Parking Ban Coming on Route 9D

Also, art will roll through Cold Spring

By Michael Turton

Parking will soon be banned along Route 9D just north of Cold Spring, a move that should help alleviate hazardous conditions created by vehicles that park there during the peak hiking seasons. Mayor Dave Merandy reported at the Sept. 12 meeting of the Village Board that he and Philipstown Town Supervisor Richard Shea met with representatives of the state departments of transportation and parks, the state park police and Scenic Hudson and Hudson Highlands Land Trust to discuss the congestion.

The Department of Transportation agreed to install no-parking signs along the east side of Route 9D north from the newly completed Washburn Trail parking lot. Parking will also be prohibited along the west side of Route 9D from the Little Stony Point Park office to Fair Street in Cold Spring.

Merandy said Shea will contact the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office regarding enforcement because the park police have only eight officers who cover both Westchester and Putnam counties. He also noted that Cold Spring police officers can’t issue parking tickets beyond the village boundary, which is just south of Little Stony Point Park.

Transportation officials said the signs should be installed within three weeks, although Merandy commented, “I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

Merandy said plans for the proposed Hudson River Fjord Trail call for measures along 9D to slow traffic, including a possible reduction in the speed limit. The limit from just south of Beacon to Cold Spring is 55 mph, although it drops from the village to Bear Mountain Bridge to 40 mph.

Art below the tracks

On Nov. 4, Michelangelo Pistoletto, one of Italy’s most prominent Arte Povera artists, will transform the lower Main Street area of Cold Spring into a venue for his performance art. The event will celebrate the opening this past June of the Italian art space Magazzino on Route 9 in Philipstown.

The November event will harken back to Pistoletto’s 1967 performance piece Sfera di giornali, in which he pushed a sphere fashioned from newspapers through the streets of Turin. In Cold Spring, he will create a 1-meter sphere from pages of The Current, The New York Times and The Putnam County News & Recorder that will be rolled across Market Street from Lunn Terrace to Main and the bandstand.

Magazzino’s Lithgow Osborne explained that the performance will underline the facility’s connection and commitment to Cold Spring and Philipstown while seeking to “create an engagement with the viewer and the artist by observing and moving the sphere as it passes by.”

In other business …

• Officer-in-Charge Larry Burke of the Cold Spring Police Department reported that in August the department received 61 calls for service and issued 44 parking tickets and 33 moving violations. Four arrests were made, including of a patron who allegedly did not pay a restaurant bill. Burke also recommended that security cameras be installed at Mayor’s Park and outside Village Hall.
• The Village of Nelsonville is initiating a traffic study to be conducted by Putnam County Highway Department and New York State Department of Transporation. Trustee Alan Potts said the results of the study will be shared with Cold Spring. It will focus on the volume and speed of traffic on Routes 9D and 301 in the two villages as well as Peekskill Road.
• Superintendent of Water and Wastewater Greg Phillips said he was unhappy with the pace of work on repairs to the village dams. Phillips said he told the engineering firm, “We feel we have been placed on a back burner.”
• The mayor and trustees applauded members of Build a Better World for their work in painting five recycling cans for the village. The sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade participants were William Denehy, Jasper Drake, Helena Kottman, Kylee Marino, Percy Parker, Dashiell Santelmann, Ian Starr, Nicholas Stahos and Aiden Sullivan-Hoch. Maureen Metzler-McGrath, the head of youth services at Butterfield Library and assistant counselors Anastasia Coope, Randall Chiera, Angela Fee, Mae McGrath, Nicole Mitchell and Mason Shipley organized the middle school day camp.
• The Cold Spring riverfront will be the site of a Dance of Kindness on Nov 12. United Way will host the event in partnership with LifeVest as part of World Kindness Day.
• Karen Doyle was appointed to the Code Update Committee at the board’s Sept. 5 meeting.