This past week new fancy street signs got planted in Sloatsburg along the central village corrdor. A project that has taken nearly a year from planning to installation (some of that delay was due to winter), the new spring signage comes in part from a downtown revitalization grant.

“It’s going to be every single street in the center of Sloatsburg from Harriman to Park Avenue,” said Village Trustee Peter Akey, who also serves as Deputy Mayor. Akey has been a quiet engine of change while serving on the board since 2010 and the new street signs are one of his on-going efforts to help beautify the village.

Akey worked closely with Village Clerk Thomas Bollatto on the sign project, which has included other additions to the village — the Welcome to Sloatsburg entrance sign just south of the village, the blue Municipal Building and Justice Court sign that hangs in front of the Municipal Building and the freshly painted Senior Center sign.

Part of a Downtown Revitalization Member Item Initiative Grant from the state of New York, 13 new sign posts with two street signs apiece will be placed along Rt. 17, with the quaint signage moving the village closer to having some semblance of a uniform look by providing the village a background design and color. The cost for the project was $7,900 and the revitalization grant only covered signage for the main central village corridor along Orange Turnpike.

“I personally polled a lot of people, asking them what they’d like,” Akey said about the planning process that considered what color and kinds of signs, and involved interviews and bids from four different sign companies. “We came up with the scheme,” he said, that includes antique green scroll work and a finial to top off the posts.

“The signs were blue for awhile,” added Akey, “but we felt hunter green was more semi rural rustic.”

The signs are high visibility reflective and are modular with a wrap-around base. The Sloatsburg Department of Public Works has installed the new signs up to Post Road. To finish the project, sign posts north of Post Road must be individually customized by the DPW because of their non-standard bases.

Akey hopes the signs add a rustic flourish to the village. He hopes to add to the spring sign effort by adding fresh Sloatsburg banners and, possibly, a few other beautification touches.