Now that the derelict brick building on State Street (the one that was forcing the I-81 closure) is being knocked down, maybe it’s time to see how bigger cities deal with their old buildings. Answer: they raze them mercilessly and without tears. A website by a NYC film location scout takes a look at how New York City has changed since Taxi Driver was filmed there in the mid-70’s. He estimates that 90% of the New York seen in the film is now gone. (True, the movie had a lot of seedy locations and nobody wants a filthy Times Square any more, but even mundane, respectable buildings have disappeared.)

This picture interested me especially:

The old-fashioned vertical “Parking” sign behind Travis Bickle is not there any more. Yet, in Syracuse we still have one that’s similar. (The parking garage it’s attached to is a crumbling mess, but what of that?)

There’s news that a movie is set to be filmed at the old Hotel Syracuse. Maybe Syracuse can still loan itself out as a cinematic stand-in for 1970s cities, since time here apparently stands still.

I have received my “the Census is coming” letter. Hopefully you did too, because this is The Most Important Census of Our Lifetimes. Stand up and be counted, or else much-needed funding or representation will go elsewhere — maybe to a county or state that’s more heavily populated with people who don’t think like you.

It used to be that every election was The Most Important Election of Our Lifetimes (a favorite theme at places like Daily Kos and Free Republic). First there was the Most Important Presidential Election of Our Lifetimes, and then there came the Most Important Congressional Elections of Our Lifetimes. But that idea has gotten old and no one listens to it any more, because these Important Elections don’t prevent bad stuff from continuing to happen, even if your side wins. So, now it’s the Census that’s the next logical thing to become critically important.

I wonder what becomes Important next, once the Census doesn’t help anything either. I’m guessing it will devolve to The Most Important NCAA Bracket of Our Lifetimes, followed closely by The Most Important American Idol Vote of Our Lifetimes, finally winding up with The Most Important Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie of Our Lifetimes. When the ensuing Most Important Food Fight of Our Lifetimes does not yield clarity, then we will have reached that great void from whose bourn no civilization returns.

And that’s how the world ends. So, please fill out your Census.

This past week, a rally was held in Albany to protest the planned closures of state parks. One Assemblyman was quoted by the Albany TU: “In my 34 years with the Legislature, I have never seen an issue that has resonated so much with the public. I am getting more mail on this issue than anything else.”

Some people concerned about the parks and the economy may be wondering, “There’s tons of people out of work these days — so why can’t the government put them to work repairing the infrastructure of the parks — the roads, bridges, bathhouses, trails and campsites?” They may be remembering the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the New Deal-era program that put 3 million Americans to work during the Great Depression on all kinds of outdoor projects, including many New York State parks which still show off their handiwork today. (This Flickr group has collected photos of all kinds of buildings created by the CCC.)

There’s no CCC any more, and last year’s federal stimulus measure did not create one. In New York, a newly created State Parks Conservation Corps received over $3 million in federal stimulus funds from the NY Department of Labor to put about 200 students - broken up into smaller groups and sent to different regions of the state — on trail maintenance work for several months last year. (This seems a far cry from the large camps of CCC guys who were working on infrastructure during the Depression.)

The State Parks student effort was overseen by the Student Conservation Association, a group which has been doing similar work nationwide for many years and is active in New York. While it’s good to know that groups like the SCA are around, when you look at a list of the places where the SCA is active, you’ll notice they mostly only work in the Adirondacks, Hudson Valley-Catskills, Albany and New York City metro regions. (Whether coincidentally or not, these just happen to be the regions where political power is concentrated in our state — or where the powers most often go to play.)

But it’s hard enough finding money to support even the park system’s dedicated employees, much less an emergency job corps, as blogger Norbrook points out in this must-read post: “Why would park people be grumpy?” Norbrook writes:

The problem with the way we’ve been treating our parks is that it never gets better. Another friend of mine who’s been running parks for a long time told me “I get through by thinking next year will be better. The problem is that next year is always worse.” For a very long time, park personnel have been dealing with failing infrastructure that never gets money to repair it, personnel cuts or hiring freezes, watching as money is shifted from one area to another in mid-year, and do the best they can with what they have. It’s a case of “the beatings will continue until morale improves” for them. It’s hard to remain upbeat over time, when things never seem to get better. Then the recession hits, and the state budget is being drastically cut. You find out it can get worse. Not only is the already inadequate funding cut, but you’re not even sure that your park will be open anymore.

…This year, if you notice the park staffs seem “grumpy” it’s because they are. They’re hitting a breaking point, and it’s becoming impossible to keep a cheery face to the public. They know that things aren’t going to get better for them. The effort to keep parks open is just one small part of what we should be advocating. We should also be advocating to make sure that they have the resources they need, and to prevent this from happening in the future.

It’s back…

Solid Shale is a blog that people concerned about hydrofracking might want to check out.

Norbrook’s Blog is for “Opinions from the Central Adirondacks” (with much to say about the state parks)

Occasional commenter here, Mrs. M has been awfully busy with her own blog stable, including New York Renovator (”the challenges of renovating an 1855 home in upstate New York”)

And, wow. From Adirondack Almanack, more than you ever wanted to know about where bees actually go in the winter. Think about this the next time you’re at a festival and there’s a long line for the portajohns.

Binghamton’s WSKG-TV created a series of spots to highlight the state parks of the Southern Tier. There are nine “State Park Minutes” in all. You can watch them here.

At least three of these parks face immediate closure or service reductions under the current budget proposal. At least two more of them are in danger if anticipated emergency funding for the state parks system does not materialize.

The latest in the Paterson business…

A key figure in the domestic abuse scandal bedeviling Gov. David A. Paterson told investigators that the governor phoned to enlist her help in quieting the accuser, according to a person with knowledge of her account.

“Tell her the governor wants her to make this go away,” Deneane Brown said Mr. Paterson told her, according to the person. Ms. Brown, a state worker, was friends with both the governor and the woman who says that a senior aide to Mr. Paterson roughed her up in a Halloween altercation.

“Women’s equality” and “women’s issues” are great abstract concepts for most politicians, but especially abstract to members of the NYC establishment (of which David Paterson is one - Harlem branch, although we could say the same for other prominent NYC based politicians and their staffs). When it comes to, uh, actual women in front of them, that’s a different ballgame altogether. Somehow, to them, women cause these troubles by their very presence around powerful men and their staffs — and so it is a “reasonable request” probably for these politicians, to ask that they (the women) “make it go away.”

So my question is: if women are really that powerful that they cause all these troubles and have the power to make them go away, what the hell are these women doing wasting their power in Albany, where men seem to have them in a box? (Don’t forget that, across many parts of the world, you even have the power to confound and bewitch whole legions of men simply by uncovering your hair! You don’t even have to be beautiful - you just have to have two X chromosomes, and boom — the hair is deadly!)

We’ve already established that women “have the power” - so why are we using it so ineptly? Why are we wasting it on participating in a dysfunctional game we can never win? Political power is not the same thing as holding political office, especially if the offices and the government are built on shifting sands.

Maybe it’s time to vacate Albany and get back to Seneca Falls, stat. Maybe it is time to make an increased effort to move the capital — literally — over to Seneca Falls: to warp this state’s center of political gravity just as much as our last two governors’ sense of their power has apparently been warped. Liz Krueger, Joan Christensen, leave that city on the Hudson immediately and call a general assembly of your female colleagues and their friends, right inside the roofless Wesleyan Church on Fall Street if necessary. It can’t be any more of a cold, uncomfortable and undignified meeting-place for New York women than the mighty Capitol is right about now.

You have the power to “make it go away.”

Just a quick note to memorialize the passing of Centro’s 178 Fairmount Hills route, formerly known as the 4G. Since the time of Christ, it served the far-flung upper reaches of the southeast of the Town of Camillus, but fell victim to Centro service cuts effective Monday. I forgot this was going to happen so I didn’t even have a chance to wave goodbye to the convenient (well, sorta) connection to the city that once ran right by my house and provided a direct connection to Syracuse University - no downtown hub wait needed. (The 78 Fairmount bus route, which doesn’t come up here, remains in service.)

In truth, I don’t think there have been any riders on this part of the route for about a decade, so its demise was no shock. It was also an excruciatingly long and boring commute - I rode it for about a year back and forth to work, and it took an hour and fifteen minutes to get to my destination. Still, it’s a little sad that one more connection between Syracuse and its burbs has gone.

Stepping away from the Twilight Zone of the NYS state parks for a moment, I just had to post these ancient videos of Rod Serling talking about the craft of writing for television.

Also: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5… and I think there are 10 parts in all, which you can find linked from these videos.

(”Shut your eyes, and you won’t know who’s talking… because they all talk alike.” Yes, Albany does need new writers…)

Now that the reality of threatened park closures has had a day to sink in, maybe it’s time to take the public conversation beyond the understandable cries of protest and think about the future.

The Post-Standard, like many papers around the state this morning, is looking into the costs of keeping the parks open, but the article (which doesn’t seem to be online?) doesn’t mention what the costs are - or if property taxes paid by the state for state park land are included in the tally. I assume they are included, but as Norbrook at TAP has pointed out, property taxes and the parks are not in the public consciousness and barely mentioned by the media. The way that NY’s parks system operate — or rather systems, since they’re run by two different agencies, Office of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Environment Conservation — is probably a mystery even to regular parks patrons.

Don’t get me wrong… we need to look at this list and ask for justification why some sites are on it at all. (I’d really like to know why Lorenzo Historic Site is only on the “shadow” secondary list and why Oriskany Battlefield gets the ax. If it’s purely because people would rather have their weddings there and the facilities fees are all that matters, then come out and say that so that those of us who care about historical preservation and education know where the state’s actual priorities are going forward. Or if it’s because Cazenovians have got the political donation cash for the right people and the Mohawk Valley doesn’t… whatever.)

People also have a lot of questions about what happens to these sites when they get shut down. What about safety and security? (If you’re compiling a list of New York’s Most Deadly Ex-State Parks, I’d say Clark Reservation will probably rank high.) What about the hydrofrackers and other private interests who might have designs on this land? What assistance might the state agencies be able to provide to any municipalities that have the means and political will to take over some of these properties? How about some answers instead of a brief apologetic press release? We’re all pretty guilty of not asking and answering these questions.

A couple crazy suggestions here for closures on the official list…

Bayswater Point State Park
Beechwood State Park
Bonavista State Park
Brookhaven State Park
Caleb Smith State Park Preserve
Canoe Island State Park
Cedar Island State Park
Chimney Bluffs State Park
Chittenango Falls
Clark Reservation
Cold Spring Harbor State Park
Joseph Davis State Park
Donald J. Trump State Park
Eel Weir State Park
Helen McNitt State Park (I’ll bet the high priests of Holy Cazenovia Lake are cheering for that one!)
Hudson River Islands State Park
Hunts Pond State Park
Keewaydin State Park
Knox Farm State Park
Long Point State Park
Macomb Reservation State Park
Mary Island State Park
Newtown Battlefield State Park
Nissequogue River State Park
Oak Orchard State Marine Park
Old Erie Canal State Park
Oquaga Creek State Park
Orient Beach State Park
Pixley Falls State Park (sadly, no surprise at all)
Point Au Roche State Park
Robert Riddell State Park
Schodack Island State Park
Schunnemunk State Park
Max V. Shaul State Park
Springbrook Greens State Park
John Boyd Thacher State Park
Trail View State Park
Two Rivers State Park
Wilson-Tuscarora State Park
Woodlawn Beach State Park
Wonder Lake State Park

This list only reflects proposals for complete closings of state parks. It doesn’t include historic sites, such as John Brown Farm which is indeed on the list (happy Black History Month, everybody!), and reduction of hours and services at other parks and sites. The complete list is here. Another disturbing inclusion is Oriskany Battlefield. In all, 41 parks and 14 state historic sites are proposed for closure. Long Island seems hit hard, while the Finger Lakes region seems barely affected. For me, it’s the proposed closure of so many historic sites (including Fort Ontario and Sackets Harbor) that are very objectionable, and I hope these get fought.

Moreau Lake and Bowman Lake, rumored to be on the list, are not on it. Chittenango Falls’ presence on the list is surprising to me, but I’m wondering if the endangered snail has something to do with it. (And how, pray tell, do you “close” the Old Erie Canal Park? What happens to the bike trail?)

The John Boyd Thacher closure is really getting a lot of people in that part of the state riled up. It seems to be the most shocking inclusion on the list. As for parks that didn’t get closed… they want to close the beach at Selkirk. Why not just close the whole park? (Who goes to Selkirk for the scenery?!)