Audrey Brand delicately curves her paintbrush along the looping grain of the wood as a trio of European women pause on their way through Gardiner Liquid Mercantile in Ulster County. Brand greets them, stepping back from her easel as they apologize for interrupting her work. “No, you’re supposed to watch,” she says. “You can have…
Monty, 71 Monty Diamond was born in 1946, but he didn’t come out of the closet until 1980. He warns me his experience of being gay might not be typical — he considers himself an odd duck and thinks the interview might not produce what I expect. People’s stories are never typical. Monty attended The…
Amtrak plans to install a series of gates and more than a mile-and-a-half of fencing along the east side of the Hudson River to keep “trespassers” seeking to enjoy the river off its land. The construction is planned in eight locations in five communities — Rhinebeck, Tivoli, Germantown, Stockport and Stuyvesant — to “keep pedestrians…
A crowd of more than 8,000 tramped across the Walkway Over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie Saturday to protest American gun violence in the wake of last month’s Parkland High School shooting. The cross-generational crowd hoisted acerbic protest signs slamming the NRA and pro-gun politicians for what was seen as their complicity in the attack, and…
Faso Friday, a cacophonous weekly protest in front of Republican Congressman John Faso’s office in Kingston, started right on time. At 11:56 a.m., there were only a handful of protestors chatting and erecting signs in a snowbank bordering the parking lot of Faso’s office, but a few minutes later, the crowd had grown to 60.…
John Hillman stands to his full height before Columbia County Judge Richard Koweek and tries to explain why his client, who is scheduled for a pre-trial hearing at 1 p.m., is nowhere to be found. The last time he actually talked to Luis Flores* was three weeks ago, Hillman says as Koweek stares flatly down…
“Everything today is really tight.” Iyla Shornstein, Beals’ 29-year-old chief of staff, swipes through the day’s schedule as Beals loads a giant poster board displaying a map of New York’s 19th Congressional District into the campaign’s SUV. The truck has about 14,500 miles on it and was only purchased in late summer, which speaks to…
About a dozen Hudson High School seniors are participating in a program to promote healthy choices and lead other students away from drugs, as well as changing what they call an unfair perspective of the school held in Columbia County. Living The Example, a program of Mentor Foundation USA, has run in three other Columbia…
Dave Clegg, one of six democratic primary candidates competing for a chance to take on Rep. John Faso in next November’s 19th District congressional election, arrived at a meet and greet at Or in Hudson Dec. 12 with his wife and daughter. The family drove from Clegg’s campaign office in Kingston, his daughter, Jennifer, said,…
I first became interested in unicycle hockey because a friend of mine kept breaking his foot while doing it. After the second fracture, my friend tried to ameliorate his temporary handicap by purchasing what was essentially a peg-leg, which he could kind of hop around on, but the inconveniences of having a disabled pirate at…
The Other Hudson Valley 