner, as I looked out above the deck to the top of the pergola, where I saw the double-curved neck of a red plumed, hooked-beak bird that looked like something out of a cartoon. It seemed to see ME once I noticed it through the back atrium door, and turned to fly off, startled. The word that ran through my mind was "QUETZACOTL"-- a mythical Mexican creature defined in Webster's Unabridged as a "feathered serpent god of the Aztec and Toltec cultures." That was how colorful and collosally exotic the winged thing seemed to me, having lived in this area a long damn time without ever seeing it before. My wife got out her Audobon book that evening and concluded that it had to have been a baby great blue heron, the only bird in our climate with a neck shaped like that. I've never known them to come that close to a residence, though the elder versions are seen in flight quite often, usually in a solitary fashion. I always take it as a good sign when one is seen overhead. You might also see them standing, stork-like, on one slender leg, ready to spear a fish in a shallow pond or swamp. But to see one near a bird-feeder, that was most unusual, and I don't think it would happen in or on the fringes of the City.
In summation, I look at living a rustic lifestyle more as a poet and private guy than I do as a wildlife biologist, or serious bird-watcher. Still, part of the charm of being out here lies in knowing that Saratoga is only a 15-minute ride away... I'll return to the virtues of our small, idyllic city with my next post, promise. Meanwhile, I'm on my way to Agway for more birdseed.
Copyright Wayne Perras 2012
for "Waynesword2"
In my real estate life, as if I were a journalist, I am allowed to ask people a ton of questions,
and if I'm dealing with a married couple, or an unmarried couple who are getting along well enough to consider buying a home together, I love to ask them-- Where did you meet?
More than half of those polled will invariably say: Right here in Saratoga Springs...
And when I try to pin down the answer more specifically, It will be an answer like this:
It was at a Mixer at The Olde Bryan Inn...or The Gideon...or Saratoga Prime...
At Gaffney's, four summers ago...Rick Bolton & Jeff Walton's band playing...
At Sperry's...Happy Hour before dinner...2003, I think it was...
It was at the City Tavern, 3rd floor...
At Bailey's Cafe...the back courtyard...we talked all night...
At a SPAC concert... (take your pick!)...
At The old METRO...upstairs, Carl Landa's group, Jill Hughes singing...
The Wine Bar...a first date...a Friday night I think...
Siro's-- with wall-to-wall people in the room...
At Caffe Lena...only a few people there that nite, and she was one...
Shopping on Broadway...a Sunday afternoon...
Dancing one night at MINE...
Waiting for a seat at Lillian's...
Uncommon Grounds...getting a coffee!
In line for a doughboy at ESPERANTO's at 2 a.m one morning...
Or, (in my case) at The Mexican Connection on Nelson Ave, a blind set-up by a mutual friend...25 years ago...
But it could be ANYWHERE in Saratoga that they mention-- even places that aren't there any more. You might hear them say:
It was at The Grey Gelding... (closed a couple of years, still empty...)
At the bar at Professor Moriarty's... (now called The Cantina)...
At JACKSLANDS when it was open... (where Starbucks is now...)
Barclay's Tavern...drinking Long Island Ice-teas...(Impressions boutique now)
The Executive, on Phila Street... (if they're as old as Dylan, or David Amram)
The Golden Grill...(if they're older than me...the disco-ball era...)
Out at The Rafters by the Lake (ditto...for those who remember...)
Sage's CASA 13... (for really old hippies...) Desperate Annie's...( O wait! That one is still there...)
The point is, a lot of permanent (or semi-permanent,at least) romantic connections
are made in this town, disproportionate to its size or population. It goes back to the
magnetic tendencies underground I alluded to in my last post: along the crescent-shaped fault-line, the dip in Saratoga's downtown district, is where the magnetism, human and otherwise, is the strongest, I propose. It pulls congruent people together.
Part of this small City's historic appeal, prior to Horse Racing and Gambling and Downtown Commerce, prior to Skidmore and SPAC and Condos and Golf... was simply "people-watching." And a good part of that, then and now, involved romantic pursuit, the push and pull of the sexes.
I am not the first to comment on this matter. I've been meandering through (3 times overdue) a Saratoga Springs LIbrary book called "Drinking The Waters" by Thomas A. Chambers (c.2002, Smithsonian Institution Press), which sports the cumbersome subtitle: "Creating An American Leisure Class At Nineteenth-Century Mineral Springs." It specifcally duscusses two places-- a comparison of Saratoga Springs, NY, and White Sulphur Springs, Virginia-- showing how they evolved into mini-urban paragons of social and cultural aspiration. They were both resorts that "sprung up" in a landscape that was neither coastal nor on a river or lake. They both benefited from "The Democratization of Medicine" which made their respective healing waters famous and drew visitors from all points of the compass, before there were attractions of other sorts to do so.
Other chapters in Mr. Chambers' book are named "Society of Fashion" and "Love For Sale." These titles still sum up Saratoga's original summer appeal nicely. Now, however, even in the nine-month "off-season" this city both celebrates and attracts fashionable people and romance-seekers as a central destination in upstate New York. Though I am not sure how well Sulphur Springs, Virginia is doing at this very moment, my guess is that it too is thriving.
Before there were a hundred-plus bars and restaurants in downtown Saratoga & environs, there were hotel piazzas, grand porches where much of the seasonal flirtation and promenade-watching took place. Here is a pertinent slice of the book:
Furtive exchanges on the porch were only the beginning of flirtation at the springs. According to the popular author George William Curtis, "Romance is the necessary association of watering-places, because they are the haunts of youth and beauty seeking pleasure." The young and old, wealthy and merely well-to-do, and beautiful and ugly mixed at the springs hoping to find a spouse or at least a temporary romance.
("Drinking The Waters," Thomas A. Chambers, p. 135.)
Or this:
"Life at the springs is a perpetual festival. The people dance and drink-- drink and dance,-- rising early to do the one, and sitting up late to perform the other..."
Everyday activities at the springs were more than simple ways to pass the day; they lay at the core of springs society. A "competitive community" striving for social status existed at both Saratoga Springs and the Virginia springs.... (Chambers, p. 88-89)
These quotes and historical snapshots date to the mid-1800's, yet still apply to any weekend or holiday or summer evening of the year in downtown Saratoga Springs. Next time you are visiting this vicinity, quaffing a liquid drink of one sort or another and scanning the changing faces hanging out or strolling by, understand that this scene was not just spontaneously created, is not just a recent phenomenon, not the mere result of a faddish prosperity. There is a primordial force here, and it is no coincidence that the best attended "watering holes" still sit directly upon, or adjacent to, that fault line, that source of the springs that lie underneath the core or "the gut" of this town.
There is more I could say on this subject, but I am determined to keep these "blogs" shorter, and turn them out more often instead. Stay tuned...
--C. 2012 Wayne Perras
There also has always been a certain element of the local real estate market I refer to as "The Beverly HIlls Syndrome," in which a home is purchased on a prime lot, and promptly knocked down to make room for a better one. Now it happens that both are occurring simultaneously in many parts of the city. I will provide some examples here-- residential in this first part, and commercial on another occasion.
Let's start with a vacant lot at 116 Church Street, between West Harrison and Park Street, just a couple of blocks west of Broadway. Tax records tell me this vacant 50' X 140' lot sold for a mere $20K in 1995, and just re-sold in August of this year for $100K even. A new two-story home is going up rather quickly as I write this, the first new construction in that stretch of blocks since before World War II, I would guess. The new owner is listed as Edward Barone, and it seems it won't be long before his new-urban, close-to-street structure is done. I commend him on what I've seen so far. He is effectively replacing a missing tooth in the streetscape.
Next westside story of this sort involves a knockdown project at 31 Bensonhurst Street--- a gaunt gray haunted-looking clapboard relic seemingly leftover from the Depression was purchased for $90,500. by McPadden Builders. The lot was roughly 75' X 120', just over 9000 sq. ft. but the area on that side of town requires blasting into bedrock to get deep enough for a full foundation, or else that price might have been higher. In any case, the old home is gone now and stray cats and vagrants will have to find another place to hang out-- re-gentrification is underway via Mr. McPadden, and his Broker, my friend Val at Roohan Realty, who have combined to dress up this and other sections of the westside in recent years with his Stickley-cottage-like, urban bungalow designs.
In that same neighborhood, one street over, at 61 Newton Ave., there was a strange little brick cottage that looked like a goatherd's hut or something for years, and its owner wanted $169K for it as I recall, having paid $100K for it back in 2005. I was surprised to find that it sold this year for a "mere" $90K, which information I believe to be suspect, frankly. The lot was listed as relatively huge, for being within city limits-- 100' X 115'-- but the tiny 540 sq ft cottage was not worth keeping on the lot, and was quickly rendered into the dust of history. For the past month or two heavy equipment has been operating on the site, blasting away and removing huge chunks of Flintstone-quality bedrock. Bordeau Builders has a new 3BR, 2 bath home listed on the property for $625K, though strangely enough, the lot is now listed as 65' wide, not 100'. The proposed home-- 2000 square feet, with only a one-car garage-- would be more than twice the price of anything that has sold on that formerly modest and unassuming street, but that's how Saratoga Springs is growing, and going. You could say to the new buyer that he would be within easy walking distance to The Golf and Polo Club, just across Church Street, and they don't have many pedestrian members in that neighborhood yet, I bet, though that too may be changing.
Now we should consider the case of 32 Greenfield Avenue, in the more pricey confines of the neighborhood just west of North Broadway, in the vicinity of Skidmore College. For those who don't know Saratoga intimately yet, It should be noted that the North-side of the westside is competitive with the eastside in terms of architecture, value, desirability.
Here, until recently, on the diagonal slice from North Broadway toward the campus, there stood a totally nondescript 1968-built raised ranch which for most of the past 30 years had served as a rental property for Skidmore students. A local guy I knew named Pete Crowley owned it until 1999, and I recall him complaining at times about how the co-eds of that decade kept trashing the place, and costing him more and more in damages with each passing year. He sold it for $135K at that time, and it was flipped for $217,500. in 2003, a halcyon year for real estate around here. The Realtor who bought it then continued renting it until the market came back recently, and it was sold this year for $236K to a family named Pinhas. They are employing Dave DiPaulo of Bella Homes to create what I expect to be a beautiful new edifice on that site, much more worthy of its neighborhood than the relic of 60's construction that recently met the wrecker's ball. On an adjacent corner lot, facing Woodlawn Avenue, I had raised my eyebrows back in 2008 when a small, fairly bland 1950's ranch sold for about $250K, which was also promptly demolished and replaced by a much more modern and tasteful structure. The "Beverly Hills" syndrome continues in cases like this, but only where the lot value transcends the value of the home that occupies the parcel.
You might wonder why it would happen on the westside of Saratoga Springs, instead of the more traditionally upscale eastside. One reason is that there is still oppotunity on the westside, whereas the eastside has been almost completely built-out. That part of the campground is spoken for, and not too many homeowners are prone to selling their homes at a price where you'd want to knock one down. Still, that may begin to happen as well. But on the eastside, renovation would be more likely than demolition.
On the subject of renovations, however, I would be remiss if I did not point out the home at 207 Woodlawn Avenue in the City, which was purchased this year, and quickly transformed by end of summer into what it is now-- a Center-hall Classic restoration that improves on the original a hundred times over. The interesting thing is that the previous owner bought that original home (located on a magnificent 3/4 acre corner lot, formerly the site of an intown greenhouse operation) with the intention of knocking it down and building a 2-million dollar home on the site. People always wondered why an outdated, faded-blue clapboard colonial, considered unliveable by most buyers in this price range, would sell for $850K ?? That was called the peak of the market, my friends, but that owner fortunately stopped short of fulfilling his knock-down plans, and went through a few market cycles without a willing buyer at anywhere near what he paid. Even at a steeply discounted price from what the downstate seller paid, it was still technically a "fixer-upper", with the lot value and location making it an estate-quality investment. The efforts of Bob West's firm Old Saratoga Restorations and numerous subcontractors helped owners Barbara and Joseph DeVivo realize a vision that no one before them had pictured. The stone front and wrought iron accents, the radically-changed rooflines, complete rebuild of the garage and living area above it, and opening out the boxy-interior of the original floorplan, all make for a stunning upgrade from a forlorn-looking vacant home for sale, as if was just a year ago. The DeVivo's should win a Preservation Award for 207 Woodlawn Ave., if I do say so myself, and thank them for involving me in the sale.
***
But what I would like to convey here is more than just a real estate price report. I would like to point out one of the things that struck me most when I got into the real estate business in the late 80's, and opened up the Manual of Real Estate Practice... where I found that the very first sentence of that textbook was simply this:
Beneath all is the land.
Which is true, and in accord with my native American leanings. Before there was any mention of the business of attempting to make money helping people buying or selling property (which Mohawks would have frowned upon, I'm sure) at least there was this stark acknowledgement of what was under our feet, Mother Earth. I found that reassuring that there was reverence for that fact at the base of our profession, and in the official rulebook.
What is also true is that certain parcels of land within the confines of the campground called the City of Saratoga Springs are clearly worth a lot more than in most other places in upstate New York, and there is an underlying reason why people want to be here, invest here, live here. I first wrote about this in 1980, way before I thought about being in this business:
We want a place where worlds converge.
The vale of Saratoga was that zone for me, from the latter part of the 70's onward. In the High Rock Review magazine my friends Dave Scavone and Elizabeth Skinner (both of whom were great photographers, plus more talented, solvent, and practical than me) put out that year, I got to write the Intro about why I wanted to live here:
There is a convergence of city & mountains: symbolically, geographically, & demographically. This is one of the overlap zones-- where the upriver surge of human destiny spreads out against the foothills (or toes) of the fabled Adirondacks. The Palmertown Ridge is one line of these & actually tails out right above the head of North Broadway, only 1/2 mile or so from the crescent-like fault line that spawned the High Rock Spring & the rest...
(Wayne Perras c. 1980, The High Rock Review, Vol. 1)
Back in 1980, you have to realize, there was no real estate boom in sight yet. The City had emerged from the 70's like a limping, roughed-up swell who had gotten caught up in street skirmish and could not deny his bruises. But there were clearly a couple of throngs of people who really believed in the town, not only some significant old-money patriarchs (& maybe more important, Matriarchs), but a healthy downtown crowd of perennial college students, bohemians, artists, musicians, and writers who found a way to live there. It was that odd coalition of conservative moneyed factions and liberally-inclined artists & free-spending local hedonists that revived this grand old City of Saratoga Springs, and helped begin its return to prosperity and prominence. The yin and the yang of those opposites, like the opposing poles of a magnet, make it spin. This town in back in spinning mode. Perhaps it can be a prototype for recovery, or perhaps it's an lucky anomaly, we'll see.
I'll have more on this subject soon. Thanks for reading...
Wayne Perras, Copyright 2012
Turns out that edifice being saved, and ultimately restored, was the Adelphi Hotel, and the man directing the column repair was Rich Martin, of Northern Dean Construction-- an esteemed contractor to this day. It also turns out that it happened to be the 100th anniversary of the Adelphi's original construction, in 1877. Unbeknownst to me (like a lot things) at the time, this leftover behemoth of the Victorian era was also the first property-- commercial or residential-- to have been sold for the staggering sum of $100,000. in the City of Saratoga Springs. (The first residential home in the City to hit that price-mark, as I understand things, was not sold for $100K until 1979, but that is a story for another day.)
A couple by the name of Sheila Parkert and Gregg Seifker had been drawn to Saratoga, like many of us, by the attraction of summer concerts at SPAC-- specifically by the NY City Ballet, in their case. They thought it would be a great idea to be part of the revival of this somewhat worn-down town, and to provide a suitably historic venue where the ballet crowd could gather and summer visitors could congregate, rather than have to settle for the local Holiday Inn or other such "modern" accommodations. Their vision, is retrospect, was both timely and auspicious, and saving this "grand dame hotel" building from the prior century as they did certainly contributed to the fact that Saratoga's Broadway district was recently awarded the distinction of being voted among The Top Ten Main Streets in America.
I would illustrate how close this town was to the complete demise of its Golden Era by quoting here from George Waller's great coffee-table book, called SARATOGA: Saga of an Impious Era, written in 1966:
Saratoga's Broadway, today, is an awkward pause between the past and the present, an uneasy union of the old and the new, with none of the grandeur and just a trace of the charm that made it one of the most famous main streets in America. The grounds on which the grand hotels stood facing one another across the wide, tree-lined thoroughfare are occupied by shops, stores, restaurants, supermarkets and such, and all but a few of the tall, arching elms have died...
...and at the busiest section of Broadway a pair of small, venerable hotels, the Rip Van Dam and The Adelphi (the latter featuring a piazza and wicker rocking chairs) stand side by side as stubborn monuments to a departed era.
In the post-World War Two years there was not, apparently, much nostalgia for the past, and the United States Hotel (at the southwestern corner of Division Street and Broadway) was demolished in 1946, and the mighty Grand Union itself suffered its demise in 1952. Waller describes bulldozers knocking down beautiful, arching elm trees that had graced Broadway since it emerged as a resort in 1827, and we have to wonder how even more amazing this upstate town could have been as a throwback to an earlier era had more of the amazing architecture and landscaping of the 1800's had been preserved more fully.
But the fact is that much of what is pictured in George Waller's tome, and George Bolster's classic archival photography collection of this City's Golden Age, is gone, and not replaceable. That makes the survival of The Adelphi (and the still-sturdy but less-glamorous
Rip Van Dam next door) all the more remarkable. These were considered, back in the day, smaller second cousins to the stupendous Broadway monoliths that met the wrecking ball. We can thank the much reviled Saratoga Preservation Society, and archivists like Waller, and Bolster, and Grace Swanner, and James Kettlewell, among others, for fostering the sense of history and import that these older buildings and traditions lent to our City, hence saving it from totally destroying its past in the name of "modern progress."
I worked for one summer-- 1981-- as an overnight desk clerk at The Adelphi, and it was a memorable experience. At that point, there were only a few rooms renovated on the second floor, and no one was even allowed to venture onto the third or fourth floors, which were cordoned off. Even then, Gregg and Sheila had the vision of doing things in an eccentric, lush, and imaginative manner-- the rooms had themes-- The India Room, The Persian Room, and maybe there were some Far Eastern or Turkish Rooms too. The gorgeous front lobby had been refurbished and lavishly furnished with Victoriana of all sorts. I presided over a long wooden desk in front of a full-length wall mirror, and always recall how the ballerinas who came into the room would furtively glance at themselves, looking past me, as they elegantly strutted by. The back Courtyard was, even then, the pre-eminent place in town to sit and sip frozen daquiris and other frothy concoctions favored by the dance crowd. The mahogany bar in the back was dark and most of the crowd preferred the patio and back cafe seating, long before there was a pool out there. The July crowd was much different than the August crowd, when Gregg and Sheila would have to reluctantly say farewell to the balletophiles, and cater to the moneyed track crowd. It was open only from May till October, as it was not worth trying to heat the upper rooms or keep the bar open during the long and dreary offseason, in those days.
I would come in to work at 8 or 9 pm or so, and handled the check-ins that showed up late,
and act as an information booth for the comings-and-goings of the bar crowd. I might have slipped into the bar itself for a glass of red wine or two with Ron the bartender as the late-night stragglers finally left, and then there was an hour or two of just manning the desk, or sitting in those lush lobby chairs, meditating upon the changeover of night to morning as the street-sweepers seemed to drag the daylight along behind them, and the early-dawn joggers would emerge from upstairs to get a jump on the day. By 7 a.m. I was dragging, and anxious to be relieved. Sheila or Gregg would always comment on how disheveled I looked by then, and I always had respect for anyone working the "graveyard shift" from then on.
Gregg, sadly, ended up contracting some form of cancer in the 1990's, and wore an eyepatch for a while, before passing away over a decade ago. Sheila Parkert became sole owner, and reportedly spent her summers either in Arizona or France, and from the look of her photo from 2006, looked pretty much the same as I remembered 25 years earlier. In that year, she placed the Adelphi on the market, somewhat ambitiously, for ten million dollars. It did not sell, and I doubt she really wanted it to, until recently.
In early 2012 it went on the market at a more "reasonable" $4.5 million, at which time a local group of investors snapped it up, and it made the news again. There were numerous stories written about it which you can find online-- everywhere from the Saratoga Business Journal to The Albany Times-Union to Forbes Magazine-- whose writer, Teresa Genaro, gave our city some great publicity by putting it out there for the well-heeled national crowd.
So here is the key summary-- in 1976, a young ambitious couple on a shoestring budget buy this place for $100K. in a purely seasonal, somewhat dreary looking, past-peak downtown. They bust their tails trying to keep it afloat and habitable and solvent despite a half-century (at least) of decay and neglect, and somehow manage to not only make a living at it, but became a fixture of Saratoga's summer scene. The town in the meantime comes back to life (that FACADE RESTORATION PROJECT having worked quite nicely, by the way) during the subsequent three and a half decades to the point where it finally sells for 45 times what they paid for it. It looks like a lot of profit, on the surface of things, but blood, sweat, tears, effort, vision, and tons of untold expense are factored in, I'm sure Ms. Parkert would say that she earned every dollar, after 36 years of stewardship. I congratulate her, in her well-deserved retirement, for the foresight and perseverance and sweat-equity which finally paid off, and for the fact that she and her late husband essentially saved an icon of Saratoga's landscape in the first place.
There is old history, and a lot of new history, in this town, and I hope to keep writing about both. Thanks for reading this, and sharing my blog feed with anyone who may be interested.
Take care,
Wayne Perras, for WaynesWord2
via
www.saratoga.com
It took them four full years, apparently, to get it to a point where it was ready to