Rondout past on display … Uptown

The exhibit was organized by Geoff Miller, who chairs the committee overseeing the Reher Center at the Jewish Federation of Ulster County, the group which owns the former bakery on lower Broadway. The three-part display of photos, text, and maps, supplemented by artifacts, focuses on Rondout at particular points in time: circa 1820, when the area was a farming and small commercial community centered around the river trade; circa 1914, when it was still a thriving retail and commercial city and transportation hub, a status it had first achieved after the building of a canal in the late 1820s, which connected the Pennsylvania coal fields to the Hudson River; and during the 1960s, when the rundown but still viable city — small retail stores, bars, and institutions such as the Rondout Savings Bank were functioning — was mostly destroyed by urban renewal.

Miller is particularly excited about the oral history component of the grand opening. He said individual stories provide important clues to the fabric of the once-tightly knit community. For example, interviewee Sy Cohen, the son of one of three daughters Reher had with his first wife, lived in New Jersey but worked as a salesman for Barclay Knitwork, a Kingston manufacturer and frequently traveled to Kingston from the 1930s until his retirement. Cohen recalled the oven in the bakery was where Jewish families deposited their cholent, the traditional dish eaten by observing Jews on the Sabbath, when they aren’t allowed to cook. Reher would bank all the coals at sundown on Friday, which kept the cholent warm on Saturday.

Miller, who spent hours scanning all of Dauner’s slides into his computer, said he’s become very familiar with some of the buildings now gone and is beginning to match up their histories with the families who lived and worked there — another aspect he hopes to unearth in the oral history project.

Miller said he also hoped to later expand a bit on the exhibit, which reopens on May 20 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then will be display when the Persen House opens for the season, on Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. from May 26 through Sept. 1 (and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through Nov. 10). One aspect he’d like to include is a section on a second, Uptown urban renewal project, which cleared out the old buildings onWashington AvenueandNorth Front Street. He also plans to display excerpts from the oral histories.

Miller said the Jewish Federation of Ulster County has collected $550,000 in grants for the restoration of the bakery. Fixing the site’s drainage problems and stabilizing of the building are the next projects in the works. Eventually, Miller would like to establish the Rondout history exhibits on the bakery’s second floor, supplemented by temporary exhibitions.