Moriello Pool and Park, New Paltz
Moriello Pool and Park at 32 Mulberry Street was officially christened on July 4, 1956. Back then, however, the pool was in quite a different configuration than exists at the site today. Early photographs reveal a massive three-sided swimming hole that opened into a three-acre pond at the deep end, located to the west of the present pool complex.
The site was named Michael Moriello Memorial Park in honor of local farmer Mike Moriello, who’d been a member of the committee searching for an appropriate site for a town pool at the time he was killed in a plane crash at age 39 in April of 1955, while spraying the orchards on his farm. Newspaper clippings of the day reveal that after learning that the pool would be named for their loved one, the Moriello family gave a $5,000 donation toward building the pool.
According to an account recorded by Moriello’s nephew, Tony, Michael had always been an active person, a competitive speed skater as a young man growing up on a farm north of Newburgh, where that town held statewide skating championship competitions. Mike Moriello was the first in his family to attend college at what was then known as State Teachers College, now SUNY New Paltz. He became a teacher, but then bought a fruit farm with his father and settled in New Paltz, where he was known for volunteering in the community, even taking a tractor and plow to the college campus to create a skating rink for local youth.
By the mid-1960s, Moriello Pool and Park was under the guidance of the New Paltz Park and Recreation Association, who replaced the original swimming-hole style pool with the conventional pool of today. The Town of New Paltz voted in November of 1979 to purchase Michael Moriello Memorial Park for $102,400, despite reservations cited by then-Supervisor William Yeaple and village clerk and treasurer, Naomi Gaskin, who had “unresolved questions concerning the deed of the 12-acre park property,” according to a newspaper account of Dec. 5, 1979.
Franny Reese State Park, Highland
The 251 acres of Franny Reese State Park in Highland include 2.5 miles of trails that follow an historic carriage road running past the ruins of a 19th-century estate, with an overlook that offers views of the Mid-Hudson Bridge, the Walkway Over the Hudson and the City of Poughkeepsie. It was created as a park by the Scenic Hudson organization, who purchased the land in 2003 to keep it from being developed. Although the group still manages the park, it’s now owned by the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
The park was officially dedicated in October, 2009, named in honor of Frances “Franny” Reese (1917-2003), who was one of the original six people who formed Scenic Hudson in 1963. Their story is well-known: a group of citizens who banded together to oppose the building of a power plant at Storm King Mountain and succeeded. Their 17 years of legal battle for environmental protection set a legal precedent, and their actions are credited today with creating the modern grassroots-style environmental movement. Now, to date, Scenic Hudson has helped to preserve 31,000 acres of land locally for use as parks, including reclaimed industrial space.
Franny Reese is remembered by the organization as its “guiding spirit,” someone who spent 40 years of her life making the Hudson Valley a better place. According to the organization’s website, “She believed that an individual could make a powerful difference, and that each of us should have a personal inspiration. Her passion was working with others to preserve the Hudson Valley’s beauty and history.” Reese was chair of Scenic Hudson’s board from 1966 to 1984 and an active volunteer in the community, who, “despite a busy schedule, still had time to play tennis, write poetry, paint watercolors and bring up five children with her husband Willis.”
Her obituary in the New York Times remembers her as “a sparkplug,” a woman known to Hudson River preservationists as “the grande dame of the Hudson Valley.” Frances Stevens Reese died in July of 2003 in a car accident on Route 9 near Cold Spring when her driver lost control of the car and struck a utility pole. She was 85.
Bob Shepard Highland Landing Park, Highland
The Bob Shepard Highland Landing Park in Highland is named in honor of three-term Town of Lloyd Supervisor Bob Shepard, remembered as a river enthusiast and supporter of securing river access for the town. He was a volunteer with the local fire department for more than 40 years and was active in Boy Scouts, the Rotary Club and the Masons. Shepard served on the Lloyd Town Board for eight years, six of those as supervisor, but according to his wife at the time of his death in 2007, at the age of 65 from an apparent heart attack, he was not planning to seek re-election and was looking forward to retirement.
The 1.7-acre riverside Bob Shepard Highland Landing Park was dedicated on June 27, 2009, with Shepard’s widow, Barbara, among the dozens of people who attended the ribbon-cutting. The park features the only public boat launch and access to the Hudson for a 32-mile stretch up the river between Kingston and Newburgh, according to Matt Smith, president of the Highland Landing Park Association that manages the site.
The group takes justifiable pride in having created a park entirely with volunteer labor and without any burden on the town’s taxpayers; a project some 15 years in the making with Smith as a major force in that effort. The land was purchased by the Town of Lloyd in March of 2008 from RiverStar, Inc., who maintained an oil terminal on the property. In addition to the volunteer labor and donated materials, the cost to the town was offset by grants and low-interest loans obtained from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, Scenic Hudson and the town’s revolving loan fund.
A separate canoe and kayak launch is slated to open this year and an educational center is in the works, as well.
Rutsen Park, Rosendale
Rutsen Park in Rosendale encompasses a small area off James Street behind the Youth Center overlooking the Rondout Creek. It was named for the original Dutch settler in the area in the late 17th century, Jacob Rutsen (Jacobsen Rutger van Schoonderwoerdt). The merchant who settled first in Albany later purchased a 40-acre plot of land in what is now Rosendale. The area grew in population after the 1825 discovery of cement in the region, furthered by the growth of the Delaware and Hudson Canal along the Rondout Creek and Main Street.
Rutsen’s house remained in Rosendale until 1911, when it was hit by lightning and burned down.
Willow Kiln Park, Rosendale
Rosendale’s Willow Kiln Park was dedicated on Sept. 10, 2005 with town officials and a number of local residents in attendance. Located behind the municipal parking lot off Main Street behind the Rosendale Theatre, it takes its name from both an abundance of willow trees and from its most prominent feature, the remaining old cement kilns once used by the New York & Rosendale Cement Company that still remain on the site. The kilns that form the backdrop to the park once burned all the rock mined under Joppenberg Mountain.
The Delaware & Hudson canal also ran through what is today the south side of the park, using the site to load cement directly onto boats there. The canal is filled in today, but its remnants can still be seen.
Veteran’s Park, Rosendale
Veteran’s Park in Rosendale is located next to the Rondout Creek at the intersection of Routes 213 and 32, featuring a monument to the veterans of all U.S. wars. According to local history enthusiast Linda Antillo, the pavilion there is dedicated to a Rosendale native named George Duffy, who was a WWII fighter pilot with the Marines. While on a routine training mission over Long Island Sound, his F-6 Hellcat developed engine problems, and rather than eject over a populated area, he piloted the plane away from people but lost his life in the process as the plane crashed. His actions are credited with saving the lives of five women and three boys.
