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Local
Heroes 2008
Our
annual tribute to Capital Region residents who make a difference
Heroism
takes many forms. At its most dramatic, people may sacrifice
or risk their lives for a valiant cause. More hushed, but
equally powerful is the tireless everyday work of people who
sacrifice their time, energy, comfort, and sometimes peace
of mind, to do good for others, to motivate their community,
to come face-to-face with hard truths, or to disrupt an established
way of doing things, long due for some shaking up.
In recognizing our Local Heroes of 2008, Metroland
celebrates the dedication of a handful of Capital Region residents
whose daily efforts have helped to shape and strengthen their
communities. Whether advocating for accessible public transportation,
revitalizing a struggling neighborhood, helping prisoners
get a second chance, encouraging investment in the local economy,
or growing the area arts community by showcasing local and
nontraditional talent, each of these local heroes is, in their
own way, a driving force for much-needed change.
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| Photo:
Alicia Solsman |
Eric
Hardiman
Like
the music he gives forum to, the Albany Sonic Arts Collective
cofounder is busy building a community based on open-mindedness,
experimentation and synergy
‘I
hate it when people complain about Albany,” says Albany Sonic
Arts Collective (ASAC) co-founder Eric Hardiman, “because
I’ve done it. I used to be one of those people who said, ‘It
sucks here; there’s no scene, no good music.’ ”
A professor of Social Welfare at the University at Albany,
Hardiman, in his move to the Capital Region, carried the memory
of a weekly music series he attended as a student in Berkeley,
Calif. Every Sunday night the group featured a renowned experimental
musician and offered a forum for novices to hone their craft.
Beyond putting on a great show, the group built a fertile
community of musicians and listeners, unencumbered by the
commercial music industry. While such a scene did not exist
in Albany, like-minded folks did; so, in fall 2007, ASAC was
born of mutual interest and good, old-fashioned grassroots
initiative.
“The
idea was to get people familiar with one another and to create
a friendly place,” he says. “You didn’t have to be cool, young,
or hip—everyone was welcome.”
The group has hosted an event every month in 2008, most often
in conjunction with the Upstate Artists Guild, but more recently
with Valentine’s and the Sanctuary for Independent Media,
and, as of this Friday (Dec. 19), with Proctors. Relying solely
on contributions at the door, the group provides a forum for
diverse, nontraditional musical styles and collaboration across
mediums. Free jazz, drone, electro-acoustic improvisation,
and noise are the standard fare, but the group’s mission,
and Hardiman’s ambition, is to keep it open enough for visual,
video and spoken-word artists to collaborate.
When the group booked Sonic Youth icon Thurston Moore to perform
this summer, it generated a kind of street-level hype rare
to the area. After the show, Moore told Hardiman that this
was precisely why he’d agreed to play the show: to support
communities like the one Hardiman had helped create. In October,
Moore granted the scene national attention in his column for
Arthur Magazine.
Operating on little more than the generosity of volunteers,
the group is gaining rapid regional recognition. Touring experimental
artists contact Hardiman daily in hopes of landing a gig.
A larger indicator of success, though, is that people are
enjoying it.
In 2009, the group plans to apply for nonprofit legal status
and to begin courting arts grants, but the vision is already
in place. Hardiman hopes to foster ties with local literary
groups, reach out to area colleges, run workshops for kids,
and continue to provide a forum for progressive music. “I
would love in five years for this whole thing to be thriving,
and it can happen because people want to volunteer.”
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| Photo:
Joe Putrock |
Sharon
Bates
Sharon
Bates is the director of the Art & Culture Program at
the Albany International Airport, which is celebrating its
tenth anniversary
In
a Dec. 10 column in USA Today rounding up some of the
“best exhibits at a terminal near you,” blogger Harriet Baskas
singled out airports in San Francisco, Dallas/Fort Worth,
Phoenix, Seattle, Philadelphia, Denver—and Albany, where,
she noted, you can see the soaring, site-specific installation
Dream of Flight by Joy Taylor.
Sharon Bates, the director of the airport’s Art & Culture
Program, has had a lot to do with the success of the Albany
International Airport Gallery and the national recognition
that it has earned.
“I’m
very excited, and also surprised, that 10 years have passed,
and we’re celebrating the 10th anniversary of this program,”
Bates says.
The celebration includes the exhibit A Remarkable Past:
Objects of Outlandish Purpose and Astonishing Configuration.
It’s a collaboration with 25 regional museums which, Bates
says, “graciously loaned us items.”
What she doesn’t add is that an exhibit like this—the 25th
such exhibit in 10 years—raises the profile of visual arts
organizations, galleries and museums in this area—as the previously
noted attention from USA Today suggests.
“The
thing that probably distinguishes our program,” Bates says,
“is that it is supported solely by the Albany International
Airport Authority. We have a dedicated gallery space, which
is pretty rare.”
But the gallery is just the beginning of the art in the airport.
“We
have a minimum of 15 to 20 sites throughout the terminal,
where we install site-specific works that we’ve commissioned,”
Bates says. “We really try to integrate the artwork throughout
the terminal, and [do so] in ways that people might not expect
to be confronted by art.”
This includes the galleries in Concourse A and Concourse B,
which are changed every six months. “Since we’ve instituted
[these galleries],” says Bates, “we’ve sold $50,000 in just
fine-art works.”
And that’s not including the gallery shop, Departure: The
Shop of Capital Region Museums. This shop features, as noted
on the airport Web site, “hand-crafted gifts, artwork, and
historic materials from more than 70 regional museums and
cultural institutions.” It’s another way to draw attention
to our regional cultural resources.
Bates says that “people are proud, proud of the region and
proud of the new airport. I think our program really distinguishes
this airport from other travel experiences.”
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| Photo:
Kathryn Lange |
Harmony
House Marketplace
Diane
Conry La Civita and Jane La Civita Clemente of Harmony House
Marketplace, Cohoes, have looked beyond their business and
spearheaded a renaissance for downtown Cohoes
‘You’re
looking at our life savings here, we’ve put our whole heart
and soul into this, and we saw Cohoes needed a shot in the
arm. We want to make it a destination spot. That is really
our goal,” says Jane La Civita Clemente, sitting in the cozy
bakery of Harmony House Marketplace.
Clemente was called back to the Capital Region from Thailand
by a business proposition from her cousin’s wife, Diane Conroy
La Civita. La Civita, a former museum director and historic
preservation expert, had fallen in love with a row of historic
storefronts in downtown Cohoes, and envisioned new possibilities
for the mill town’s main drag.
The two women stripped the 12,000-square-foot space down to
the studs on their own. They filled 54 dumpsters and chipped
away five layers of linoleum before the property’s transformation
into Harmony House Marketplace began.
Today, the center storefront is still in progress, flanked
by the team’s first enterprise, the New York State Wine Seller,
and their most recent addition, the Bake Shop. Their vision
centers around promoting local produce and products. The Wine
Seller’s entire selection is drawn from New York State wineries.
In keeping with their mission, La Civita spearheaded the creation
of the Cohoes Farmer’s Market, which the pair has welcomed
into the unfinished center building for the winter.
“We
realized that we had to market our business, but we also had
to market the city of Cohoes,” says La Civita. Since opening
Harmony House Marketplace, La Civita and Clemente have hosted
monthly art shows in the restored space, created a walking
tour of the city’s historic Harmony Mills district, initiated
an architectural Aquaducks tour, promoted the marketplace
and the city at farmers’ markets throughout the region, and
secured a New York State Agriculture and Markets grant, which
has enabled them to offer 18 months of educational programming,
from field trips to cooking classes.
The next step in Harmony House Marketplace’s evolution is
a threefold development of the main building. In the upstairs
space, photographer and collagist Robert Gullie is opening
a gallery, and a Dutchess county cheese maker is setting up
shop. Downstairs, La Civita and Clemente will open a Tapas
bar in March of 2009, which will, of course, focus on serving
local produce and products, including the fresh cheeses made
on-site.
After years of hard work, broken bones, and a more than $500,000
investment, the impact the duo has had on the struggling city
can be seen outside their window.
“When
we opened, we could do cartwheels in the street,” says La
Civita. “It was so desolate.”
Barely six months after the opening, the pair was called to
City Hall for a meeting about problems with parking.
“Now
they’ve painted the roads with parking spots, and they put
a two-hour limit on the municipal lot. That’s a huge accomplishment,”
she beams. “It’s all about collaboration, yanking people in,
convincing them that Cohoes is a beautiful city and a great
place to visit.”
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| Photo:
Shannon DeCelle |
Capital
District Local First
Capital
District Local First, in Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and
Schenectady counties, promotes the common interests of locally
owned, independent businesses, and educates the community
on the benefits of supporting a sustainable local economy
At
first, says Susan Taylor, chair of Capital District Local
First, the group was “an amorphous blob of people” with a
shared ideal—promoting the local, independent business community—but
no plan to put that ideal into action. After forming CDLF
in late 2006, the founders spent most of the first year trying
to build membership, and sitting around having conversations
about what to do next.
The catalyst had been a November 2006 talk by Michael Shuman,
author of Going Local and The Small-Mart Revolution,
and cofounder of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
(BALLE) at the Sanctuary for Independent Media. Shuman inspired
his audience to think about the importance of building and
supporting a strong local economy, and prodded them to take
action. Among those at the talk was CDLF vice-chair Karisa
Centanni (pictured, left, with Taylor), who had recently attended
a BALLE conference in Burlington, Vt., to learn about local
food systems in her role as education coordinator for the
Honest Weight Food Co-op. But like others listening to Shuman
that evening, she was beginning to see the “chain of connections”
between local farms, schools, businesses, banks, etc.
At a meeting a year later, Centanni realized that all the
CDLF members at the table understood the issues in a way that
meant, she says, “we had grown deep.” Deep enough to start
taking action: The group has now put on two successful Buy
Local Bashes with vendor fairs, speakers and entertainment;
brought in several national-level speakers; joined with Metroland
in the Buy-Local Holiday Pledge; conducted member business
tours; held regular monthly meetings; and sent four members
to a BALLE conference in Boston.
The core of the CDLF message is that money spent on local
businesses recirculates more vigorously in the local economy
than money spent at chains. And the downside of relying on
a global economy has never been more clear: “The economic
collapse on Wall Street is fuel for the local independent
movement,” says Centanni. “We can and should start voting
with our dollars.”
While membership has steadily increased—there are now more
than 75 local businesses in the network—occasionally there
is a perception problem. Apparently, CDLF “is perceived by
some as a left-leaning, tree-hugging organization that doesn’t
have business at its heart,” says Taylor. “The fact is, we’re
all working for businesses that do need to make money.”
And while the emphasis obviously is to encourage people to
buy local (in 2009, the group will promote “The 10-Percent
Shift,” encouraging consumers to move that much of their shopping
budget from chains to independents), they also stress that
they do not exist to demonize the chains. And as Taylor points
out, “We’re the movement that’s prodding large corporations
to be better.”
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| Photo:
Alicia Solsman |
Charles
LaCourt
Ex-felon
Charles LaCourt has dedicated himself to helping former prisoners
reenter society, assisting AIDs victims and making sure Albany
is a better place to live
Charles
LaCourt carries two ID Cards. One is his identification card
from the Hudson Correctional Facility where he was jailed.
That card features a man with a plump face and a goatee; his
large glasses cover eyes marked with a distant look, and his
mouth forms a dejected expression. That was Charles LaCourt
in the mid 1990s—a former addict, drug dealer and felon, convicted
on multiple counts. LaCourt’s up-to-date ID features a svelte,
clear-faced and focused man. No longer a prisoner, LaCourt
carries an ID that designates him as a member of the Albany
County District Attorney’s office, where he is now the Community
Prosecution Coordinator. “This was me in 1997. That is who
I was. And as a result of change, this is what I do today,”
he says, holding up his identification.
But working for the district attorney is not all he does today.
Since being released from prison in 1997, LaCourt has become
a cornerstone in Albany’s volunteer community. He sets an
example not only for the former prisoners he works with, but
also for any member of his community who wants to make a difference.
After his release, LaCourt teamed with a number of other former
inmates to start the Reentry Opportunities and Orientations
Towards Success program. Since 1997, LaCourt has been the
program manager at the Aids Council of Northeastern New York’s
Intensive Case Management Program, and has served as the coordinator
for the Center for Law and Justice’s Prevention and Empowerment
Program. He has volunteered for the Boys and Girls Club of
Albany’s Right to Read program. He co-founded and continues
to work as a trainer in the Albany County District Attorney’s
Community Accountability Board. He is the treasurer of Prisoner’s
Family Services, the vice president of the Albany Latin Festival
Association, and a former member of the County Alternatives
to Incarceration Board. He currently sits on the New York
State Reentry Advisory Group. LaCourt’s list of accomplishments
and groups he works with is actually too long to list here.
“I
was lucky enough that when I wanted to change, when I decided
to change my life, the programs and support were there for
me,” says LaCourt.
It’s clear that LaCourt has done everything in his power to
be there for others when they are ready to take the step that
he did.
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| Photo:
Alicia Solsman |
Lucile
Brewer
For
Lucile Brewer, who founded the Citizens for Public Transportation
in hopes of improving the lives of her fellow commuters, tenacity
is the hallmark
Lucile
Brewer started Citizens for Public Transportation in 1997,
after whetting her appetite for organized civic action with
a successful campaign to bring back a bus stop that she depended
upon. She was working for the state Department of Labor on
the Harriman campus, and “the bus used to come up to our door.
And then one day they moved the stop to another building,
and that was way far away,” Brewer said. She circulated a
petition, which led to meetings with a CDTA representative,
and the stop was finally brought back.
Brewer was in her early 60s at the time. “I had never done
such a thing in my life. And they listened. I figured, well,
maybe if they listened, maybe it is worth it for us to go
further,” she said. “I was innocent then.” She now calls her
group’s relationship with CDTA “friendly enemies.”
Every one of Brewer’s victories has been part of the slow
process of establishing her group’s credibility and forging
necessary connections with CDTA. In the beginning, it was
difficult to get the attention of CDTA—now, they send a representative
to her meetings, and the head of CDTA, Ray Melleady, can be
convinced to speak before her group. Even Assemblyman Jack
McEneny will take the time for Brewer. They appeared together
on former Schenectady Mayor Frank Duci’s public-access talk
show. “I was tongue-tied when I saw [McEneny] at first,” Brewer
remembers. “That might not mean as much to some people, but
it meant a lot to me.”
Not all of her efforts have led to victories. When Colonie
Center ended the longtime practice of CDTA buses coming right
up to an entrance of the shopping plaza, Brewer and her cohorts
fought a protracted and ultimately disappointing battle. And
now, as the state faces a budget catastrophe, Brewer is engaged
in another grim battle: to keep CDTA from boosting the fares
and cutting back routes. She isn’t overly hopeful. The economy
is a mess, she knows, and the state and federal government
have cut back on the amount they will contribute. A fare hike
might be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean she is giving up.
Why place more of a burden on the people who rely on buses?
Brewer is consumed with the fight for public transit. She
has relied on Albany’s buses since 1971, and she understands
the need for a safe, affordable, and extensive CDTA system.
She is willing, and quite happy, to fight the long, drawn-out
battles to help secure that service for everyone.
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