Fort Orange follies

The Albany Planning Board is now considering the Fort Orange Club's proposal to demolish two three-story, 19th-century buildings on Washington Avenue to expand a parking lot -- 20-odd years after a previous, similar act of vandalism by this Albany institution. (Thanks to the Times Union for its coverage, including those three links.) 

According to The New York Times, the club is about the last bastion of Republicans in Albany. This isn't going to do the party's reputation any good. The club's position has few defenders except for right-wing radio host Paul Vandenburgh, along with his sidekick and the club's lawyer Sal Ferlazzo from the eponymous firm which was at the center of the scandal involving lawyers who lined up public pensions they weren't entitled to. That isn't going to make the GOP seem any less whining and entitled. Since when did conservatives give up conserving anything?

The Saratoga writer Jim Kunstler, back when he wrote "The Geography of Nowhere" and other classics about land use and architecture, would have hung these guys out to dry. Now, he writes what seem to me overblown predictions about impending social collapse. But if he's right that peasants with pitchforks will soon start defenestrating Wall Street fat cats, around here they'll be heading for the Fort Orange Club.

Comments

[Brian]

You pooh-pooh "what seem to [you] overblown predictions about impending social collapse" by Kunstler and I do have a little sympathy for your position (I tend to think it's going to be a slow decline). But at the same time, I remember the day Katrina hit New Orleans. There was virtual hysteria in my office because gas prices went up something like 50 or 75 cents a gallon in that one day. People were literally skipping out of meetings to go fill up their tank. There was non stop chatter about gas prices and rumors of gas prices, how they couldn't afford to get gas now, etc. I've never seen anything like it (even 9/11 was more like shock than panic). I guess to me, that day hints at what it might be like if Kunstler's right.

[Bob Conner]

Having a simple mind, I think there will be no collapse unless the next 9/11 is with nukes (or some biological weapon equivalent).