Jan 30, 2025 Pete (P) by Amanda(A) and David(D)
Amanda: I am sitting at Truss and Trestle with Pete and David. Pete, we are here to talk with you about Rosendale and get your thoughts on the town.
Pete: I’ve been here in Rosendale about 15 years now, and have seen a lot of stores turn over. I’m starting to like the kind of stores that we have in town now – we have one more coffee shop. The burger place closed, but I’d like to see more small businesses come into town. There’s a lot of people that don’t have vehicles in town and it makes it hard. So it’d be nice to have more small deli places, just small businesses, basically, it doesn’t necessarily have to be food, but just small businesses that are family or locally owned. I’d like to see more of those come into town or stay in town; have a reason to stay in town.
A: What makes you stay in Rosendale? You’ve been here for 15 years. What do you like about it?
P: I really like all the people. I’ve established myself in town as a very helpful person. So when I’m walking downtown, I really like the community feeling of it. I feel very safe in town. I don’t ever feel like my neighbors are getting…you know…everybody looks out for each other, basically. Everybody’s nice and neighborly. I like that part of it.
A: And what do you love about being in the village versus being in one of the more quiet neighborhoods?
P: I think I personally would probably like it somewhere further away in a more rural area, but that’s just me as a person; since I do have to live in town, I like just being really friendly with everybody. I live on the berm side of the creek, so I’m always waving “hi” to all the people walking down the berm, you know, saying “hi.” I think maybe sometimes that does become a little bit of an issue because you do have strangers walking through your yard. But with having that friendly neighbor network, everybody watches out for everybody – it really doesn’t become an issue.
But it’s just, you know, sometimes it can be a little disturbing to have people walk through your backyard. It is public property and it is fine, but it’s just a little weird sometimes, when you’re having a little barbecue and people are coming and walking past.
A: What’s your favorite part about our village or our town?
P: I definitely love the [Rondout] creek. You know, it’s the creek fishing spot, the creek swimming spot. It’s, you know, it can be dangerous because it is the creek and it floods. But I really love it. That’s where I like to just sit out and watch the geese come down and land in it. There’s that bald eagle family that lives right across the creek right now from me. So I like watching them. So I do have lots of nature around me, but I’m also in town, so it’s a nice balance between the two
A: Tell us about being in the fire department. How has that changed things for you? What do you love about that?
P: I’ve been a member for about 10 years now. I’m a captain. I’m on the board of commissioners. I’m president of the department, which is like our organization. So I got really involved really quickly. I really like helping people. So there was just one more step for me to help other people – every time the whistle goes off, I come down and start helping people.
It was a little scary at first because I didn’t know anybody, but just because I’ve been in town all the time eventually I just worked up the courage to go down there one night, started talking to guys, everybody was really friendly and just welcoming. They want you to come on in. So I felt very welcomed and that helped me enjoy it even more.
A: It sounds like it really changed your life.
P: Yeah, definitely. It was hard for a little while, but they brought everybody around you. They are always there to support you and help you and outside of the fire department, it’s just like another brotherhood.
A guy lost his tire in front of Amanda’s house a couple weeks ago on his truck. His whole wheel fell off. He called us up and we came out and we helped him out.
For me, it’s all about the community and helping each other out – we’re all in this together, let’s just help each other and get through the day.
A: What would you say to somebody who was maybe interested in joining the fire department, but felt intimidated or didn’t know what he wanted?
P: Don’t be afraid at all. We’re more than welcoming. We would love to have anybody come down. We have our meetings every Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at the firehouse. Or if you see our trucks there, just come on down. Knock on the window. Somebody will more than welcome you in. We’ll show you around. You know, you don’t have to be fully involved. You could just attend a couple meetings. You can just be an outside fire person. You just deal with traffic. You don’t have to go into fires to be a volunteer firefighter. There’s plenty of things you could be. If you like to cook, you can make the meals for our meetings. There’s so many different things that you can do.
And it’s really hard to protect the community when there’s only a few members trying to help protect the community. The more community involvement, the better it is for the community. Everybody works together to help each other.
David: Any kind of secret favorites that come to mind, like hidden gems of Rosendale?
P: It’s not a secret spot, but I really like going to the sand beach underneath the trestle where the water, the creek slows down. There’s that little beach area down there. I’m not sure if it’s trespassing or who owns it or anything, but I do like to go down there and just hang out on the creek, just sit down there and just escape from everything.
One of the things that I’d like to see something change about, though, is the parking lot through Hardenburg Road behind the theater. I’ve always thought that if something would change there, that would help the community because it’s very hard to get in and out of that one street. And there are other ways that it could be driven into, but they’re not available. Having that more accessible as a parking spot would help small businesses in town with more people to come and park instead of just driving through and, “Well, I can’t park anywhere. So I end up driving right on through and not stopping.” There’s always issues with parking – where to park and you can’t park there overnight on Main Street in the winter. I think a little thing like parking – easy, accessible parking that’s close to the shops in town would make it a lot easier for everybody. It would bring in more people. They’d stay for longer. They could do the walk on the trail. They could go up Joppenbergh. They can go to lots of different places from there. I think to make something easier and accessible into there would be something very helpful.
D: If there was a public process for that, do you feel like you have ideas that you’d want to be there to share?
P: I would definitely give some of my input, even from the fire department side. We are able to make that turn going into Hardenburg Road with the engine, but it is very hard. Some of my thoughts were where Santa Fe Burger is now, there’s just rocks and it just gets blocked off by boulders. I think if you could come into the right, by the pet store, and you can make it a nice thoroughfare, make it one way in there, then one way out at Hardenburg Road, just make it a circle. It would just ease the flow. Everything would go in nice. Then there is the [alley] space in between the Bell Tower and the Big Cheese. However, I think that would be more for pedestrians and maybe have a little craft market in there, or something like one of the alleyway stores somewhere for local people that can’t really have a store. They could have a little vendor booth type of deal. You don’t have to have a big store, but you could have a little space in there. That would make a thoroughfare through there. You would get your parking, people would come up through there.
Do you see all the new stuff in town? Maybe a map to the trestle or some little map of the trails that are right around here? Up on Mountain Road. Little things like that.
A: That’s great idea! I never thought of a community map.
P: Just for the little trails around that we all know, but somebody coming through wants to spend some money, “Well, here is a little map. Why don’t you go on the trail? At the end of the trail, you can get a coffee down by the yoga place or something.” Something like that.
A: I love that.
D: I do think the small businesses would love that. They could probably put their little logo for the Big Cheese or for the other places. You come to your town and you can get the map and businesses they have access to.
P: Exactly.
A: If you ever go to those touristy towns, they have that hand-drawn looking map.
P: With a little picture of the burger and you can get a burger at that lake in Lake George. They have the map of the street.
A: It has all the businesses and then on the edge they have all the sponsors of their business. That’s a really great idea. Smart.
A: Do you have any other thoughts, Pete, that you want to share with us?
P: I think everybody needs to help each other out. Stop arguing over things that don’t matter. We’re all in this world together. We’re all in the same neighborhood together. Just help each other out. No need to have arguments over nothingness. We all have our own things to deal with. We all have our own stuff. You see somebody that needs some help, you just help out your neighbor.
A: I like that. Thank you.
P: You’re welcome. I’m glad to do this.
A: Thank you so much for doing this with us. This is great because it percolates as we’re talking. You gave me some ideas that I never had.
P: It’s something to think about.
A: Absolutely.
