This Week at City Hall: New Council Stages First Meeting
SARATOGA SPRINGS – One day after being sworn in, the newly elected City Council convened for its first regular Tuesday night meeting at City Hall on Jan. 2. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the newest members of city government - Public Safety Commissioner Peter Martin, Supervisor Tara Gaston and Mayor Meg Kelly, were the first to arrive.
Mayor Kelly – the 21st mayor in the city’s 102-year history and its fourth woman mayor - made six appointments to three boards: Tom Roohan was appointed chairman of the Saratoga Springs City Center Authority, Stephen “Sully” Sullivan the Authority’s vice-chair and Mark Torpey re-appointment as chairman of the Planning Board, among them.
Two residents speaking during the meeting’s public comment period. One proposed the council pursue ideas for the development of an indoor recreation facility (despite that one recently was constructed on the city’s south side); another requested specific monetary detail regarding the definition of “affordable housing.”
Finance Commissioner Michele Madigan announced the city received more than 900 property-tax prepayments (380 online and 533 in-person) totaling almost $2.9 million during the final week of the 2017 calendar year. “Hopefully, you’ll be able to take the deduction,” Madigan said. “That’s still to be determined.”
Tuesday night’s meeting ran a total of 32 minutes, which, if not an all-time record for brevity, had to be close to one. We may never see one like it again in our lifetimes.
This week at the Planning Board:
Spencer Subdivision. Belmonte Builders is proposing a 22-lot residential cluster subdivision totaling approximately 12.63 acres on property located between Arrowhead Road on the west and Kaydeross Park Road on the east. The proposed lots will vary in size from approximately 10,000 square feet to 16,700 square feet in size. As part of the proposal, approximately 5.2 acres of open space will be created - 1.1 acres located east of the proposed lots along Arrowhead Road and west of the proposed lots on Julians Way, and approximately 4.1 acres located west of Kaydeross Park Road, north of the proposed lot development. The proposed lots will be served by municipal water from the city - for which new water mains will be provided – and will be served by public sanitary sewer.
Ballston Avenue Townhouses. Ballston Ave. Partners has submitted a sketch plan for discussion regarding a proposed town house development at 96 and 116 Ballston Ave.
Wyclef Jean to Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience - Who's Coming to Saratoga in 2018
In 2018, U2 will kick off their two-month North American tour in Oklahoma on May 2 and conclude with shows in New York City - at Madison Square Garden June 25, and New Jersey – at the Prudential Center on June 29. Other major artists slated to stage shows in the U.S. this year – although to date none have been scheduled to take place in the immediate Capital Region – include: Jeff Lynne’s ELO; Maroon 5; Foo Fighters; a Pixies and Weezer co-headlining tour; Taylor Swift; Kenny Chesney; Zac Brown Band; Shakira, Alice Cooper, Jethro Tull, and Jackson Browne – to name a few. Whether any of these shows will land locally remains to be seen.
Concerts currently scheduled to take place in the region in 2018:
Mt. Joy, Jan. 15 @ Hart Theater, Empire State Plaza
Walk The Moon, Jan. 17 @ Upstate Concert Hall
Henry Rollins, Jan. 20 @ The Egg
James Taylor, Jan. 26 @ Times Union Center
Get The Led Out – American Led Zeppelin (tribute), Feb. 3 @Palace Theatre
G3: John Petrucci, Joe Satriani, Phil Collen, Feb. 10 @ Palace Theatre
Three Dog Night, Feb. 11 @ Hart Theatre
Celebrating David Bowie w/ Bernard Fowler, Adrian Belew, Carmine Rojas, Earl Slick and others, Feb. 12 @ The Egg
Next Women of Country w/Sara Evans, RaeLynn, Kalie Shorr, Feb. 15 @ Palace Theatre
Dropkick Murphys, Agnostic Front, Bim Skala Bim, Feb. 25 @ Capital Repertory Theatre
Montgomery Gentry, March 2, @Upstate Concert Hall
Wyclef Jean, March 2 @ Putnam Den.
Rain – A Tribute to the Beatles, March 2 @ Proctors
Shawn Colvin, Lyle Lovett, March 8 @Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
Five for Fighting, March 18, Swyer Theatre
Dixie Dregs, March 21 @ The Egg
Monster Energy Outbreak Tour w/ Jstjr, Kayzo, DJ Gammer, Dubloadz, March 28 @ Upstate Concert Hall
Robin Trower, March 28 @ Hart Theatre
Daughtry, April 7 @ Palace Theatre
They Might Be Giants, April 22 @ The Egg
Dweezil Zappa, April 24 @ The Egg
Alan Jackson, April 28, Times Union Center
Aztec Two-Step, April 28 @ Caffe Lena
Leo Kottke, April 29 @ Swyer Theatre
Yanni, May 13 @ Proctors
Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience, Foreigner, Whitesnake, June 16 @ SPAC
Saratoga Jazz Festival, June 23-24 @ SPAC
Charlie Puth, Hailee Steinfeld, July 22 @ SPAC
Book Launch at Northshire for New Spy Thriller with Saratoga Connections
SARATOGA SPRINGS – A new spy thriller which includes action scenes that take place at Riley’s Lake House, the United States Hotel and other Saratoga locations in 1940 will celebrate its book launch at Northshire this month.
Lawrence Dudley’s “New York Station” has been hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as a gritty spy thriller featuring “a multifaceted protagonist who’s a refreshing change from formulaic genre,” and by critic Angela Woltman for its “never-ending supply of action, new characters, and puzzling subplots.”
The book launch celebration for Dudley’s “New York Station” will take place 7 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 26.
Also this month at Northshire: poet, memoirist & philanthropist Eileen Rockefeller will read poems from her new collection, “Space Between: Selected Poems,” at 7 p.m. on Jan. 12, and Mary Cuffe Perez will share stories from her new book, “Barn Stories: Reflections from a Saratoga County Horse Farm,” at 7 p.m. on Jan. 27.
Events are free and open to the public and will take place at Northshire Bookstore Saratoga, 424 Broadway. For more information on these or other events, call 518-682-4200, or visit the Northshire Bookstore website at www.northshire.com.
Book Launch at Northshire for New Spy Thriller with Saratoga Connections
Dancing Duo Return to Native Saratoga Springs to Launch Dance Retreat
SARATOGA SPRINGS – Madeleine Bokan grew up dancing at Saratoga City Ballet. Her college studies at Fordham University took her to New York City, and subsequently on to her current position as a sales manager for a start-up publisher. Her love of dancing remained strong. She searched for an outlet.
“You’ve had this really important thing, but if you’re not doing it professionally, it’s suddenly gone,” says Bokan, who began attending workshops for ex-dancers who still love to dance. “I was paired up with another member of the program who I quickly learned also had a full-time career outside of the dance world. She was there, like me, to fill that void for movement that all dancers-at-heart hold. Immediately I felt comfortable with these people… a creative space where I fit again.”
Inspired, Bokan re-connected with fellow Saratoga City Ballet dancing alum Erin Dooley who has continues her pursuit of a dancing career, dancing at Joffrey Ballet School and Alvin Ailey School. The duo co-founded Getaway Dance Collective and this month will launch their first retreat in their native Saratoga Springs.
It’s a way of expressing yourself and rehabilitating your body, Bokan explains, for dancers to see themselves as dancers again, by stepping out of their reality and rejuvenating with movement and choreography. “For me, it’s restorative.”
The Getaway Dance Retreat will feature dance classes and workshops at the National Museum of Dance studios and include yoga, Pilates, a guided trail walk on the Avenue of Pines, and a group dinner in Downtown Saratoga Springs. Attendees will be housed for a two-night stay at Anne's Washington Inn - which has been in Bokan’s family for three generations - and takes place Jan. 19-21. Registration is $175, which also includes a Friday welcome happy hour and dinner; Saturday breakfast, lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch.
It’s about showing how movement can rehab the body and the mind in countless ways, Bokan says. “A weekend of wellness, of immersing everyone in movement.”
Registrations will be accepted through Sunday, Jan. 7, and be may be made at: https://getaway-dance.squarespace.com/retreat/.
New Books: Suggested Reads for Music Fans
“The Mudd Club,” by Richard Boch. ($24.95. Feral House. 445 pages).
For 21 months Richard Boch served as the gatekeeper at the Mudd Club, a legendary club located at 77 White St. in downtown Manhattan in the late 1970s and early ‘80s which staged performances by everyone from Marianne Faithful and The Cramps to John Cale and Nico, the B-52’s and William S. Burroughs – the latter reading behind a steel desk from his classic works, as Allen Ginsberg sat stage left, looking on.
“By early spring of 1979, I felt the whole world was headed for White Street – and that working the door was a big deal,” writes Boch, whose job manning the door made him akin to a modern-day St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, deciding who would gain entry and who would be denied to the never-ending mayhem that awaited inside. The door policy: no beards, no fat people, no pre-packaged punk outfits bought by suburbanites at boutiques and no tourists queuing up to gaze at the freaks. More than a concert space – the building’s first floor had a legal capacity of 300, the exclusive second floor offered 2,500 square feet of space, with beer on ice served from a claw-foot tub, and a black steel cage – the club served as a link between the generations where music, art and fashion collided.
Fortified by hot dogs and vanilla egg creams at Dave’s Luncheonette – “a twenty-four-hour dive that specialized in extra grease and lousy coffee,” Boch, a Long Island kid who grew up listening to the Jefferson Airplane, scribes a downtown world of night-stalkers that included David Bowie and Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Frank Zappa, and members of the Sex Pistols and The Clash.
“I met everyone and the job quickly defined me,” he writes in this memoir of the cobbled streets of Lower Manhattan, as the seventies spilled into the eighties during a fiery time of creativity long before the realtors and hipsters would invade and conquer, their hyper-gentrified sensibilities resulting in the blandness that exists today.
“Cover Me: the stories behind the greatest cover songs of all time,” by Rod Padgett. ($22.95, Sterling Publishing Co., 232 pages).
Rod Padgett, who a decade ago founded the popular blog Cover Me, details the stories behind nearly two-dozen original songs popularized by later day “cover” versions. In each of the tunes - which includes Elvis Presley’s rendition of “Hound Dog,” Johnny Cash’s “Hurt,” The Beatles’ “Twist and Shout,” and Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower,” Padgett describes how these artists have a way of making the songs all their own, how those revised versions came to be, and offers a significant historical nod to their original creators, while displaying the artwork of record jackets and context from previously published interviews.
“Stranded in the Jungle: Jerry Nolan’s Wild Ride,” by Curt Weiss. ($24.99, Backbeat Books, 310 pages).
Jerry Nolan, one of the 20th century’s most overlooked drummers, finally gets his story told – and who better to tell it than fellow drummer Curt Weiss. Nolan most famously played drums in the 1970s and ‘80s with the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers, two bands that inspired music and fashion on both sides of the Atlantic.
“They sounded close to what punk rock would sound like a few years later: a steamroller of exuberant, take-no-prisoners rock ‘n’ roll, teetering on the edge of collapse…bum notes be damned,” Weiss writes. “And Jerry…he drove the band like a locomotive.”
Weiss’ biography traces a timeline from Nolan’s Brooklyn upbringing – where he was childhood friends with Peter Criss, later the drummer of Kiss – his earliest inspirations from 1950s rock and roll, and his study of legendary jazz drummer Gene Krupa: “blasting out a snare drum roll, bobbing his head, chin extended, deeply entranced by the music.”
The Jerry Nolan story has been a long time coming, and Weiss has done a great service to music fans by sharing that story.
Man Charged with Spa City Bank Robbery
SARATOGA SPRINGS - A 39-year-old man, suspected of being involved in Wednesday's alleged robbery at the main branch of the Adirondack Trust Company, has been charged with felony robbery and felony grand larceny, according to Saratoga Springs Police.
The man, Anthony J. Paradise, of Ballston Spa, was taken in to custody at approximately 9 p.m. Wednesday. The robbery occurred shortly after noon, earlier that same day. Paradise is suspected of forcibly stealing in excess of $3,000 from the bank.
Police said a search warrant was executed at the Ballston Spa residence where Paradise had been staying short term, and that items were secured with potential ties to the robbery. Paradise is believed to have acted alone.
Bank Robbery on Broadway; Police Seek Public's Help
SARATOGA SPRINGS – A robbery allegedly occurred Wednesday afternoon at the main branch of the Adirondack Trust Company bank.
Authorities were notified at about 12:20 p.m. that a white male passed a note to a teller demanding money and subsequently left the bank with an undisclosed amount of cash. No weapon was displayed.
Police describe the man as being “over 6 feet tall and having a bigger frame.” His jacket was emblazoned across the back with the “Petraccione Plumbing and Heating” company logo.
Police ask anyone with information regarding the incident to contact the Saratoga Springs Police Department at 518-584-1800 or, to remain anonymous, call 518-584-TIPS.
Two previous robbery attempts - in 2007 and in 2010 - occurred at the Broadway branch of the bank, which is located at 473 Broadway, one block from the city police station.
In July 2007, Moreau man Rick Massey handed a teller a threatening note, escaped with nearly $7,000 cash, and fled to Nashville, Tenn., where he turned himself in to police, six days after the incident.
In October 2010, a 57-year-old city man who proclaimed himself to be "a non-violent bank robber" walked into the branch and handed a note to a teller that read, "Give me all your money and God will love you." After the teller gave him nearly $7,000, he put the money back on the counter, made several incoherent statements to bank employees, and exited the bank without any money in hand. He fled on a bicycle, headed west on Church Street and was apprehended by police three blocks later.
The scene outside the Adirondack Trust Co. bank Wednesday afternoon:
Runnin’ Down a Dream: Rochmon Spins Tom Petty at Lena’s Tuesday
SARATOGA SPRINGS – Rochmon Record Club continues its successful monthly run at Caffe Lena on Tuesday, Dec. 19, this time with a focus on the music and career of Tom Petty.
Some fading notebook scribbles related to live appearances witnessed by this reporter, to get you in the mood:
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, August 2006 --- In the end, Tom Petty finished where he began, completing the circle of a 30-year career with a final stroke on his jangling guitar to the tune of “'American Girl.”
Thirty years ago, the youthful face of the singer stared back from his debut album, donning a black leather motorcycle jacket beneath the logo of a guitar shooting through a heart like a broken arrow. Sunday night, Petty returned as the musical maestro of the timeless verse, adorned in crushed velvet with glitter speckles and caught in the reflection of the floodlights that sprayed the crowd in crimson and lavender neon.
With the word out that this summer's tour may be the band's last large cross-country journey, there was a touch of finality in the air at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, where a sell-out crowd of 25,000 cheered Petty and his band of Heartbreakers through a 19-song set celebrating their decades of musical service.
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, August 2005 --- Wearing a schoolboy smile and a multi-colored ascot that invoked the mod Carnaby Street pop-isms of his teenage years, Tom Petty clutched the neck of his white tear-shaped guitar and led his band of Heartbreakers through a rousing two-hour set at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center Saturday night.
Petty's onstage exuberance was reciprocated by a joyous gathering of nearly 25,000 fans, while breathing new life into 1970s material “Breakdown,” “Listen To Her Heart,” and “Refugee,” revisiting drive-time radio hits “'I Won't Back Down,” and “Free Fallin,'” and ratcheting up the sonic intensity beneath the lighted effects of the white-hot strobes with a hit parade that included “Learning To Fly,” “Mary Jane's Last Dance,” and “Don't Come Around Here No More.”
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, July 2002 --- For a quarter of a century, Petty has weaved the poetic language of the common man with a sonically jangled surrealism, along the way acquiring star-power leverage to do battle with record labels, concert promoters and music publishers, and championing the rights of fans and fellow musicians.
His name has been engraved on a five-point star on Hollywood Boulevard, and he was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Not bad for an insurance salesman's son who grew up in Gainesville, Florida who left high school to pursue his vision of the American dream.
Friday night, performing on the fifth date of a summerlong tour, Petty tore through the set opener ''Runnin' Down A Dream,'' flashing his pearly whites at the mic. “'It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down,'' he sang, amid the arsenal of guitar riffs behind him, ''I felt so good, like anything was possible.''
With the backdrop projecting images of falling snow, Petty sang, ''Please shed some light on the road less traveled,'' in a piece titled ''Lost Children,'' as the stage resembled a scene inside a tumbling Christmas snow globe. Haunting melodies oozed from within during his tune ''It's Good To Be King,” and Petty donned a Rickenbacker guitar for the show-closing ''American Girl,'' giving birth to a jangling resonance which hung in the dense air long enough to inspire one last primal dance from the faithful. Eventually, they filed out to rejoin the rest of the world, taking the vibration of its memory far as they could with them into the night.
Palladium, New York City, July 1978 --- “Breakdown” is a nice song. Moody, like Mink DeVille. “I Need To Know,” from the new album, kicks it well enough for a boy from the sticks, ‘tho not as kicking as, say, The Ramones. A slew of obligatory ‘60s covers dotted the night and the highlight was, of course, “American Girl,” which sounds like a tune Petty lifted from Roger McGuinn’s mojo.
Rick Derringer opened the show. He was fine, though not nearly as entertaining as when he played with Edgar Winter Group a few years back. Ted Nugent came on to play a song or two, which signaled most everyone it was a good time for a bathroom break. Ran into David Johansen in the art-deco bathroom downstairs. His new solo album is great and he’s playing the Bottom Line next weekend with Sylvain. Somebody said Warhol is here, up in the front somewhere.
Tuesday’s event begins at 7 p.m., although if last month’s sold out celebration of Rod Stewart’s “Every Picture Tells A Story” is any indication, you want to get there early, or you’re likely to get shut out. Doors open at 6:30. Admission: $5 donation, which goes to the restoration funds of Caffe Lena and Universal Preservation Hall.
Spa City Feature to Broadcast on C-Span This Weekend
SARATOGA SPRINGS - Congress Park and the Saratoga Battlefield. Ulysses S. Grant and Solomon Northup. Yaddo, the Canfield Casino and Saratoga Race Course.
Millions of viewers across the country will have the opportunity to learn about the lore and allure Saratoga has offered its locals for centuries with the premiere broadcast of a special Saratoga Springs segment airing on C-SPAN II and C-SPAN III this weekend.
The show was filmed during a multi-day visit by a C-SPAN Cities Tour crew in late September, and is presented by the cable and satellite television network as an exploration of the American Story.
The episode includes a visit to the mineral springs, a driving tour through Saratoga Springs, and conversations with local politicians, historians, horse trainers and jockeys, and Solomon Northup biographer David Fiske.
Inside the Music Room at Yaddo. The artist colony is one of several sites in and around Saratoga Springs visited by a C-SPAN crew in September. Photo: Thomas Dimopoulos
The schedule:
Noon, Saturday, Dec. 16: Book TV (C-SPAN2, Spectrum Channel 226). Non-fiction programming from the city includes a look at the memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant as he spends his dramatic last days at his cottage, racing against time and terminal cancer to finish writing about his life. Former Albany attorney Andrew McKenna discusses his memoir, "Sheer Madness: From Federal Prosecutor to Federal Prisoner," – which details his struggles with opioid addiction.
2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 17: American History TV (C-SPAN3, Spectrum channel 227). History segments include a visit to Saratoga Race Course to examine thoroughbred racing's impact on the historical identity and economy of Saratoga Springs, a tour of Saratoga National Historic Park where two battles occurred that help turn the tide of the American Revolution.
Segments will be available to view after broadcast at: www.c-span.org/citiestour.
Popular Summer Festival to Wear a New “Hat”
SARATOGA SPRINGS – A pair of music-centric street festivals which bookended the start and conclusion of the Saratoga racing meet for a generation are no more.
The Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce, main sponsors of the Hats Off and Final Stretch festivals, announced this week that it will instead feature a “Welcome Back to Racing” fan event promoting bands performing at a variety of on-site locations at bars, restaurants and hotels.
“It’s a different downtown than it was 30 years ago,” said Chamber President Todd Shimkus. “We have so many more bars and restaurants. We think a better way to spend our time and money is to promote all the different bands playing at all the different restaurants. So, instead of us closing streets and setting up bands and stages, we’re going to collectively promote everything that’s going on inside the restaurants, bars and hotels downtown.”
Last year, the festival featured five bands each night over the course of the two-day festival, down from eight bands that performed at eight different venues each night just six years earlier, and the 10 bands who performed at the free festival in 2004. At that time, there were approximately one dozen different businesses and organizations sponsoring the event along with the Chamber and the New York Racing Association.
The cost to stage the events totals more than $30,000 and while Shimkus acknowledged sponsoring entities like NYRA and others are not contributing as much as they once had in years past, he said money is not a driving force in the Chamber’s decision. “For us, it was the fact that we think there is a better alternative that is more supportive of the entire downtown.”
Shimkus also refuted some public comments that have been made, including some raised during this week’s City Council by local residents, that fears of vehicular terrorism played a role in the festival’s cancellation.
“I can absolutely guarantee you the notion of a terroristic attack had nothing to do with our decision to make this change,” Shimkus said.
The Hats Off festival, later complemented by the season-ending Final Stretch festival, was first staged in the 1990s as a way to increase crowds for the annual opening weekend of the racing season.
“NYRA came up and Ed Lewi was with them and they were discussing what they could do to build up the attendance at the races on the first and the last weekend,” recalled Joe Dalton, who ran the Saratoga County Chamber for 40 years, before retiring in 2010.
“The Chamber basically put it together – myself, and Ed Lewi. NYRA said they would put up half the money and we would raise the other half. And it went very well,” Dalton said. “It attracted people and built up the first and last week of racing, attendance-wise. It benefitted the town and NYRA. Over the years, though, it built up so much that both of those weekends now have big crowds coming, so the need for it dissipated.”
Susan Farnsworth was hired by the Chamber to coordinate the Hats Off and Final Stretch festivals, which she did for for 17 years. Among her duties were hiring a team that set up and tore down the staging, supplying equipment, securing city permits and coordinating with the police, and collaboratively working to secure sponsors and to hire bands
“The Hats Off Festival would draw about 20,000 people each night; Final Stretch drew about 15,000 the first night, and about 10,000 on the second evening,” said Farnsworth, who currently lives in Israel. “My favorite part of the festivals was watching people enjoying the music, seeing children dancing; The atmosphere was fun, friendly, welcoming. It helped secure Saratoga Springs’ reputation as one of the best small cities in America,” she said.
Farnsworth recalled how some visitors would schedule their trips to Saratoga to coincide with the festivals. “The original purpose (of the festivals) was to bring more visitors to town the first and last day of racing,” she said. “I am very sad to see this tradition end, but times change.”
“The primary change is that Hats Off has largely been, for 30-plus years, a bunch of bands the Chamber has paid for, with staging outside and downtown in a variety of different places,” Shimkus says.
“This last year, we had a stage on Caroline Street. We closed the road. We had security there. We paid for a band. What we saw was that Saratoga City Tavern (also) had a band, Gaffney’s had a band, Spa City Tap and Barrel had a band – everybody on Caroline Street that had a space, had a band, and we went: What are we doing?”
Plans are being formulated to sponsor a July festival – it may be staged the Thursday prior to Opening Day – in and around existing bars and restaurants and could include locations such as Hattie’s alleyway, Henry Street venues and on Beekman Street.
The Hats Off festival, which ran from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, largely drew crowds 21 and over. “Maybe that wasn’t the case 10 years ago, but it is now. Families are not coming to the Hats Off festival,” Shimkus said. The specifics will be decided in the new year.
“Everybody out there that’s freaking out, just be a little patient and know that the Chamber has always done what’s in the best interests of the downtown,” Shimkus said. ‘When we announce our final plans, I think everyone will go: ‘Wow, that’s a really good idea.’”
