Feb 28, 2025 Vio (V) and Chris (C) by Maria (M)
M: How long have you lived in Rosendale and in the area?
C: About a year and a half.
M: So far, what do you love about Rosendale?
C: Oh, so peaceful. People are happy. I don’t know, it’s just a beautiful, beautiful area out in the country.
V: I like the Main Street in Rosendale with the different shops and activities. We haven’t really had time to explore all of them, but we’d like to as we have more time.vIt has a good vibe, a good, as you go through there, at least so far.But we love the rail trails around, the nature possibilities, the spring hill.vIs that what it’s called? Spring. Mohonk, the whole area, that area. So yeah, the nature is very appealing to us.
M: I just took a break at lunch and went up Joppenburgh Mountain and came back down. It was just such a nice walk.
V: So we’ve been exploring all those places. We love it.
M: Why are these things important to you?
V: I think that in our technology crazed society, people are actually craving to get back to nature. And actually craving peace. And also at the same time, craving community. With people, with each other.
C: I think nature is a healer too.
V: Nature is definitely the healer. We’ve experienced it in our own lives, the lives of our kids. As teachers, if we had crazy kids, we would take them out to the woods and play. And we would see draumatic results. So, I guess that’s kind of it in a nutshell.
M: Do you have any concerns or worries for Rosendale’s well-being?
C: I never thought of it like that.
V: Well, this might be controversial, but it is also very liberal. I’m accepting all the different lifestyles and I just hope it doesn’t go too far.
M: Okay. Fair enough.
V: That’s all. I’m not saying this in a prejudiced way because I accept people from who they are, you know? And I’m not judging them, but it could possibly become too liberal.
M: So you’re thinking about stability?
V: Stability, yep, yep. But again, I hesitate to say too much because it could be perceived as judgmental or bias. And that’s not the case because we work with people of all kinds. And it doesn’t matter to us what they’re saying.
C: But then again, we’ve seen lots of families with kids. They’re in Rosendal and they like to be there. Yeah.
V: It makes us very happy to see that. Yeah.
M: There are a bunch of young families now on Main Street, which is nice. I agree. What ideas do you have for Rosendale? What would you like to see happen?
V: Should we say this one?
M: Sure.
V: Well, because we’re both gardeners and we love growing flowers, our idea was to have planters and possibly coupled with Adirondack chairs. That would be a place where people could sit, relax, chat, bring people together and also enjoy a beautiful planter full of flowers. So there’s various, I mean, someone who knows the city much better than us would have to pick the places.
M: You also mentioned before starting the interview that you could see this as a form of traffic taming.
V: Yes. Not that we’re against the yellow signs, which cropped up. We wondered if we would have something in the town that would make people slow down because of the beauty of it. And then that would take care of that. The signage.
C: And it would encourage people who have the frontage on the roads to make their properties nicer.
V: Yeah. It might even be something that businesses in Rosendale, or in other more populated places would want to sponsor.
M: Exactly. That is the kind of thing that we’re hoping to put together.
V: And it would be, it would have a Rosendale trademark, I think. If they’re made in Rosendale and I don’t think I’ve seen them anywhere else. It would be kind of fun. It would be a trademark.
C: The thing is you’d have to anchor them down because it might be too much and they’d be whisked away.
M: Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it?
V: Well, that’s all the things we have to think about.
C: Unfortunately.
M:And any other thoughts that you have for Rosendale? Anything you’d like to see more of?
V: I like the idea of the music in the park. That’s really cool. I think I guess that email would be a platform to inform people of what the different events are. Just that there’s some kind of platform where people are informed in the area of events.
M: Ulster County is starting an arts calendar.
V: Very cool.
M: They did a survey this last year about culture in Ulster County. And one of the things everybody asked for was a calendar in Culture County. So that’s a nice thing.
C: Traffic is a big concern for a lot of people. [213 is] a big route out to 209, a through route. That’s why it’s so busy. Trucks and everything.
M: Anything else? I haven’t asked about things that you think are special things that.
V: I guess we’re still pretty new. So we’re still in the discovery stage. But it’s fun. The more people we can get to know the better. I mean, we’re really happy to, to branch out.
M: Well, it’s nice to have first impressions as well.
C: You know, I like to fish. Where is the river accessible? It seems like it’s all private.
M: Creek accessibility has been coming up over and over again because the areas where the creek is accessible have been diminishing.
C: But I don’t know what you do.
V: That’s a good question.
M: There’s plenty we can do about it.
V: That’s great.
M: opening up more trails has been another subject that’s been coming up over and over again.
C: Okay. Great.
