The Palisades Community Center in spring 2008
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For one hundred years, the sounds of children playing and school bells ringing could be heard from the Palisades Schoolhouse located at 675 Oak Tree Road. Built circa 1870, the children of Palisades were educated in the Schoolhouse until 1936 when the student population outgrew the building and the red brick school was built across the street. From 1936 until 1970, the Schoolhouse continued to serve an educational purpose. In the late 1950’s, when the student population eventually outgrew the red brick building, kindergarten was held in the Schoolhouse and in the 1960’s both the kindergarten and 6th grade were housed there. Children walked across the street to the Schoolhouse for lunch prepared by the “Hot Mamas.”

Palisades Community Center
Board members: Carol Baxter, President; Carol Knudson, Vice President; Jill Wecht, Treasurer; Sheila Chin, Secretary; and Michele Balm, Alice Buchanan, Lyn Fowler, Dr. Leo Keegan, Michael Tersigni and Honorary Board member Dr. Virginia McCauley

Mailing Address:
PO Box 222 Palisades, NY 10964
Phone: 398-2521 during business hours
e-mail: PCC@palisadesny.com
Website: www.Palisadesny.com

We are pleased to announce our two newest board members: Lyn Fowler and Michael Tersigni. Lyn has a MBA and has worked in publishing for over twelve years. Michael has been a leader in the international design industry for over twenty years specializing in creative development and implementation of design concepts. We welcome their experience and enthusiasm and look forward to their contributions as we move forward.

Board members:
Carol Baxter, President; Carol Knudson, Vice President; Jill Wecht, Treasurer; Sheila Chin, Secretary; and Michele Balm, Alice Buchanan, Dr. Leo Keegan and Honorary Board member Dr. Virginia McCauley.

Mailing Address:
PO Box 222 Palisades, NY 10964
Phone: 845-398-2521 during business hours
e-mail: PCC@palisadesny.com
Website: www.Palisadesny.com

During this holiday time of gratefulness, we would like to thank all those who have made donations, both financial and in-kind, to the Palisades Community Center. The PCC receives no funding and relies solely on donations, membership and rentals to maintain this very special building.

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This summer, we finished exterior painting, weather-proofed, made improvements to the bathroom, planted our front gardens, and made hundreds of little repairs. Our big project was refinishing the floors. They are gorgeous. Come take a look. We highly recommend Floor Solutions who discounted their service in support of the building. They can be reached at (845) 406-2825. Tell them the Palisades Community Center referred them!

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The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage of exploration of the Hudson River. The Palisades Historical Committee and the Palisades Free Library celebrated this milestone with a weekend of special events.

We are increasing our offerings at the community center and welcome new programs. At our Annual Earth Day Tag sale this year, we joined up with Keep Rockland Beautiful and had clean-up supplies available for the community to clean-up their neighborhoods. We thank those who recycled their items wth us and the volunteers who helped with this event.

We’ve had a busy winter and are looking forward to spring so we can get back to making critical repairs. We are grateful to those who made financial donations and thank the following people who generously lent us a hand: Cellen Wolk who donated and planted dozens of daffodils, Robert Adzema for building a basement door at a discount, Larry Bucciarelli for donating driveway plows, Ed at Arbor Hill who donated a percentage of Christmas tree sales, Michael and Michelle Schwartz for donating Christmas trees to sell, Susan Nemesdy and Neil Balm for lending a hand and David Wolk for graphic art. A sincere thanks to Reddi-Alarm Fire Systems who installed a fire system quickly and at no cost. They were efficient and a pleasure to work with.

“Our Community’s Center”

Festive Launch for the Third Edition of Palisades Famous Cookbook
On November 1, the Palisades Community Center kicked off the new Pots & Pans in Palisades cookbook with a tasting party. Amidst twinkling lights and with a glass of wine in hand, a hundred fifty partygoers sampled recipes from the cookbook contributed by dozens of Palisadians. We thank Alice Gerard and Mary Tiegreen for recreating a third edition of this cookbook, the first in forty years, and donating all profits from the sale of the cookbook to the Palisades Community Center Restoration Campaign. So far, almost 250 cookbooks have been sold.

The 10964 Newsletter recently made a generous donation of several thousand dollars to the Palisades Community Center's Restoration Campaign.

The PCC is perfect space for your next party, meeting or class. For rental arrangements, contact Eileen Larkin at 359-6589. Don’t be left out! Join our e-mail list and we will e-mail you our monthly calendar of events: community.center@palisadesny.com.

PCC school building in 1918, from an old postcard.
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Welcome to our new PCC board members, Alice Buchanan and Jill Wecht.
We extend heartfelt thankyous to Linda Jouas (who served as our treasurer for 20 years), Henry Ottley (who provided much construction labor and our beautiful PCC sign), and Tony Gerard (who provided legal advice and support). They have recently stepped down from the Board.

The Disappearance of the Blinking Light Explained

At the Annual Town Meeting held at the PCC on January 30th, community members shared their concerns with Town Supervisor Thom Kleiner and new Council members Nancy Low-Hogan and Michael Maturo. Topics included zoning and setback laws, the Palisades school, and 9W development. However, the main focus of conversation turned to traffic.

Children build their own scarecrows at the Palisades Community Center
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Autumn brought twenty scarecrows to Palisades, all dressed up and ready to bring that special Halloween spirit to our hamlet. A huge thank you goes out to Larry Bucciarelli who provided the lumber, labor and homemade honey! Another heartfelt thanks to Carol Baxter who got this great idea going as well as Carol Knudson, Sheila Chin and Michèle Balm for working on covering the production aspects from clothing and stuffing for the crows to warm apple cider and donuts, to pumpkin carving tools. The event was a big crowd pleaser and sure to be repeated in years to come!

The last event before the summer hiatus was the Community Center’s Family BBQ Fund-raiser which was a great Palisades family affair. Those attending participated in many activities such as learning how to square dance, a whip cream pie eating contest, a real pie contest for both adults and kids, as well as tug-of-war and water balloon activities, to name just a few. The rain was a bit cumbersome but did not dampen the spirit of those witnessing the unveiling of the Palisades Community Center sign so generously donated by fellow Palisadian, Henry Ottley.

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Spring Clean-up and Mini-Earth Day
Saturday, May 19, 2007
10:00 AM – 3:00 PM at the Palisades Community Center

All families are invited to come and help clean our Community Center as well as our Palisades neighborhood. Fun activities for the kids will include, planting bulbs, setting up spring garden, arts and crafts from recycled materials and more. Adult help is needed in cleaning up bocce ball court, raking, fixing driveway, cleaning inside of Center as well as picking-up garbage up and down Oak Tree Road. (Students who need community service hours may attend.)

For information, contact Michele Balm at miepbalm@aol.com or Carol Baxter at carolbax@optonline.net

In Search of Extraordinary Palisadians

Fundraising Event Planned for Fall, 2007

As we regroup after a brief summer respite, the PCC Board is diligently working on several fronts to continue the trend toward making the Community Center an active hub of our community. The fresh paint job, wallpaper and gorgeous new curtains have given the center that added touch to make it much more inviting and flexible for a broader spectrum of venues. We urge you to consider renting the space for your upcoming special event as it is becoming our own little backyard special events facility! Let’s keep it thriving!