Thursday, September 27, 2012
Saratoga one of the "super cool" cities......with the best pool anywhere.
Saratoga one of `super cool’ cities: site
Broadway and Washington Street in Saratoga Springs. (Times Union Archives)
But “super cool”? A new website dedicated to highlight communities as ideal to travel or move to named five dozen “super cool” cities around the world. Making the list: Saratoga Springs. “Saratoga Springs is a natural to be on any list of the world’s super cool communities,” said Andy Brack of Charleston, S.C., founder of TravelorMove.com. “With its sporting culture, cozy village atmosphere and outstanding quality of life, it’s no wonder Saratoga Springs ranked high on our list.” “Travel & Leisure magazine says Saratoga Springs is one of America’s greatest Main Streets: ‘Historic Broadway Avenue looks like a Main Street on steroids, with grand buildings of Beaux-Arts and Colonial Revival styles. It feels almost heroic in scale, but when crowds fill the streets to browse and nosh, it takes on a more accessible feel.’”
Using the definition you deem best, what is the most “cool” community within an hour or so of Albany?
8 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Post a Comment
|
Loading ...
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
the letter below has been posted on: savethenycballet.wordpress.com
Save the New York City Ballet at Saratoga Performing Arts Center!
Marcia White and the Hon. Susan Read need to go from SPAC immediately!
Saratoga Springs and the Capital District want the New York City Ballet at its Summer Home at SPAC for 3 weeks, NOT 5 Days which is the current plan of SPAC.
SPAC was conceived and built as the permanent summer home of the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
******************************************************
Marcia White, President(for life) of SPAC and the Honorable Susan Read, President of the SPAC Board(who cannot fundraise because she is a judge) are dumping the New York City Ballet. Fundraising is the main job of any board of directors.
Saratoga Springs, New York prides itself on being the most fabulous city between Manhattan and Montreal. It has top notch culture, history, horses, architecture, springs, restaurants, shops, hotels, education, parks, pools and a downtown second only to Madison Ave., 180 miles to the South in New York City.
The unique and successful flavor of Saratoga Springs is a result having the very best of everything. The New York City Ballet is simply the best ballet company in the world. It is the only ballet company in the USA with a permanent summer home since 1966 in Saratoga Springs, NY. Mr. George Balanchine, the greatest choreographer of all time, who founded the New York City Ballet was the reason SPAC was built. The New York City Ballet has a world class orchestra. There is no other ballet company in the world that can compare, and Saratoga Springs is the richer in every way to have been chosen as its summer home. A whole ballet industry has grown up in Saratoga and the Capital District because of this company.
Except for a much appreciated Resolution from the Saratoga Springs City Council supporting the NYC Ballet several week residency at SPAC, Saratogians have mostly been silent? Where is the outrage of the business community, the Chamber of Commerce, the Real Estate moguls and Bankers, and the huge dance industry that has sprung up because the NYC Ballet has always been in residence?
If Saratoga’s racetrack shut down the screaming would be deafening and the money to keep it going would instantly start pouring in like an avalanche from the state.
If the dancers, musicians and choreographers leave Saratoga, we will all be the poorer-in mind, body and spirit. The loss to businesses, real estate and many other financial endeavors would be incalculable.
Wake up Saratoga! Save the New York City Ballet or you WILL regret it.
Marcia White and the Hon. Susan Read need to go from SPAC immediately!
Saratoga Springs and the Capital District want the New York City Ballet at its Summer Home at SPAC for 3 weeks, NOT 5 Days which is the current plan of SPAC.
SPAC was conceived and built as the permanent summer home of the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
******************************************************
Marcia White, President(for life) of SPAC and the Honorable Susan Read, President of the SPAC Board(who cannot fundraise because she is a judge) are dumping the New York City Ballet. Fundraising is the main job of any board of directors.
Saratoga Springs, New York prides itself on being the most fabulous city between Manhattan and Montreal. It has top notch culture, history, horses, architecture, springs, restaurants, shops, hotels, education, parks, pools and a downtown second only to Madison Ave., 180 miles to the South in New York City.
The unique and successful flavor of Saratoga Springs is a result having the very best of everything. The New York City Ballet is simply the best ballet company in the world. It is the only ballet company in the USA with a permanent summer home since 1966 in Saratoga Springs, NY. Mr. George Balanchine, the greatest choreographer of all time, who founded the New York City Ballet was the reason SPAC was built. The New York City Ballet has a world class orchestra. There is no other ballet company in the world that can compare, and Saratoga Springs is the richer in every way to have been chosen as its summer home. A whole ballet industry has grown up in Saratoga and the Capital District because of this company.
Except for a much appreciated Resolution from the Saratoga Springs City Council supporting the NYC Ballet several week residency at SPAC, Saratogians have mostly been silent? Where is the outrage of the business community, the Chamber of Commerce, the Real Estate moguls and Bankers, and the huge dance industry that has sprung up because the NYC Ballet has always been in residence?
If Saratoga’s racetrack shut down the screaming would be deafening and the money to keep it going would instantly start pouring in like an avalanche from the state.
If the dancers, musicians and choreographers leave Saratoga, we will all be the poorer-in mind, body and spirit. The loss to businesses, real estate and many other financial endeavors would be incalculable.
Wake up Saratoga! Save the New York City Ballet or you WILL regret it.
Share this:
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Friday, September 14, 2012
times union editorial by Bray to save SPAC.
Bray: SPAC needs new advocatesPAUL BRAY Published 9:06 p.m., Thursday, September 13, 2012 .fb_share_count_wrapper {
width: 52px;
}
.FBConnectButton_Small .FBConnectButton_Text {
padding:2px 2px 3px 3px;
}
.FBConnectButton_Small, .FBConnectButton_RTL_Small {
font-size:9px;
line-height:10px;
}
.print_link {
height: 25px;
}
Larger SmallerPrintable VersionEmail This Georgia (default) Verdana Times New Roman ArialFontPage 1 of 1The Saratoga Performing Arts Center was created to be a world-class facility for the classical arts. Duane LaFleche, an editor of Albany's former Knickerbocker News, was a visionary who helped establish SPAC in the 1960s. He said it would be our region's Tanglewood, only better.That meant having the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra for four-week summer residencies. SPAC itself was to have a sloping lawn that provided better visual sight lines to the stage than the Tanglewood lawn.Tanglewood emerged from a soggy farm in the Berkshires to go after visions like those of Serge Koussevitzky, former conductor of the Boston Symphony. His Tanglewood vision was to have "radiation of the beams of high culture over a nation and the whole world," according to a New Yorker magazine article last month.***SPAC made its home in the beautiful Saratoga State Park, but it has not radiated visions of high culture. The New York City Opera only lasted at SPAC from 1986 to 1997.The Philadelphia Orchestra's season is now three weeks. The New York City Ballet is swan diving from its original four-week residency to just a modest five-day visit next year.When the ballet was here for four weeks, company members made their home in Saratoga Springs. Dancers could be seen at places in the community.The current situation brings back memories of 2005, when former SPAC president Herb Chesbrough tried to end the ballet's residency. That was a step too far for Saratoga and the region, and Chesbrough was let go. Thankfully, a grass-roots group, Save Our SPAC, has formed again to save the ballet. (Http://savethenycballet.wordpress.com).There are steps to be taken to realize Duane LaFleche's vision and save the classical arts at SPAC.First, any entity dedicated to the classical arts needs an artistic director with charisma, imagination and organizational flair to highlight and excite people from near and far about the superb ballet and orchestra. SPAC, alas, has no artistic director.SPAC's current leader, Marcia White, previously was a nurse and a legislative employee. Her predecessor as president was a comptroller. Neither was close to being an artistic director.***The recent appointment of Judge Susan Phillips Read of the state Court of Appeals as chair of the SPAC board is another mistake. Judge Read got the OK to take that position on the condition she would not do any fundraising. Yet that's the primary responsibility of boards of nonprofit arts organizations. To have a chair who must recuse herself from fundraising activity, as personally committed to SPAC as she may be, makes no sense.While SPAC may be the "summer place to be" and relatively close to New York City, Boston and Montreal, its leadership has done a woefully poor job of attracting audience and wealthy patrons from these areas.Creating a world-class, high-tech economy depends on being home to all kinds of excellence like a residency of the New York City Ballet. Yet, local funding is not adequate for excellence.Times Union editor Rex Smith quoted White as saying, "How much more can you ask people to give?"Leaders of successful artistic and education institutions don't think like White. They never hold back from asking donors or potential donors for more.Finally, SPAC should move beyond its reliance on Live Nation, which besieges SPAC with live rock concerts. It needs to connect the classical arts with assets of Saratoga Springs — like the racetrack, which according to a recent New York Times article, makes Saratoga Springs give Manhattan "chase as a city that never sleeps."The article pointed out "the magnetism of the track is what brings all these people here, whether they go to play the horses or just experience the atmosphere."Why can't SPAC take advantage of that magnetism?We need another advocate like Duane LaFleche, who got me and many others — including then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller — excited about having the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra perform in Saratoga.Paul M. Bray was the founding president of the Albany Roundtable civic lunch forum. His e-mail is Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Bray-SPAC-needs-new-advocates-3864097.php#ixzz26RoExVDY
Friday, September 07, 2012
Sunday, September 02, 2012
Last call for Victoria Pool bring-a-dish Labor Day Lunch.
Monday, Labor Day, September 3, 2012. Come one come all.Saturday, September 01, 2012
The real Victoria Pool appears.
yes, folks, yesterday this beautiful little girl whose name is Victoria Pool came to our pool and was totally suprised they have the same name. Victoria hails from Massachusetts and is 9 mos. old and a true beauty like her pool.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Saratoga may be cool to visit but it gets a “meh” for living here. Same old same old and Broadway gets sleepier every year.