With rain expected this weekend, Saturday might be the perfect time to visit the Torne Center for A Taste of Ramapo, where restaurants from across the Town of Ramapo host tables offering samples of their fine foods and tasty goods. The combination of Winter Carnival will add a festive air to the free food fun. Continue Reading

I spy . . . . Broken windows, broken teeth. It only takes a couple of these to change a person’s outlook. What about a broken billboard? Along Rt. 17 between the Sloatsburg Municipal Building and traffic light at Seven Lakes Drive, a longtime village resident looks like it lost its stand against the elements. Continue Reading

In an unheated warehouse space, chairs and benches were pulled together in neat rows. Students from Antioch University and Ramapo College sat bundled against the encroaching chill, listening intently to a panel discuss the complex process of how stories bring us together as people and keep us apart — and how these stories actually shape the way we live our lives. Continue Reading

Rockland County carries a mighty debt load, to the tune of nearly $80 million, most of it directly related to Summit Park Hospital/Summit Park Nursing Care Center.

Bear in mind, the county’s primary source of revenue is property taxes. With a population base of approximately 312,000 people, not all homeowners, well, do the math. That’s a lot of debt.

At $1,342, Rockland County has the second highest debt per capita of the 62 New York counties, trailing only Nassau County. Rockland ranks 11th among counties in expenditures per capita at $2,285. The long and short is the books don’t balance. At the end of 2011, the NY State Comproller issued an audit concerning the county’s financial practices. Continue Reading

Ramapo Mountain watershed issues and the story of the Ramapough-Lenape people are old familiars for many in these parts. But they hold interest and reflect a wider concern with governmental and industrial practices currently at work. Say fracking and safe drinking water. Continue Reading

If you’ve ever seen up close one of the metal halide light fixtures that hang in the Sloatsburg Public Library rafters, they look like some crazy miniature space ship. Now, all twelve lights shine anew, showering the library’s steeple room with luminous light. Continue Reading

When the Millenium pipeline project cut through Harriman State Park a few years back, the swath of scarred landscape was wide and staggered along slopes for miles.

In an August 2011 NY/NJ Trails Council Meeting, the Millenium mediation in Harriman was reported as “satisfactory.” And that kind of glowing report for industry follow-through was given on a gas pipeline expansion nearly 10 years in the making, with buy-in at all levels. Continue Reading

Most Tuesday mornings down at the “Shed” on Torne Valley Road, across from the community recreation Torne Center, there can be heard a cacophony of students and sounds, the clang and clack of hammers, voices, whirring of electric saw. In the bustle of activity, tape measures get lost fast. The Shed is base camp for reconstruction of an old saltbox house that at one time stood in Ramapo Hamlet, the old work camp for the Ramapo Iron Works, located directly across the Ramapo River. Continue Reading

Interesting. Crows mimic the low-throated grawk of a raven. Recently, running up the front side of Torne Mountain, I came across two crows chasing a bigger black bird that passed low overhead, grawking in irritation.

First thought: why, that’s got to be a raven. What’s it doing in these parts? Now, an answer. Sure enough, ravens are roosting in Rockland County. More than once there has been the stray flying crow doing that loud grawk. So, those crows were perhaps ravens. The smartest black bird. Corvus corax. Trickster. Creator. Mythological creature. First animal released from the ark. Quarrelsome devoted family bird. Continue Reading

It started with a simple letter in the mail. The Village of Sloatsburg was asking each of a select group of residents to be part of a newly formed committee. Curious about the letters, the group met, compared letters and all agreed the cause was worth the effort — go out into the community and raise funds for Sloatsburg students. They named themselves the Sloatsburg Students’ Scholarship Committee. Continue Reading