UPAC: The Show Goes on in Midtown

November 30th, 2010

Since it re-opened four years ago under Bardavon ownership, after a $2 million investment, the Ulster Performing Arts Center has been injecting new life into Midtown. Its sold-out performances are bringing thousands of people to Kingston, boosting the local economy and introducing folks who otherwise would never have visited to the city’s charms. UPAC is proof that a well-run operation with excellent programming can thrive in the city—even in a struggling neighborhood.

Four years ago, the Poughkeepsie-based Bardavon took over the Ulster Performing Arts Center, transforming the dying vintage theater into a vibrant performing venue for top acts. UPAC has been a big success, its shows bringing thousands of people into Midtown, who patronize the city’s restaurants and gas stations. Each year just gets better and better, according to Chris Silva, who as executive director for the Bardavon also oversees UPAC. “Last year was an extraordinarily strong year. It generally takes three years to turn a business around, and I feel we have done that.”

At the same time, Silva said for the first time this past fall, there was a slight falloff in ticket sales, which he attributes to the lousy economy. “People are being more careful,” he said. Despite the general downward trend, some acts still sell out, regardless of ticket prices. Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood, and Jackson Brown, for example, each sold out in a few days, despite ticket prices of $75 or more. “The higher priced tickets are often the first to go,” Silva said. And because UPAC has 600 more seats than the Bardavon—total capacity is 1,500 seats–“it’s the one place we can make money. UPAC has given us the ability to book huge names, which would be too expensive for the Bardavon.”

Silva said that the upcoming acts of Cyndi Lauper, Loretta Lynn, Ron White, and Garrison Keillor are all selling strongly—though the shows are still months away. UPAC has also presented such stellar names in the classical music world as Itzhak Pearlman and Yo-Yo Ma; he expects Ma to return in 2012. UPAC also features performances by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic (which the Bardavon also owns), and it does extensive children’s programming, which brings dozens of school groups from the surrounding area to Kingston.

Three years ago, after obtaining grant money from Assemblyman Kevin Cahill that funded a new projector and updating of its screen and sound system, UPAC began showing movies. Silva said the accounting firm of Kevin and Brian Ginty sponsor the films, and the Daily Freeman provides free advertising. The movie showings are starting to attract more people. People who arrive in a costume themed to the film get in free. “We had 40 zombies when we showed Night of the Living Dead,” Silva said. “It was a blast.” Commenting on the admission policy, Silva noted that “we like to see a little effort, although we’re pretty liberal.” One zombie who simply had an ax wedged in his head got in free. Coming up this month is Princess Bride, with pirates and princesses getting in free.

UPAC has also been showing live broadcasts of Metropolitan Opera productions (of the Bardavon’s 12 Met broadcasts this year, five were at UPAC.) The showings have been a big success. Tickets are a fraction of the cost of an orchestra-seat opera ticket–$23 to $16; the lower prices are for seniors and kids 16 and under. Silva said the broadcasts enable people to experience a top production at close range, plus go backstage with the singers between acts.

New this spring will be a program for seniors, Crazy about Patsy, presented in April, featuring a talented and witty impersonator of Patsy Kline (the show sold out last year at the Bardavon). Silva said UPAC will probably follow up with another senior-targeted show in the fall.

One challenge is the theater’s creaky ac and heating systems, which date from the 1920s. Because of the risk of an in-show breakdown—it’s happened a couple of times in four years—UPAC is closed during the hottest months of July and August. Repairing the broken-down system is expensive, with each fix costing approximately $21,000. Silva said he’s resigned to coping with the old system for now, since it would cost approximately $3 million to replace the aging infrastructure—an investment that would enable the theater to be open year round. However, Silva said the money simply isn’t available right now.

Silva said many local businesses support UPAC, including most of the financial institutions; Stewart’s and the Klock Foundation, which is based in Albany, have also donated generously. However, the lack of large, well-endowed foundations on this side of the river perhaps explains why the Bardavon got a new ac/heating systems, at a cost of $1 million, and UPAC hasn’t. The Dyson Foundation is the one of the few “that cross the river. We never could have taken over UPAC without its support.”

Posted in Arts, Business, Corridor, Theater | No Comments »

Brainstorm in Uptown Kingston

November 23rd, 2010

Brainstorm Computers and Technology, at 321 Wall, opened in August, providing an essential service right in the heart of Uptown Kingston.

Shawn ConklinOwner, Shawn Conklin had operated his computer support business out of his home in Rifton for several years, but got tired of having clients come to his house. So he’s relocated his shop to Uptown, renting space in a storefront that was briefly a bagel place, and hired employee David Scism. The move transforms his business into a one-stop shop for computer repairs and offers several advantages: With somebody always in the office, he can better maintain consistency and availability to his clients. People can save on repair costs by bringing their equipment into the shop, rather than pay for a home visit. Time-consuming repairs that involve hours of scanning will also cost less, since Conklin can program the machine and work on something else while it’s being scanned.

He also has set up a few workstations catering to people in a pinch, charging $5 an hour ($10 for a machine with graphic design capabilities). He also offers a workstation for people to do their own repairs, lending out tools so that clients can test their own equipment. The charge is $10 an hour, and if the job requires professional help, the client can simply turn the machine over to Conklin. Conklin is also expanding his menus of services in the Kingston shop. For example, it has a laser engraver, which can cut, mark, and engrave almost any kind of surface (including lima beans: Conklin’s running a special promotion in which people take a bean, each engraved with a number; the person with the winning number, which is posted on the company website, receives a gift. (The upcoming prize, awarded over the Thanksgiving weekend, is a Nook.)

Conklin, who grew up in Kingston and spent eight years in Colorado, employed at several major corporations, said he loves the community vibe in Kingston. He also has several reserved parking lots behind his space off Crown Street, which was essential to his move to Uptown. His clients are mostly other businesses, with some residential customers as well. He’s signed a year’s lease, and so far, he said he’s “on track with the number I expected.” The laser engraver adds an artistic touch to his tech business: “Our main goal is to combine the artistic with tech. We could take a laptop and engrave a design on it.” He also said he likes staying small. “I want to keep myself and my employee and maybe one or two other people with work. I’m not looking for a huge experience.”

Posted in Business, Corridor | 2 Comments »

New Rondout Restoration Business

November 23rd, 2010

Marie G. Bruno

Arte Artigianato Restauro, a fine arts restoration business, just opened its doors at 27 West Strand in the Rondout section of Kingston.

Marie Bruno owned a Soho gallery in the 1980s before traveling to Italy on a scholarship to pursue her art history studies. She ended up staying for two years and getting trained as a fine-arts restorer, including a stint with a conservator at the Vatican. Returning to New York, she ran a large studio on the Upper East Side, working with major galleries and museums as well as some big-name contemporary artists.

Arte Artigianato RestauroSeeking escape from the city, four years ago she moved up to Port Ewen, operating her conservatory center out of her home. She said it was thrilling to be in the actual landscape that had inspired the Hudson River School paintings she had helped to conserve.

Fine Art RestorationOne day, while exploring the new walkway along the Rondout Creek, in downtown Kingston, she noticed an empty storefront on West Strand, which seemed perfect for her business. She tracked down the landlord and ultimately obtained a lease for renting the space. Bruno said she was attracted by the historic character of the area. She also wanted to find a space where she could show art, both as a community service and to enhance the office visits of her clients. “I like the aspect of showing artists’ work,” she said.  Currently hanging on the walls are gilded and carved-wood reliefs by Beacon-based artist Janine Lambers, who learned the art of gilding in Germany.

Bruno said being in Kingston better connects her with local museums, to whom she hopes to offer her skills. Her clients include private art collectors with homes in Westchester and Dutchess counties.

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Businesses Embrace the Spirit of Giving

November 16th, 2010

Next week is Thanksgiving, when everyone sits down for a feast to celebrate the spirit of sharing that helped sustain the Pilgrims during difficult times.  Many people are now experiencing their own hard times, and a few won’t be able to have much of a meal. But two Kingston restaurants want to help. They’re offering their special Thanksgiving Day meal for free to a few selected families. UPAC is also helping out, by sponsoring a food drive on behalf of the Queens Galley.

Ship to Shore Reaches Out

For the second year in a row, Ship to Shore, located on 15  West Strand in the Rondout, is giving away its special Thanksgiving Day dinner to three families of up to six people. The restaurant has teamed up with radio station WBPM, 92.9 FM, which is running advertisements about the giveaway. Interested families fill out a form, posted on the restaurant’s website,  www.shiptoshorehudsonvalley.com, with entries due in by 9 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 18. The winners will be announced the next morning.

“We always have an abundance of food on Thanksgiving, so instead of wasting it, we decided to make an extra 20 dinners,” Ship to Shore owner Samir Hrichi said. Last year the restaurant had 100s of entries, and this year the response is even greater, with many phone calls coming in. “You cry when you read some of these letters,” he said. “I’d love to pick them all.” He is considering possibly helping somebody in the hospital, delivering food there.

Hrichi credited his wife, Sarah, with the idea. “She has a big heart. We do pretty good and would like to give back.” Ship to Shore’s Thanksgiving Day feast is a three-course menu served family style. It features a choice of split pea and smoked ham soup, butternut squash bisque, or Hudson Valley apple spinach salad; a mix and match spread of roasted turkey, ham, baby lamp chops, prime ribs, and salmon; sides of stuffing, candied yams, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts served family style; and a choice of desserts, including his grandmother’s recipe for apple crisp. The meal is $35—absent drinks—and will be served in three seatings, at one, two and five pm.

Frank Guido’s Little Italy Also Stepping In

Frank Guido’s Little Italy also is offering a free Thanksgiving dinner to a needy family, as a response to a letter sent by the outreach director of Community Action. Community Action will pick the family, who will then receive a special certificate for the free meal, which has a value up to $120. The restaurant, located on 14 Thomas Street, will be serving a four-course meal served family style, including turkey, stuffing, mashed potatores and gravey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and other vegetables, apple or pumpkin pie, coffee, and tea. Open from one to seven on Thanksgiving Day, the restaurant is offering the meal at a bargain price: for groups of four or five people, the price is $79.95, and for six to eight people, it’s $119.95. The regular menu will also be available. Reservations are required.

UPAC Food Drive

Individual residents and businesses can also help out by participating in a special Thanksgiving food drive sponsored by UPAC, with all items contributed to the Queen’s Galley, which will distribute the donations to needy families. Nonperishable food items as well as paper and cleaning products can be dropped off at the UPAC lobby, located at 601 Broadway, through November 21. The lobby is open Wednesday through Friday, from 11 am to 5 pm. UPAC is sponsoring the food drive in conjunction with the Bardavon, which will distribute its donated items to Poughkeepsie food pantries.

Posted in Business, Corridor | No Comments »

Fleisher’s Prepares for Thanksgiving

November 9th, 2010

Jessica & Joshua Applestone

With Thanksgiving around the corner, it’s a particularly busy time for Fleisher’s Grass-fed and Organic Meats. The old-fashioned butcher shop at 307 Wall Street has not only been pleasing palettes with its healthy and locally raised natural meats but also resurrecting the art of butchery through its apprenticeships and classes—and in the meantime generated articles in the national media as well as being featured in the high-profile memoir, Cleaving: a Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession by Julie Powell (author of Julie & Julia, which inspired the popular film).

Co-owner Josh Applegate appeared on The Martha Stewart Show last spring—he showed her how to break down a pig—and will be participating on Iron Chef on December 12, as one of the judges rating the dishes participants will concoct from a secret ingredient. (Fleisher’s will also be contributing the ingredient; it provided the veal featured on the show last month). Clearly this small Kingston business is making waves far beyond the confines of Wall Street.

Right now, it’s taking orders for its free-range turkeys—free of antibiotics and hormones, of course–which are raised on Dutchess County farms. As of Monday, already half of its orders had been filled, so don’t delay in ordering your delicious bird. The cost is $8.99 per pound, and the gobblers range from eight to 30 pounds—the store recommends allowing for a four-pound margin. Fleisher’s is also offering 10-pound capons (a castrated rooster, with extra-tender meat).

The next upcoming workshop, “Steer to Beef,” is on November 14, followed by “Pig to Pork,” on December 5 (which is also the start of a five-day Butchery 101 Class, which covers knife skills, breaking down animals, and sanitation). The one-day workshops are $300, which includes three meals and a visit to the farm to pick up the slaughtered animal. The longer class is $2,000, plus $100 for knives (which students keep). Employee Lindsay Pugnali said a couple of Martha Stewart’s assistants as well as a few employees from the Food Network were planning to attend one of the one-day workshops.

As mentioned, Fleisher’s also offers apprenticeships. Currently a young man from New Jersey and a woman from Portland, Oregon, are participating in eight-week programs,  and a recent Bard grad is serving a two-week stint, concentrating on pork. Fleisher’s employs eight employees, including the owners, Josh and his wife, Jessica.

Fleisher’s makes 12 deliveries a week of whole animals to restaurants in New York City, with some piggyback orders going to Westchester County. But the owners are equally focused on their retail business: they’ve purchased the former Neko’s luncheonette and are meeting with an architect to redesign the space, with plans for an upstairs teaching arena and downstairs retail store, perhaps including a restaurant. Fleisher’s is open on Thursday and Friday from 11 to 7 and from Saturday 10-6; Tuesdays and Wednesdays are devoted to its wholesale business.

Posted in Business, Corridor, Kingston’s One of a Kind Finds | No Comments »

Kingston Businesses Turn On to Art

November 2nd, 2010

The Art Uptown

The Kingston office of Coldwell Banker Village Green, located at 268 Fair Street, not only shows art, it also participates in the First Saturday gallery walk. The business is a member of the Arts Society of Kingston, and owner Joan Lonergan, who also shows art at Coldwell Banker Village Green’s Woodstock, New Paltz and Windham offices, even hands out an award each year to each location’s volunteer curator (who is agent Sara Gorman in Kingston).

Art in Coldwell Banker Village GreenTurns out Lonergan’s commitment to art is no afterthought: she earned a B.F.A. in pottery and painting, later attended the School of Visual Arts, in New York City, and worked as a graphic designer before starting her real estate business in 1990. Shortly after opening her first location, which was in Woodstock, Lonergan started showing local artists as a community service. Lonergan said the Kingston gallery-cum-office “is a venue that’s always open,” with passers by welcome to come in and take a look. The business does set criteria on the art it shows, excluding works that contain nudity, heavy religious symbolism, and morbid or depressing imagery. Artists also have to meet a certain standard of professionalism, with their work attractively framed.

Art in Coldwell Banker Village GreenThe business doesn’t take a commission; all that’s required of artists is that they spackle over any holes left in the wall. Currently the Kingston realty office is showing the colorful figurative paintings of Laura Shelley. Lonergan said she’s often bought a painting from the exhibitions, including an oil by local fauve painter Todd Samara. She also participates herself on occasion: currently, Lonergan’s photos from a recent trip to Japan are on display at the Woodstock office.

“I love the idea of having the walls continually change, so you don’t get bored,” said Lonergan. “When people come to the opening, it’s like inviting them into your living room. Anyone is welcome to come in and look at the pictures.” An added benefit is that a walk-in just might be a future customer; it never hurts to let people know you are there.  Showing art is “good for everybody”—the artists, community, employees, and business owner, Lonergan concluded.

Up the street and around the corner from Coldwell Banker Village Green, on North Front Street, Half Moon Books has also served as a gallery venue in Uptown, participating in the First Saturday gallery openings. Last month, the shop showed the representational works of Sasha Finlay, a combination of fantasies and landscapes; this month it will show paintings by David Hecht.

Art on the WallA few doors away, Oderkirk has been showing art in his vacant storefront for several months. Architect Brad Will, who owns the Wall Street building where Hudson Coffee Traders cafe is located and has been displaying art in his Art on the Wall gallery space–the rotunda area in the back that serves as the café seating area–for years, is organizing the displays, drawing from the inventory he and his mother, a resident of Kingston and retired art teacher, have accumulated. Oderkirk said the art displays in the storefront are changed regularly, to keep things fresh.

Art at Win Morrison

Win Morrison Realty, at 54 John Street, also shows art, generally displaying a different artist each month. Agent Frey Johnson curates the shows, and the business doesn’t take a commission. “It brings people in and establishes a friendly relationship with the community,” noted owner Win Morrison. “I’ll do whatever I can to bring culture to Kingston.” Currently on display are paintings of nudes by Nicholas Marsicano, who died in 1991; the well-regarded painter was educated at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Barnes Foundation and traveled in Europe and North Africa in the 1930s. He taught at Cooper Union, Yale University, and a host of other top art schools before retiring in 1990.

Downtown Also into Art

The brick walls at Dolce café, at 27 Broadway, are hung with the paintings of resident Todd Samara, including some large, monumental works that stunningly translate the familiar Rondout urbanscape into a poetic realm of orange skies, blue nights and gabled buildings infused with mystery. Samara is surely our resident poet, and his works are eagerly sought after by many in the community. Up the block, the At Home Antiques at 81 Broadway Antique Store and Gallery is expanding into a small artist collective giving spaces to artists to show their work. For the month of November Sadee Brathwaite will be showing her there.

Posted in Arts, Business, Corridor | No Comments »