News

As Concord falls, memories remain
Most buildings in complex to be demolished in 75 days

By Victor Whitman
Times Herald-Record
May 02, 2008

KIAMESHA LAKE — A black, 145-foot tall crane ripped off the "skin" of the famed Concord Hotel yesterday.

Giant pincers grabbed at the outer shell of an eight-story building, known as the "100" building. Over the next 75 days, more than half of the remaining buildings of the former resort will be taken down and hauled away in this $6 million demolition.

The Concord, modeled on Miami Beach's Fontainebleau Hotel, once was the jewel in the crown of hundreds of Catskills hotels with its massive pools and 1,300 rooms, where top-flight entertainers like comedian Bill Cosby and singer Diana Ross performed. Concord owner Louis Cappelli has been promising for nearly a decade to tear down and rebuild the resort, which hasn't housed a guest in more than a decade.

Cappelli bought the famed hotel in 1999 at a bankruptcy foreclosure auction with a group of investors for $10.5 million. He later purchased the Grossinger's resort for $6 million. Cappelli is now is planning, with partner Empire Resorts, a $500 million to $700 million entertainment complex with a hotel, 100,000- square-foot gambling area, convention center, restaurants and indoor water park.

He also plans to move the racetrack on Route 17B to a site just across from the Concord entrance. Only the two 12-story buildings towering over Kiamesha Lake will be left standing.

These also could be demolished, but that depends on what redevelopment plan Cappelli decides on. He might still renovate the towers. Bit by bit, pieces of the 100 building yesterday tumbled like bread crumbs falling off a table. The first thing to come down was the roof, which contains asbestos. That debris will be carted off to a landfill certified to accept asbestos.

"It's about time," said Thompson Supervisor Tony Cellini, in a hard hat, watching while the crane tore into a building that has housed a million memories.

Allen Frishman stands outside the former railway tunnel along a portion of the rail trail in South Fallsburg.

For the Times Herald-Record/MICHAEL D. BLOOM

Fallsburg committee studies ways to connect 3 towns

By Michal Lumsden
Times Herald-Record
February 24, 2008

FALLSBURG — When the Ontario and Western Railway first chugged its way through Sullivan County in 1873, fewer than 30 houses stood in the hamlet of Roscoe. "It was the railroad that built the Catskills," Wilmer Sipple, director of the Roscoe O&W Railway Museum, said this week.

It's now been 51 years since the O&W ran out of steam. But hiking, biking and nature enthusiasts throughout our region have worked for several years to convert the old rail beds into recreational trails.

In Fallsburg, a corps of volunteers and town officials are looking to eventually connect three towns by continuous trails. Fallsburg's rail-trail advisory committee will show the public next Sunday the results of 18 months of studying the project's feasibility.

Helen Budrock, a community planner with Sullivan Renaissance, estimates it could take between three and five years to complete the roughly 15 miles of potential trails in Fallsburg.

Currently, the town owns about half the O&W beds in Fallsburg. Local businessman Howard Ingber owns several additional miles of the former rail line, including a segment through a tunnel near Old Country Road in South Fallsburg.

Buying the rights of way would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Budrock. Supervisor Steve Levine said the town would consider such a purchase, providing that grant money covers most of the cost.

Town code enforcement officer Allen Frishman, who has volunteered much of his personal time to the trail project, said that, in addition to business owners and community leaders, he plans to tap seasonal Orthodox Jewish residents for donations and participation.

"They love to walk," Frishman said. "This is the perfect spot. It's beautiful. It's off the road."

mlumsden@th-record.com

Connecting the dots
Thanks to a $26,000 New York state grant, the Fallsburg rail-trail committee has spent 18 months studying the feasibility of connecting 24 miles of O&W Railway beds from the Village of Liberty to Summitville, which already has 3½ miles of trails. More than 3 miles of rail trails also already exist in the Village of Liberty. The group Liberty Bike Trail wants to join 8 more miles of existing and potential trails through Parksville and beyond.

Connecting the dots
Thanks to a $26,000 New York state grant, the Fallsburg rail-trail committee has spent 18 months studying the feasibility of connecting 24 miles of O&W Railway beds from the Village of Liberty to Summitville, which already has 3½ miles of trails. More than 3 miles of rail trails also already exist in the Village of Liberty. The group Liberty Bike Trail wants to join 8 more miles of existing and potential trails through Parksville and beyond.

The blue segment on the map at left shows the roughly 5 miles of trails in Fallsburg open to the public.

The green segment shows the 4-mile stretch that the Fallsburg committee most closely examined; much of it is privately owned.

The red segment shows where the trail could be expanded into neighboring towns.

Biggest blockades
Securing the trail through the O&W tunnel and crossing the Neversink River represent the most significant obstacles to completing the trail in Fallsburg. With state grant funds, the trail committee hired engineers to study the tunnel and the remains of a trestle on either side of the river just north of the Thompson-Fallsburg line.

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O&W Mural in Bloomingburg

While driving through Bloomingburg last week on my to Mountaindale I had to do a U- Turn and double back to take some photos of this impressive mural done by Joe Marino of joemarinodesign.com. This Pratt graduate did most of this mural by hand with some airbrushing. He is quite a nice guy and told me that he really got into exploring the O&W for this project. Awesome job Joe! I will try and get up once the snow is gone and take some more photos, hopefully without the snow and the cars. This is located in the parking lot of Glenn Kroll - Attorney At Law on the right hand side as you head up the hill towards the depot.