Palisades Community Center Board members:
Carol Baxter, President
Alice Buchanan, Vice President
C. Andrew Nelson
Carol Knudson, Secretary
Michele Balm, Mary Ann Brueckner, Lyn Fowler,
Dr. Leo Keegan and Dr. Jeffrey Levine
Honorary Board member: Dr. Virginia McCauley

Bell-ans Center for the Creative Arts
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After more than a century of industrial use the Bell-Ans pharmaceutical factory at the intersection of Route 303 and Kings Highway is being reborn as the Bell-Ans Center of Creative Arts. Last September dozens of visitors sipped wine and wandered through a maze of paint-spattered studios flooded with natural light at the center’s very first Open House. Phyllis Dodge, the woman spearheading the structure’s renaissance, couldn’t have been happier.

Desalination plant defeated. The NYS Public Service Commission ordered United Water not to pursue their plans for a desalination plant and to work with the community to come up with alternative solutions through conservation, reduced leakage and improved repairs. Massive public resistance - over 25,000 people signed petitions - played a major role in its defeat. The Commission ruled United Water was not entitled to seek recovery through a ratepayer surcharge for $50 million pre-construction costs but the company may pursue a surcharge of about $40 million later if the plant is built or plans are permanently scrapped.

More than a year ago the New York Department of Environmental Conservation announced that it planned to eradicate the tall common reed, also known as phragmites, from the Piermont Marsh using herbicides. DEC considers phragmites an invasive species that they say tends to suppress biological diversity.

An Artist's Rendering of the Proposed Office Tower
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The LG headquarters controversy continues. On August 13, 2014 the Englewood Cliffs Borough Council voted to reinstitute a building height limit of 35 feet for all of Englewood Cliffs. This reverses a 2012 decision by the borough’s now defunct Zoning Board to allow buildings up to 90 feet high on commercial lots between five to 25 acres, and up to 150 feet on lots larger than 25 acres. The increased height limits were instituted after the borough was sued for giving electronics giant LG a variance to build a 143-foot tower as part of its new U.S. headquarters.

The History of a Living Commiunity Hidden Away in the Palisades Cemetery
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After 65 years, ownership of the Palisades Cemetery has returned to the community. On December 12, 2014, David Englander and Michael Shapiro drove to the city, carrying a modest check, and returned with a deed to the Palisades Cemetery signed by the widow of Adolpho Luca, the last owner. The cemetery is now owned by a non-profit cemetery corporation administered by a Board of Directors: Carol Knudson, Joan Salomon, Lee Sneden, Michael Shapiro and Alice Gerard, all of whom have been associated with the efforts made in the last few years to preserve the cemetery and return its ownership to the hamlet of Palisades.

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Palisades Presbyterian Church
117 Washington Spring Road, PO Box 687
845-359-3147
ppc10964@gmail.com, www.palpresny.org

Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Please check out our facebook page!
www.facebook.com/ThePalisadesPresbyterianChurch

There is not a Division of Motor Vehicles in Nanuet but there is something that comes very close. Housed in an unobtrusive store front for the last 18 years, Wendy's Auto Express, owned by Suffern resident Wendy Winneck, can process things like registrations, duplicate titles and even license plates for a nominal cost with no lines or hassles.

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Palisades Free Library
Member of the Ramapo Catskill Library System and ANSER Network
19 Closter Road, Palisades, NY 10964
845-359-0136, Fax 845-359-6124
www.palisadeslibrary.org

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for the New Sidewalk
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Joined by Orangetown Supervisor Andy Stewart, State Senator David Carlucci, and other dignitaries, Palisades resident Carol Baxter cuts the ribbon on the new Oak Tree Road sidewalk project at a ceremony held Sunday, October 26th at noon in front of the Palisades Community Center. The project, which began planning over six years ago, allows residents of Palisades to walk safely along busy Oak Tree Road and connects key community landmarks such as the post office, library, bus stop and community center. The approximately $235,000 project was funded in large part by $150,000 in state funds delivered by Senator Carlucci.

Walgreens built a $74 billion company by being in the right place at the right time, but a possible new location at the intersection of Oak Tree Road and NYS Route 303 might be a tough spot for “The Pharmacy America Trusts.”

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The Palisades Community Center Presents

The Palisades Community Directory 2015

This is our LAST CALL!!!!

We are in the FINAL stages of updating the popular Palisades phone directory. The last directory was compiled in 2008. The Absolute FINAL Deadline for listings is OCTOBER 31.

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Maki, my 13 and a half-year-old, wire-haired Dachshund died this August. He was born in January of 2001, the eight puppy of a litter from our dog Dandelion. After the dramatic birth of seven puppies over the course of 20 hours we thought Dandelion was finished and took her to the vet. On the way home my 10-year-old Noah, ex claimed from the back seat of the car, “Mommy, Mommy something strange is coming out of Dandelion! Itʼs another puppy!”

Palisades Presbyterian Church

117 Washington Spring Road
PO Box 687
Palisades, N.Y. 10964
Phone: 845-359-3147
Website: www.palpresny.org
e-mail: ppc10965@gmail.com
Please check out our new face- book page! www.facebook.com/ThePalisadesPresbyterianChurch

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As newspapers close up shop across America, the local publication Our Town is going strong. One likely reason is the dedication of its founder, publisher and editor Arthur Aldrich, who started the weekly 41 years ago.

Art Shows

Until October 11 - Peter Baryshnikov has a show of photographs up at the National Arts Club, 15 Grammercy Park South. Admission is free.

Until October 13 - David Wolk has a show of photographs up at the Goldsmith Gallery in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

In 2008, at the annual Palisades Community Center (PCC) meeting, the community was very vocal, yet again, about their concerns of safety on Oak Tree Road, primarily speeding and the lack of a sidewalk between the PCC and RT 9W. So began the concerted effort to get a sidewalk installed. For six years the community attended countless town meetings to give impassioned speeches, and e-mailed letters to three successive town supervisors and the town board. Finally, after years of twists and turns, we were thrilled when, in early September, a construction crew appeared and in less than three weeks our sidewalk was in.

As of now, by 2017, a low slung, 143- foot tall rectangular office building will rise above the ribbon of trees north and west of the George Washington Bridge – a monument to the marriage of big money and small town politics. Perched on the cliffs opposite the Cloisters, the tower will be the first visible structure built since John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donated 2500 acres to the Palisades Interstate Park Commission in the 1930s. Rockefellerʼs gift was to prevent quarry companies from blasting parts of the magnificent geological formation into gravel. Now, in the digital age, the natural beauty of the cliffs is under siege again.

We thank Michael Tersigni as he steps off the PCC Board for his dedicated service. For our handicap ramp project, he donated his architectural skills and helped to oversee all aspects of the project. He and David Palachek gave freely their graphic design talents. We will miss him, but are delighted that he has offered to assist us with the handicap bathroom and kitchen project.

On March 29, Town Supervisor Andy Stewart and Superintendent of Highways Jim Dean came to a community meeting at the Palisades Community Center to discuss the status of the Oak Tree Road sidewalk. The meeting gave us the opportunity to discuss the sidewalk and other traffic safety concerns and to express our frustration at the delay in the sidewalk project that we have been advocating since 2008. Jim Dean and Andy Stewart assured us that it will be completed this year.