Victoria (V) by Maria (M)
August 6, 2024
M:Vic, what do you love about Rosendale?
V: I love the sense of community or community. I love knowing who my neighbors are
and who are the movers and shakers.Who are the professional volunteers , we do have a few of them, and they’re pretty admirable for what they get done in this town.
I like how kookie it is. I like the different things that succeed Like the Street Festival and the Pickle Festival. I like that this is where my husband was born and raised,
so I always like that piece of it.
I love the history. I think the history is really awesome. Rosendale Cement is so very interesting. I can recognize it on job sites when I see it.
And I love having my business here.
M: And how long have you lived here?
V: I have lived in Ulster County since I was 18. I came right out of high school. And at that point,
I had a friend who said you want a job in a nursing home or a nursery? I said – nursery, please?
And then I found out the community college had a horticultural program. So I went through that when I was working at the nursery, I found out that I also loved gardening, not only taking care of plants.
And so then from there, when I was 24 years old, I opened the business.
M:24? Wow.
V: It was 38 years ago!
M: If you were going to show somebody Rosendale who hadn’t been here before, what are some of the things that you would show them first?
V:The trestle. And Widow James Mine, for sure. The String of Lakes. I love the whole Binnewaters. And Main Street.
M: And if something were to go missing in Rosendale, that you would miss terribly, is there something that you can think of? Is there anything that you’d really hate to lose in Rosendale?
V: I think the sense of community. The spirit of community. I’m highly involved in Pickle Festival.
And the way that works and functions and what we’re able to do with it is pretty awesome.
M:Yeah, congratulations for last year! I was a fairground skeptic. And you know what, it was so great.
V: Oh, so good to have all that space. We had a meeting last night in this and we’re so thrilled with it all. It’s so much less work for us being there, but it’s also so much more space for everybody. We have more vendors than we’ve ever had. We’re going to have more pickle vendors than we ever had. So nice stuff.
M: Nice. Do you have any ideas for Rosendale that you think would improve the community or that you would just like?
V: I mean, I really like the idea of the concerts in the park. I think those kinds of events that are very free, easy for a community to gather in.
One of the things I love about the street festival is it is really a community gathering.
Even though there’s a lot of strangers partying with us and happy to be on our street,
but looking around enjoying music and seeing, you know, 100 people that I know and love.
It’s fabulous.
M: And how about like the physical arrangement of the town or, I know you’re especially aware of landscaping and the park scape of town.Are there any ideas that you’d like to share?
V: I mean, I think that if we had even more park space, so I don’t know where I would be even suggesting that to happen.I love that we have the rail trail.I think that’s fantastic.I love that you can walk up to the top of the Jopppenburg mountain.I think all of those things are really valuable.I love Willow Kiln Park, but it’s a little park.So we don’t have a lot of shared public spaces.
M:Accessible especially, right?
V:Yeah.
I do think maybe there’s ways to develop a little bit more where Binneater Parking Lot for the rail trail is.I know that Jeanne has put a couple of picnic tables around that, but I have never seen one person using that.
So I think that there’s, you know, public using the spaces, the rail trail, you don’t ever drive under the trestle and not see somebody up there. So, you know, that’s part of what I love about it.
M: One thing people have brought up is the path that goes along the back of Main Street through Willow Kiln Park,and whether people are wondering whether that could be developed because it goes all the way over to Fann’s Plaza. And then it goes all the way over to the creek at Keator.
V: And I really think that it would be nice if we could walk down the berm. I mean, there’s certain business owners who go on people walking on that burn. It would, it would be great to have that space so that you could loop and not be walking necessarily on sidewalks.
M: Any wild dreams about Rosenfield that you’d like to share?
V: I think some of the wild dreams I had are, have happened like the trestle.
And, and Willow Kiln Park, came, I know the historical society.
Widow Jane Mine, being more accessible and more events happening there.
The Rosendale Theater.The first time that Ron told me that they wanted to do a Pickle Festival,
I was like, yeah “Good luck with that.” I feel a little bit like Michelle Obama. She supposedly said that too.
M: Well, you know, it is, it’s nice to hear you talk about the things that have been accomplished because they are major things.
V: Oh, majorly. An active theater. That’s just, and I love that there was so much that happened at Street Festival that happened in and out of the theaters. I think that the way that our community works so well. That there’s not a lot of infighting. And that’s one of the recent Pickle Fest’s committee works.We all work really quickly.
M: It’s the power of the Pickle!
V: We are all like: oh yeah, let’s do that, yeah, really, an easy thing to do!
