Monday June 12, 2017 Freightway Town Hall meeting

I wanted to post a quick summary of the meeting last night along with my thoughts and impressions. I will add to this post later as my schedule allows...

It was a well attended meeting with many residents as well as shop keepers ( on Garth Road )  in attendance. Few residents stood up and talked. Cynthia Roberts and Lena Crandall among them that I could readily identify. They have been at this game for a while now, as many of you know. You can watch it all on line. See the Scarsdale.com site for more information.

Here below is former Mayor Jon Mark, Chair of the Freightway Steering Committee with members of the firm BFJ retained to help us through this process of discovery... As we discover what we want for this site...

Below is the slide for the schedule of the evening. It was adhered to. One did not feel rushed or lingered.

I liked the electronic polling that took place. That was a novel way to engage the audience. It was fun, engaging and very interesting as each one of us took out our phones and put in words that described our present feelings about the site. We were told it was all being archived.

The next exercise was to put in words that described what we would like on the site...

Here below is the site. As you see ingress and egress is via two narrow streets off of Garth Road. We will have to work on that. I think it is crucial to open up the site.

I agreed with almost all that our consultants said. However, I do not think Christie Place is such a " success story"... A big block of a building is not a success story. Far from it.

The Chateaux is more of a success story. A  cluster of buildings in a garden is more of a success story. I would like to see something along those lines. We have to soften the surroundings. Too much concrete is not good. Humans like soil, green, water. The elements we are made of as well.

Concrete is man made, artificial. Foreign, alien, not in harmony with our souls or beings..

Here below are members of the Freightway steering committee at the meeting, second row as well as members of the press. Or Scarsdale Inquirer and Catherine Ferris in the third row.

Here below, is a plan of the space under consideration. It is begging for expansion.

It has the potential to become a very beautiful space. To me that means: green, trees, water, buildings not more than few stories high. One should not feel dwarfed. Not Christie Place height. Height of De Cicco. Not more.

Shallow pool in the summer, with fountains alternating, soft music streaming, ice rink in the winter. Few shops, residential space, garage under grade...Free internet and you have crowds coming. Pretty simple !!!

Looking forward to the next meeting.

So far, so good.

The Village Planning Department has extensive documents and information on Freightway. Click, here:

Fountains In Salzburg, Austria

As you can see below, I was trying to upload videos of fountains in town squares in Salzburg. However, these are not uploading, courtesy of Google who bought Blogger. Before the purchase, I was able to upload in 2013 for example...

Last revision Wednesday June 21, 8:00 a.m. EDT.