Got an e-mail this morning from someone complaining about a new valet parking area at the Palisades Center, in front of the Staples, facing the New York State Thruway. Reporter David Schepp called over to the mall to check out the valet situation and he found that yes, indeed, there was a new area at [...]

Everyone was looking forward to the prospect of bringing you a live, streaming video of the demolition of the Lovett smokestack here on LoHud.com today. The appointed hour came, and … nothing. What happened? Simple: Our photographers couldn’t get an Internet connection from where they were stationed in Verplanck. I think everyone has gotten so [...]

Every election, we receive report after report of candidates’ signs being stolen. This presidential race was no exception, though I can tell you that it’s usually the local races that really bring out the sign-stealers. We don’t generally write about them, as both sides tend to be equally culpable and I can report that in [...]

Rockland County Grassroots Volunteers for Obama has 20 volunteer drives who will be on call around Rockland to drive anyone — no matter who you’re voting for — to the polls  tomorrow. Anyone who needs a ride can call any of these numbers: • NAACP, 362-6227 • Spring Valley Obama Headquarters, 426-0312 • Pilgrim Baptist [...]

Tomorrow’s expected rain has pushed three Halloween celebrations to Sunday: • The Chamber of Commerce of the Nyacks’ annual Halloween parade begins assembling at 3:15 p.m. Sunday — bands, floats and marchers assemble at the upper level of Memorial Park, at the corner of DePew and Piermont avenues. • Haverstraw’s annual Halloween festival has been [...]

A reader from West Nyack called today wondering why some libraries in Rockland are open today while others closed for Yom Kippur. A good question, and one I didn’t know the answer to, so I asked ace reporter Khurram Saeed to find out. Here’s his report: Nyack Library Director James Mahoney was able to explain: [...]

Several salons throughout the region — in Rockland, Orange, Dutchess and Ulster counties — have agreed to cut off ponytails for the Locks of Love charitable organization from Oct. 18-30. At a previous event — around Valentine’s Day 2007 — more than 100 ponytails were cut off and donated to the organization, which uses the [...]

Ben’s off today at his new nephew’s bris (if you recall, last week he was on his way to visit the newborn), so staff reporter Khurram Saeed graciously agreed to host. Photojournalist Peter Carr shot and put the video together. And I’m posting it! Such a team. Anyhow, here’s the week in review; links to [...]

Teva Pharmaceutical’s $9 billion planned takeover of Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., announced Friday, has many Rocklanders concerned about what will become of the 400 well-paying jobs at the company’s Barr Laboratories subsidiary in Pomona. If you work for Barr or know someone who does, we’d like to hear from you for a story about the fate [...]

Five emergency services workers from Rockland have been recognized as the tops in the Hudson Valley Region (Sullivan, Ulster, Dutchess, Putnam, Orange and Rockland counties). • Cheryl Manasier, an RN at Nyack Hospital — Nurse of the Year • Brandon Smith of the Rockland EMS Training Academy and a volunteer with the Spring Hill Ambulance [...]

OK, not the very top, but Money magazine once again included Clarkstown as one of the best places to live in the United States. It came in at No. 71. Plymouth, Minn., topped the list at No. 1. The other New York towns on the list: Clay, No. 59 (Onandaga County) Greenburgh, No. 80 (Westchester [...]

At a basketball game between youths in the Nyack Center’s Teen Drop-In program and some “brave grownups” on July 3 in Memorial Park, the teens won, 17-12. This was the first event organized by Rodney Smith, the center’s new Youth Outreach Coordinator, along with Teen Drop-In coordinator Johnsie Valdez and tutor Shawn Leonard. Afterward, they [...]

Yesterday and today, The Journal News and LoHud.com has published a series of articles written by staffer Laura Incalcaterra regarding property tax exemptions in Rockland. Who has them, why they exist and possible solutions to the property tax problem in New York have all been addressed in several articles, all of which are available through [...]

Shortly after I started working in the Rockland newsroom more than seven years ago, I was taught a truism by my fellow staffers: If it’s Greek Festival weekend, it must be raining. I laughed, but year after year discovered that it didn’t much matter what meteorologists predicted, if it was Greek Festival weekend, it was [...]

OK, before I explain any further, I just have to share this wonderful photo shot by Bob Rooney of Suffern at the United Hospice of Rockland’s annual spring gala Sunday. No, you’re not imagining things. That is a photograph of town supervisors Alexander Gromack (Clarkstown), Howard Philips (Haverstraw), Thom Kleiner (Orangetown) and Phil Marino (Stony [...]

A public meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday (June 5) where you can see architects’ plans and hear about plans to revitalize downtown Nyack. The project is called The Riverspace Downtown Project, and you can find out lots about it on the group’s website (a page on the Riverspace website). The meeting will [...]

This was where I was going to tell you all about how Penny Jennings, the founder of Adults Caring For Teens Inc., has been named a 2008 New York State “Woman of Distinction.” But my colleague, Rockland Editorial Page Editor Nancy Cutler, beat me to it on the In Focus: Rockland blog. So I’ll just [...]

Confusion abounded this morning, the first rush hour affected by the Coach USA / Short Line bus strike. Why? Well, for starters, the bus company didn’t advertise to its customers that there might be a strike. Then, many folks who read our article yesterday about the strike the other day were confused by it, and [...]

UPDATE: Coach USA/Short Line bus drivers went on strike as of 12:01 am this morning, forcing the company to cancel transportation into Manhattan for nearly 1,000 Rockland commuters. About 240 drivers, mechanics and ticket agents who belong to Local 225 of the Transport Workers Union of America  failed to reach a contract with Hudson Transit [...]

The Memorial Day parade in New City this year will take a detour from its decades-old route. For 60 years, the parade has stepped off at the intersection of Collyer Avenue and South Main Street, heading up Main to the lawns of the county courthouse. But safety concerns have prompted the town to make the [...]

An e-mail this afternoon from Assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun reminded me that Grievance Day is a week from tomorrow. No, it’s not a day where you get to just complain about anything and everything; it’s the deadline for folks to file formal grievances on their property tax bills. Calhoun included a link to a helpful pamplhet: [...]

Our Data Desk has posted two new databases with all sorts of info useful to Rockland residents. First off, relating to today’s story about how many schools and districts in the Lower Hudson Valley, including some in Rockland, received high marks from the state Education Department for their academic performance and for closing the achievement [...]

The other day, The Journal News and LoHud.com ran an article on how much money various state Senators and Assembly members had gotten in what are technically called member items, but more colloquially called pork. Our data desk has put together a searchable database that you can access here. Rockland’s lone state senator, Thomas Morahan [...]

In case you missed it, Rockland Editorial Page Editor Nancy Cutler has an interesting look at the politics underlying the case of Avrum David Friesel, a fugitive for 11 years before the London Metropolitan Police captured him earlier this week. Friesel, the former New Square village clerk and a son of the village’s only mayor, [...]

Our Data Desk today updated LoHud’s database with March’s existing home sales for most New York counties, as reported by the state association of Realtors. You can find the database here. Basically, as has already been reported in The Journal News and on LoHud.com, existing home sales dropped 38.6 percent in Rockland from a year [...]