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UPDATE from County- Presentation! Hiking Heritage & Schunnemunk - The Plan & Schedule of Improvements

ejreporter

Updated: Aug 6, 2024



Photo: Blooming Grove Historian and Council Member, Johanna Kiernan exploring the Schunnemunk Trail


By Edie Johnson



Update: Orange County is planning to send their team that will be working on the Washingtonville Section of the Schunnemunk Rail Trail for a PRESENTATION at the NEXT VILLAGE BOARD MEETING, scheduled for AUGUST 19.


Chester/Blooming Grove - If you are eager to hike along Heritage and the Schunnemunk East Branch of trails, we got exciting news this week from County Executive, Steve Neuhaus, of plans to repair and rebuild the bridges THIS COMING FALL AND SPRING. They will begin work from Chester Westward to Middletown, and in Spring the Blooming Grove branch to Salisbury Mills with the iconic and historic views and with repairs that will ensure that everyone is safe while hiking.


A pile of the original Erie Railroad ties along the way

with farmland and views of Woodcock Mt. in the distance

One of the many historic bridges along the trails that are needing repair


Brief stretches of what is officially becoming the SRT (Schunnemunk Rail Trail) have been used lightly for years, for example, the stretch from Route 94 behind Fulton Square and Mays Field for about 3/4 mile, for an early morning or evening stroll or dog walk. But with bridges in significant disrepair hikers are warned not to try using using them. Area residents have been hoping for this stretch to become the final significant link through most of Southern Orange County for at least 20 years, and soon enough it will be a reality. The County Exec, said that as every bridge gets repaired and angled to meet the next section properly they have to make sure it is prepared properly to handle a lot of heavy equipment, which will then be able to get to the next section of repairs done. He asked for residents' patience while the work is being done as it will unavoidably temporarily disrupt use of some areas during the process

These 2 children were having a great time exploring just past Mays Field. We warned them to turn around before the bridge.


These wildflowers called Dame's Rocket grace many of the roadsides and areas along the wetlands by the Moodna in Blooming Grove and Washingtonville. They flourish between the trail and Creek and are an early and favorite sign of Spring's arrival.


Walking the section behind Mays Field is an experience in and of itself. To the left are the three baseball fields, Fulton Square and the Town's new basketball and pickelball courts under construction. To the right is another world - with remnants of the Erie Railroad that was a significant part of settling the Northeast as immigrants, many landing in the New York Harbors ventured out of the City when it became more densely populated (a process still happening today). Workers took to the rails, including my grandfather. who came over on a boat from Sweden with a braided basket box of tools, and who's horses built parts of the developing metropolitan area, including the Second Appellate Courtehouse and World's Fair in Flushing, and housing in Bay Ridge's Swedish section (giving him the nickname "Framer Johnson". People watched in some degree of awe as his horse "Charlie" hoisted lumber up several stories of new buildings and he and his team brought fill to the Fair's Perisphere site.) But one of his sons contracted tuberculosis, so like many others stricken with it at the time spent their summers in Cornwall and Blooming Grove for the fresh mountain air.


These horses and others were loaded on the Erie trains and brought to Cornwall, Blooming Grove, Goshen, Chester and other Orange County towns for a bit of vacation and probably some farm work as well, grading and tilling the fields, and then, like my grandfather, drove their horsedrawn buggies into Cornwall for a bite to eat and perhaps a little Aquavit with fellow farmers. There are some things that by their special nature seem to never change much...and the call of the entrance to the Catskills with its fresh air, spectacular views and entertainment still has bumper to bumper traffic on Spring, Summer and Fall weekends as well as holidays.


Still today, as you get a little deeper into the forest that the Moodna Creek runs through you will see piles of the history-making railroad ties here and there. But also, being along a trail traveled for at least a couple hundred years and with the moisture of the Moodna (that has paradoxically allowed it to both flourish and flood), in Spring you see a magnificent array of wildflowers and farmland.


The Moodna Creek, about a half-mile North of the Village Center


The Village of Washingtonville carefully planned a "Scenie Gateway Overlay" and Historic District where small businesses will be enhancing the new trail entrance and contributing to the local economy. The parent "Town" of Blooming Grove is also seeing related growth with number of new Agribusiness including Stone House Farm which is a wedding venue and plans future "Farm to Table" events, a lovely B&B on Old Dominion Road a "Sustainable Business" area near the Town's center on Route 94, and a cluster of Tourism-friendly businesses at Salisbury Mills where there is a Schunnemunk Rail Trail entrance at Trestle Valley Equestrian Center which already holds competitions and events.



These travelers are also going to be looking for lodging. Some will be looking for B&B and AirB'nB type lodging and its newer altrnatives, so municipalities are reviewing their short-term rental codes. Some towns and villages already offer it, but others shave resisted due to complaints of neighbors and those who own B&B's which have strict and expensive code restrictions. If short-term rentals are allowed they will have to register and pay additional taxes like the B&B's do. This is what planners call "getting in the weeds", where property owners may end up in a code nightmare, because with the affordable housing crunch we are all seeing residential homes with 6 or 7 cars and trucks in the driveway. It may, if permitted, be a categorizing nightmare. Will there be a headcount limit? And how does one compare a headcount of 3 renters to an owner with 8 children, all the while trusting the homeowner to be honest about following the rules.


Back to Chester, where the new SRT trail connects with the popular Heritage Trail, where it all began with the Erie Line and Erie Train Depot, the 2 Trails will meet at what will be a new County Park (modeled after Thomas Bull Memorial Park in Montgomery) on the former Camp LaGuardia property which will be another large project soon in the making, starting with repair of the bridges from Chester westward to Middletown.


The new Heritage Trail Parking Lot at the LaGuardia Entrance will unfortunately have to be closed while the bridge work is being done, but the County and its workers are as eager as the rest of the community, and the upside is that the work will be done this Fall and Winter while there are fewer hikers. And probably no one will be more eager to see the Heritage portion finished than County Executive, Steve Neuhaus who runs on it nearly every day.


And so, there is much work and beauty to come, and it is so well tied to our area's history that it will be a natural evolution, making just the things that area residents and visitors...including a growing environmentally supportive Tourism industry, keeping its essence yet evolving to be even better. Small businesses already see this coming, and are preparing their sites and products . Washingtonville is already planning a Farm Market for the Fall, and beginning to developing its new Sewell Park.


As we wait in the coming year for this work to be done, we should remember how important these new building blocks are. Just think .... as the builders of the Erie tracks did so long ago, to connect this young America across the country, bears a beautiful similarity to how our trail system will soon be another stop along the Appalachian Trail, with some new elements and others bonding us to

our history and our ancestors.


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Orange County Courier Journal

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