KATIE ELEVITCH, owner of 95 1/2 MAIN in Nyack, is launching a new Grant Award for Single Mothers, to be named in honor of her late mother, Carol Elevitch, longtime Palisades resident, who passed away January 7, 2018. For information on how you can contribute to this grant please email 95halfmain@gmail.com.

FOR SALE - Tunturi rowing machine 201, stores upright, like new, $65, call 845-359-7428.

(Click to enlarge)

In her new book, Activism Into Art Into Activism Into Art: A Personal History of Feminist Art, CRISTINA BIAGGI, PHD, offers an intimate view into the well-springs of her devotion to living life fully through her writings, her political activities, her exploration of the farther reaches of the world and her art. This is a woman who, born to wealth and privilege, found herself outside the normative roles expected of her class and gender. In the search for her authentic self and the means to make the world a saner place, Cristina found her home in the community of women and the Goddess Spirituality, along the way owning an art gallery in the swankest district of Rome, making and losing fortunes, smuggling riches out of Egypt, forming families with her husband and then with her female partner and agitating for social justice, to list just a few of her exploits. The book’s most interesting achievement lies in weaving Cristina’s lived experience with the ancient past and pointing a way to the future through a reimagining of matriarchal religions in her sculpture and paintings.

HNA - PENDING SALE RUMOR
A January 30, 2019 article posted on the online Rockland County Business Journal stated that HNA Palisades Premier Conference Center was under contract to be sold. The article gave few details, only that a source close to the deal said the property was being sold to a Brook-lyn group for somewhere between $45 million and $50 million. When the author was contacted, no other facts were supplied.

When HNA requested a zone change from LO (Laboratory Office) to OP (Office Park) last summer, it was clear that both HNA and IBM relied on the ability to offer hotel rooms to make their conference center financially successful. The only way to keep the HNA property continuing to function as a conference center/hotel, and to possibly keep them here, was to allow the zone change so that they could operate legally as a hotel, and if they were to sell, which at some point could happen, then it could be sold as a conference center with a legal hotel. Same use. To prevent it from becoming a 21-story Blue Hill, residents fought for a Restrictive Covenant, which is passed on to future owners: NO change of height and NO outside retail shops and stores. If it had remained LO zoned, hotel use would not be legal but schools, business/professional offices, research, experiment and testing labs and public utility pump and substations were permitted, a marked change from what it is now.

A conference/hotel property has served Palisades well for 40 years and it is hopeful that since HNA lined up the approval to build 100 hotel rooms, this current owner will keep the property the same. We need to watch this carefully. There is no additional information at this time nor are there public records of a pending sale.

RT 9W UPDATE
After ten years of advocating for a lower speed limit on RT 9W from the New Jersey border to Sparkill Viaduct, the NYS Department of Transportation (DOT) agreed to lower the speed limit from 45mph to 40mph. Businesses on RT 9W and community members had hoped for 35mph down the steep dangerous hill through the Oak Tree Road intersection and past the 9W Market, but the DOT felt that dropping it 10mph all at once was too much. Hopefully this will have a positive safety affect.

Requested safety improvements to the RT 9W/Oak Tree Road intersection are bundled with 38 other communities and will go out to bid. It is anticipated that improvements to the intersection will be implemented sometime between 2020-2021. It appears we have to wait and pray there are no more accidents here. NO LEFT TURN from RT 9W traveling north onto Closter Road or turning left onto RT 9W from Closter Road. Also, no right turn on red from Oak Tree Road onto RT 9W going south. All are prohibited and clearly marked with signs. Police are patrolling the RT 9W area, enforcing speed limits and turns, so be watchful.

PALIS-AGERS' MEETING
The Palis-agers will meet in the Community Room of the Palisades Presbyterian Church at 1:30 pm on March 21, hopefully to celebrate the coming of spring. Please join us for coffee, cookies and conversation.

On March 31, ALICE GERARD will receive the Living Landmark Award from the Historical Society of Rockland County during the Society's annual dinner at the View on the Hudson in Piermont.