PAUSE vs Save the Pine Bush and City Funding 💰

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PAUSE vs Save the Pine Bush and City Funding 💰

A few years back, People of Albany United for Safe Energy (PAUSE) was created to fight oil trains in Downtown Albany. The concern was the large number of highly volatile oil tanker trains that were parked in Downtown Albany for transfer to ships and pipelines heading down to refineries in New Jersey and New Brunswick.

In more recent years they’ve gotten into the zero waste advocacy – actually as a contactor for the city of Albany to comply with their state mandated landfill permit that calls for the city to have a recycling coordinator position that promotes recycling education throughout the member communities.

While this city grant may help with their advocacy efforts it does make their group tied to the city for funding. Criticize the city’s recycling efforts and their group may be without a city grant.

Save the Pine Bush has never taken city funding. They are fully not for profit and independent, free to criticize and fight any development in the Pine Bush.

In contrast, the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission, a state operated and largely state funded corporation, is able to focus on education and managing the land while being subject to all the political concerns such a corporation faces.

Rexford Tugwell

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Rexford Tugwell

Roosevelt asked Tugwell what post he would like. He replied that he would like to appointed assistant secretary of agriculture under Henry A. Wallace. The authors of American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace (2001) has commented: "They presented a rather odd picture together - the dapper Columbia University professor and the tousled Iowa editor - but they made a good team. They were men of ideas and shared a vision of government that was activist and progressive. Wallace knew the practical aspects of American farming in the way a sailor knew the stars. And Tugwell knew Franklin Roosevelt."

On 8th March 1933, Wallace and Tugwell met with Roosevelt and asked him to expand the scope of the special congressional session to include the agricultural crisis as well as the banking emergency. Roosevelt agreed to this suggestion and it was agreed to summon the nation's farm leaders to an "emergency conference" to be held in Washington. Wallace went on national radio and told the country: "Today, in this country, men are fighting to save their homes. That is not just a figure of speech. That is a brutal fact, a bitter commentary on agriculture's twelve years' struggle.... Emergency action is imperative."

After being elected, Roosevelt appointed Tugwell as an assistant secretary to the Agriculture Department. In 1934 he was promoted to under under secretary where he worked closely with Henry Wallace. Roosevelt consulted Tugwell about many aspects of the New Deal and helped to plan the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

War over the wilderness | Local | poststar.com

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War over the wilderness | Local | poststar.com

Famed silent movie actor Rudy Valentino used to stay at Fox Lair when he wanted to get away.

But Fox Lair burned to the ground in the 1970s after the state bought the land and torched the buildings because they did not comply with forest preserve guidelines that aim to erase evidence of "the hand of man" in designated wilderness areas.

Allen is still bitter about the burning.

Nature reclaims its estate – Adirondack Explorer

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Nature reclaims its estate – Adirondack Explorer

The star-crossed lovers fled the paparazzi and stole north to their mountain hideout, an over-the-top manse in the backwoods of Warren County.

This smitten pair was used to being in the spotlight, and not without notoriety. He, Hollywood’s silent film-era heartthrob Rudolph Valentino, had just done jail time for bigamy; his flame was the dazzling and aloof costume and set designer, Natacha Rambova. In August of 1922, Valentino stole to her arms here, slipping into Johnsburg, disguised in a fake beard and dark goggles.

Their refuge was Foxlair, a sweeping wilderness estate owned by the legendary cosmetics magnate Richard Hudnut, also Rambova’s adoptive father. Today, the huge manor is no more. The land is now part of the Adirondack Forest Preserve, and the state is planning public trails and other upgrades. The land is within the footprint of Adirondack Mountain Club’s “Eastern Trails” guidebook, which I author, so I set out over two summers to find what’s left of the fairy-tale hideaway.