(Click to enlarge)

On November 3, 2011, the headlines of an article in the New York Daily News read Retired NYPD Detective Larkin, 73, Liked Fishing. The article began “William (Billy) Larkin, a retired NYPD Detective Sargeant who ran an East Bronx detective squad and was considered a legend among police bosses and locals, has died.”

Mary Tiegreen is a risk taker of sorts. In 1979, she decided to forsake the security of permanent employment for the freedom to be her own boss. Now, thirty two years later, she has never looked back. Mary grew up in Chicago. After graduating the University of Iowa with a degree in photography, she moved to London where she stayed for two years. It was off to New York City after that. “I always wanted to come to New York,” she says. “For me, itʼs the center for the arts with wonderfully creative people like Milton Glaser who I took two courses with in the early 80s.”

Beatrice Agnew, former librarian of the Palisades Free Library, and Mary Berhringer, former librarian of the Blauvelt Free Library, were good friends in life. Although they are no longer with us, I have recently forged a different sort of connection between them: stained glass windows.

Bob Breer (1926-2011), artist, filmmaker and pioneer of avant-garde animation died on August 11, in his home in Tucson where he was living with his wife Kate Flax.

Robert E. Barrett, a neurologist, died on Saturday, June 25 at his home in Sparkill. He was 79. The cause was prostate cancer, his wife, Virginia, said.

Charles Shimel, who served as a trustee of the Palisades Free Library since 2004, died July 25th, when he lost a courageous battle to recover from the lung surgery he underwent last November. He died at the Friedwald Center in New City with his wife, Harriet Hyams, and his family at his side. He was 86 years old.

At any time of the day, all over Palisades, you can see people walking and running. Heaven knows in our tiny hamlet, there are very few places to go. But these people are on a jaunt to nowhere, just out to enjoy the change of seasons, the solitude of day, the beauty of our surroundings, the interaction with neighbors and yes the exercise. It is not a new phenomenon. Alice Gerard walks in the footsteps of her mother, who walked our hills daily, well into her 90’s. Then there is Cass Ludington, Jerry Lehman, Helene Powers, Shelly Cohen, Marina Harrison and Jeannie Boose, just to name a few, who walk at least several times a week while dozens more walk their dogs or push strollers.

Palisadian Kris Haberman lived and worked in Shanghai for four months this past spring, embedded in the Chinese client team, which was comprised of developers, architects, restaurateurs and financial analysts. The project was for a Chinese real estate developer who wanted to create a new style of community within China.

Frank Umbrino 1947-2011
(Click to enlarge)

Frank Umbrino of Palisades was born in the Bronx on January 26, 1947, the son of a lamp maker father and a mother who worked in a sweatshop. It was during his school years that he fell deeply in love with music. While he never played an instrument, he soaked up music performed by guest musicians, many of them famous, who played in his school’s rich music program.

Ed Kalotkin at work
(Click to enlarge)

Quick. What do local historian Alice Gerard and actor Bill Murray have in common? Give up? Then I’ll tell you. They have both been treated by Dr. Ed Kalotkin of Palisades Physical Therapy. Alice says he treated her after shoulder surgery without hurting her and she got better. Bill says he could not have won the Pro-Am PGA Tournament at Pebble Beach without him. And there are many others who feel the same way.

Larry Bucciarelli finds bees extremely interesting insects. He should know, he first started keeping bees when he was a kid. He learned the ins and outs from his grandfather who raised bees at his home in Fort Lee. Larry went to college at the University of Hawaii and in exchange for keeping on eye on their 70 hives (it would take a full week to extract the honey from the hives) he got free tuition. “Because it was the tropics, they produced triple the amount of honey that you would get here,” Larry says. “I would extract the honey three or four times a year.”

Leon "Lee" Drechsler
(Click to enlarge)

Leon Drechsler, who moved to Palisades with his beautiful artist wife Paula and their three young children in 1958, passed away on December 10, 2011. After serving in the Navy during WWII, Leon, known as Lee to all, graduated from Pratt Institute with a certificate in Industrial Design. He and Paula first settled in New Hope, where their first child, John, was born. They ran The Contemporary Studio, a fine arts gallery representing such artists as Isamu Naguchi and George Nakashima.

Angie, 1950s
(Click to enlarge)

Angie Hyde was born in Palisades in 1926 and lived here until the 50s, building a small stone house on Woods Road with her husband Lloyd Bjorklund. There was a fire at the house, and soon afterward they moved to California. Lloyd died years ago. Today Angie is in a wheelchair and lives in a nursing home. In December she returned to Palisades briefly, undertaking an odyssey across the country to see family members and some old friends.

Dinny with two of her charges
(Click to enlarge)

Dinny Price, who helped to raise several generations of Palisades children, died on November 29th, 2010, at the age of 75. She had lived in Palisades for forty-eight years. Her grandfather Joseph Lieval came from France in the late 19th century and became a partner in an artificial flower business located on Oak Tree Road. He married Angeline Hennequin and had three children, Constance (Dinny's mother), John and Joseph. Constance Lieval married Harrison Price, an engineer with International General Electric. They moved to Grandview where their first four children were born.

John Daly, the son of John and Jennifer Daly of Swan Street, recently achieved the highest Boy Scout level: Eagle Scout. John chose to give back to his Palisades community by renovating the lobby of the Palisades Community Center for his Eagle Scout project. He spent the summer raising money, drafting plans, purchasing materials, organizing and supervising his laborers as well as doing much of the labor himself.

Larry Tabor
(Click to enlarge)

On meeting the mild-mannered Palisadian, Larry Tabor, one would not guess the subversive activity he is engaged in. He will tell you with a convincing air of innocence that he has never heard of guerrilla gardening, and is surprised to learn that he is a practitioner of the first order.

One afternoon near the end of October the usual quiet of Washington Spring Road was shattered by the sound of a saxophone, carried by 23-year-old Nick Stefos, who was looking for his lost dog, Charlie. Charlie, a small white cockapoo (half cocker spaniel, half poodle) had run away from the Stefos home in Blauvelt on October 12.

Palisades resident Leslie Price Hayes will appear as Blanche DuBois in a production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, presented by the Fellowship Theatre of Chatham in Chatham, New Jersey. Last year, Leslie appeared as Amanda Wingfield in Williams's The Glass Menagerie, stepping into that role just two weeks before opening night.

Cristina Biaggi
(Click to enlarge)

I was very excited (and nervous) on one Saturday morning this past August when I started out on my trip to be in a movie called Peace, Love and Misunderstanding with Jane Fonda in Rosendale, New York.

Grace Knowlton and Eric Laxman
(Click to enlarge)

Over 200 guests filled Dellwood Country Club Sunday, November 7th to honor dedicated arts-education advocate Barbara Kalvert and celebrated multi-media artist Grace Knowlton at the 2010 RoCA "Through the Looking Glass" themed Gala.