Shoppers on Main Street were photographed for the New York Times article on Oneonta’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative (Nathaniel Brooks for the New York Times)
ONEONTA – An article highlighting Oneonta’s $10 Million Downtown Revitalization Initiative made the NY Region section of the New York Times yesterday.
Headlined, “For Oneonta’s Aging Downtown, a $10 Million Face-Lift,” Lisa W. Foderaro’s article focuses on Mayor Gary Herzig’s efforts to bring young renters and shoppers back to Oneonta’s downtown by renovating historic buildings, upgrading signage and increasing housing offerings.
“We’re very lucky in that our downtown is beautiful and historic and it’s mostly still intact,” Herzig told the paper. “We are the largest city in a 50- to 60-mile radius. Really what we need are more people to live in our downtown, to be visiting our downtown and to work downtown.”
Editor’s Note: The lead article in the Oct. 27, 2016, edition of The Freeman’s Journal set off a debate on the Village of Cooperstown’s decision to divest fossil-fuel investments between two local heavy-hitters, Lou Allstadt, the village trustee and former Mobil executive vice president, and David Russell, the lawyer, banker and former pension counsel to the New York State Office of the Controller. Interest in the Allstadt-Russell discussion and requests for reprints has prompted this online compilation of the discussion.
By banning fracking and backing casinos, Governor Cuomo got it backwards, New York Times’ columnist Joe Nocera opined in Saturday’s newspaper.
“Anyone who cares about the economic viability of New York State should be troubled by these two decisions,” Nocera wrote. “It is fracking — despite risks — that has the potential to boost struggling communities, by providing well-paying, middle-class jobs. Casinos, meanwhile, are a road to nowhere. The Cuomo administration got it exactly backward. ” READ MORE
Local writers George Saunders and Dana Spiotta were among 900 authors who took out a two-page ad in today’s New York Times decrying Amazon “directly targetting” authors to extract contract concessions from their publisher, Hachette.
Sherman Alexie, who delivered SUNY Oneonta’s Mills Distinguished Lecture last September after his 2007 novel “Flight” was the college’s first “common read,” also signed the ad.
They join John Grisham, Stephen King, James Patterson and most leading U.S. writers in adding their names to the ad.
Saunders, who teaches at Syracuse University, is living in the Oneonta area, although he has been keeping a low profile locally. Last year’s prize-winning short story collection, “Tenth of December,” was published to national raves.
Spiotta was proprietor of The Rose & Kettle restaurant in Cherry Valley while writing “Eat the Document,” which was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award. After a year at the American Academy in Rome, she also is teaching at Syracuse.
When the New York Times interview Mayor Jeff Katz in conjunction with the Baseball Hall of Fame’s 75th anniversary, he repeated a now-familiar plaint: “Everyone makes more money off Cooperstown than the village of Cooperstown does.”
