Albany National Little League

The Albany National League opened its 58th season under perfectly blue skies on Saturday morning, April 25, with its annual parade and ceremony at the William Sullivan Major League Field off Partridge Street.

The league was founded in 1951 by Joe Leone and is known as the city's original Little League.

The parade, led by a mounted police officer and completed with a pumper from Engine 11, followed its traditional route down Woodlawn Avenue onto Partridge, with an opening ceremony led by league and city officials.

Originally posted at newscotlandneighborhoods.wordpress.com
 

New Scotland Elementary

Not to be outdone in our six-month round-up (catch-up?), New Scotland Elementary — formerly known as Public School 19 — re-opened in early January after its renovation.

The school district's Open House for the new school on January 6 drew a packed house and rave reviews, particularly for its new media center, auditorium, separate gymnasium and music room.







Originally posted at newscotlandneighborhoods.wordpress.com

St. Teresa of Avila

In an effort to re-boot this blog, thought we would play catch-up with one of the biggest stories of the last six months in our neighborhood: the confirmed closing of St. Teresa of Avila church.

As the Times Union reported over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, St. Teresa will be one of 33 worship sites that will be closed all around the Albany Diocese, an issue that will greatly impact cities and their neighborhoods.

As TU writer Marc Parry reported:

“The closure of so many neighborhood landmarks isn't just a Catholic issue. Empty churches create ‘a hole in our community,’ said Lynn Kopka, a non-Catholic who heads the Troy's Washington Park Association.”

Obviously, the church means more than Sunday worship. Check out writer Scott Waldman's story and Skip Dickstein's photos in the Times Union story from February about the 35th — and final — basketball tournament at St. Teresa of Avila school on the corner of New Scotland and Hollywood avenues.

According to the story, the school is 81 years old, with the newer building built in 1957. As Waldman writes: “The tournament began at a time when many neighborhoods could still support their own Catholic schools. The student body at the squat brick building on New Scotland Avenue shrank as families moved to the suburbs.”
 

HNA meeting on Wednesday

The Helderberg Neighborhood Association will host its next meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 19, in the Sage College Campus Center at 7 p.m.

On the agenda: discussing the results so far of the neighborhood visioning effort, a public safety report from the Albany Police Department, and a presentation by Theresa Priolo from CBS6 (WRGB-TV) on her station's Crime Trackers initiative.

Nominations for next year's slate of officers for the neighborhood association will also be accepted at Wednesday's meeting.

Read all about the upcoming meeting and more happenings in our neighborhood in the latest edition of the newsletter, the HNA Reporter.
 

Pasquale’s wins!

All Over Albany's popular Tournament of Pizza is over, and congratulations are in order to our neighborhood's own Pasquale’s, which won the championship round and taken the tournament title.
 

Pasquale's showed up to the finals ready to play. The New Scotland Ave pizzeria turned out what might have been its best effort of the whole tournament with its margarita. And the judges responded.

—All Over Albany

 

Pasquale’s reaches AOA Pizza Final Four

Congratulations to our neighborhood's own Pasquale’s, which has won the first two rounds to advance to the semifinals of All Over Albany's Tournament of Pizza.

Follow All Over Albany's tournament, complete with bracket, to see how the Final Four regional pizzerias fare next week.
 

HNA Neighborhood Visioning Meeting

Join us for a special participatory discussion of what your neighborhood means to you. We are convening a visioning meeting to kickoff a small planning process — as a way to "get ready" for the City of Albany's Comprehensive Plan project which is getting underway, as well as to help us focus our ongoing neighborhood association efforts.

The meeting will be held on Wednesday, October 15, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Sage College of Albany Campus Center.

Everyone is invited to share what they believe are the best aspects of our neighborhood, and offer their ideas for "what you would like your neighborhood (and city) to be like in the next 5 to 10 years." The meeting format will be a brief presentation followed by facilitated discussions in small groups, and will reconvene as one large group wrap-up and reporting session.

Please invite your neighbors, and bring ideas for how to get more residents involved in thinking about our future. For more info, please contact Jennifer Viggiani, Chair, at jvigg2005@yahoo.com.
 

What's your vision?

What do you want your neighborhood to be in the next 10 years? What Could it Be Like? What Should it Be Like?

The Helderberg Neighborhood Association will sponsor one of its “special” additional neighborhood meetings on Wednesday, Oct. 15, to do some brainstorming about what we residents and business owners would like to see our neighborhood be like in the coming years — a visioning meeting. The meeting will be participatory in nature, so please bring your thoughts and ideas with you. It will be held from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Sage College of Albany, Campus Center at Academy Road, where our regular HNA meetings are held.

The idea for holding a special, participatory discussion on what we would like to see for our neighborhood, and ultimately, for the greater city, is in part, a response to and preparation for the beginning of the City of Albany’s city-wide comprehensive plan and planning process that is underway in its initial stages. Further, October is National Planning Month per the American Planning Association, and our neighborhood is a great, walkable, livable neighborhood that is a model for other neighborhoods and outside communities — if we can sustain all of its great qualities. Here are some suggested topics for the October meeting, for a robust discussion on these and other issues that participants are encouraged bring to the table:

• Is our great neighborhood prepared for the changes going on in the city? We are fortunate to be receiving significant public investments in public buildings in our neighborhood: the renovation of School 19 is nearly complete, with a January 2009 anticipated opening; and the John S. Bach Library construction next to the fire house on New Scotland Avenue is slated to be open in 2010. And likewise, some amazing private investments are occurring as we speak: the $500 million expansion of St. Peter’s Hospital at one end of our neighborhood, and the same large scale investment is underway at Albany Medical Center and the Park South neighborhood to the other end.
  
• Are we ready to embrace potential changes at the St. Teresa of Avila Church and School campus, located in the heart of our neighborhood?
  
• Will our small, locally owned and operated businesses be able to adjust and thrive amidst all the changes happening around our neighborhood?
  
• How can we support the growing numbers of our neighbors who are earning a living working out of their home?
  
• How can we support the folks near or into retirement being able to continue to live their lives in our great neighborhood?
  
• Is there enough green space for our children in the neighborhood and the city?
  
• How can we secure enhancements to our neighborhood and the greater city for pedestrian and bicyclists to safely travel? How can we support mass transit in Albany?
  
• Can we reduce/manage the commuter traffic, by encouraging more employees to live in our neighborhood and city?
  
• Ultimately, how can we work with and improve our relationships with the City of Albany and other partners and neighborhoods to keep our great neighborhood going, and to support the strengthening of not only our neighborhood, but the whole city?

As our neighborhood has never been the subject of any comprehensive study or analysis, it seems like a great opportunity to meet and share ideas about why we moved to this neighborhood (and/or decided to stay in this neighborhood), what we like and love about our neighborhood, and what are the issues and concerns we have today and looking to the future. This meeting could be a great discussion for us to start to really focus as a group on what our shared goals are — and maybe we’ll find constructive, doable ways to keep improving this great neighborhood — by working together.

If you would like to help us prepare or have suggestions for this visioning discussion, please contact Jennifer Viggiani at 489-3824 or jvigg2005@yahoo.com.

Originally published in the September-October edition of the HNA Reporter newsletter.