Confections

Another uptown business is set for downtown Catskill. The ground floor of the former, venerable Mayflower Coffee Shop (355 Main St) has been leased by proprietor Andrea Lowenthal to Jean Andzulis and Ellen Dudley, who will make it the headquarters for their "inspired by the Catskills" specialty food business, Catskill + Co. "Bean" and "Dudley" made themselves known to GreeneLanders this summer by selling their “Trail Truffles” (fruit & nut & chocolate treats) at the Farmers’ and Artisans’ Market. They also are making Wild Marshmallows (“because they come from bees and trees”) in a variety of flavors. Plus chocolate honey sauce, maple hot fudge, maple roasted nuts—“made with local honey, made with local maple syrup, made with organic ingredients, made by hand, made by love.” The new shop, they anticipate, will open in time for the promotional Main Street “second Saturday” event, September 11th. Bean, husband Troy and their five children are fully transplanted New York City folk. Dudley and her family are still part-time GreeneLanders. Their web site is (you guessed it) www.catskillandcompany.com

ALSO NEW to the downtown Catskill scene is DanceFit, a studio occupying the second floor of the old County Courthouse at Franklin and Bridge streets. That’s where Krisna Creque Godig teaches hip-hop gyrations, tango, pilates and ballroom dancing. She did her thing in Catskill High School last year, and has been invited for a return engagement. 943-0306.

MET MEZZO MARGARET TO MOUNTAIN TOP. How’s that for a headline? The story is that Margaret Lattimore, mezzo-soprano who has performed with the Metropolitan Opera and many other great companies, and who has been hailed for an “opulent” tone and “ravishing” sound), will sing this Saturday at the Windham Performing Arts Center. She will be joined on the program by pianist John Churchwell and by the Windham Festival Chamber Orchestra conducted by Robert Manno. For more information, call (518)678-9309. The show is part of the Windham Chamber Music Festival (www.windhammusic.com) and, for more about this weekend’s many mountaintop doings, check out the Catskill Mountain Foundation’s web site.

TALENT WANTED, thespian type, especially female, to fill parts in the Anton Chekhov play Three Sisters; in October; inside and outside Beattie-Powers Place in Catskill. To audition, contact the deft, experienced, talented director, Joseph Capone, at (518)943-2680.

MEMBERS WANTED, preferably affable and sporty, by Catskill Golf (& swimming & tennis & dining & schmoozing) Club (943-0302). People who join after September 1 get the remainder of 2006 plus all of 2007 for one year’s payment, namely, $1125 for a single player, about $1500 for a couple. There are no extra charges. And be assured that this warning is NOT posted on the Catskill course, or on any GreeneLand course: “any person (except players) caught collecting golf balls on this course will be prosecuted and have their balls removed.”

OOPS! We left out a zero. The Reading First grant that has been awarded to the Catskill Central School District is not $90,000, as stated in last week’s Seeing Greene; it’s $900,000 (nine hundred thousand dollars). That sum makes a lot more sense, what with plans that include hiring three new reading specialists. Anyhow, we venture to hope that the grant will not be spent entirely on the remedial program touted (in a 28 column-inch letter to The Daily Mail) by Barbara Hollis of Greenville, whereby children who are poor readers are encouraged to read aloud to dogs. The children are encouraged (by trained specialists) to believe that they are helping the dogs (specially trained to be good listeners) to become literate and smart.

MORE OOPS! In our canvass of grants for GreeneLand projects, we left out some biggies. An organization called Conifer Peppertree Associates LP gets $379,033 in the form or a Low Income Housing Credit to support a 48-unit residential development (in Coxsackie?). The non-profit, Stamford-based Western Catskills Community Revitalization Council gets a $400,000 grant to help lower-income first-home buyers settle in the rural western parts of GreeneLand. (For more information: www.westerncatskills.org or 607-652-2823). Moreover, the Heart of Catskill Association has been authorized to dispense up to $200,000 in grants that subsidize renovations of downtown buildings between Factory and Union streets. The dollars will come from the State and Federal governments. http://dhcr.state.ny.us/general/press/press67.htm

PLUS “As it is,” says newspaper columnist Dick Nelson the other day (8/20), the Village of Catskill “is going through a renascence of sorts, inasmuch as there is a resurgence to revitalize its ‘Main Street’ thoroughfare….” Consequently,. “the ancestors of [Catskill’s] aboriginals are reaping in all the wampum.” “In any event, you can help celebrate this momentousness event….”

BEST OOPSTER. Ernie Smith, head of the Hudson River division of Kiwanis, disseminated a dinner meeting invitation saying “PLEASE MAKE REVERSION BY AUG 16, 2006.”