| Watershed Post

Look familiar? Lucius releases Catskills music video

The Catskills remain Brooklyn's primary source for American-Gothic-style atmospherics.

A new music video for "Hey Doreen" from the Brooklyn-based indie band Lucius features familiar sites along Route 28 in Delaware and Ulster counties, including the Phoenicia Diner, Margaretville Bowl, and Fleischmanns' Main Street. (It's not the Margaretville bowling alley's first time in a music video.) An alpaca, presumably a Catskills native, also makes a cameo.

Keep an eye out for local faces, several of whom meet grisly ends at the hands of the murderous songtresses. Recognize somewhere or someone? Share it in the comments.

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Boiceville sculptor's "Stargate" installed in Baltimore museum

A Boiceville sculptor has just returned from Baltimore, where he helped install his “Stargate”—a massive metalwork crafted mostly of upcycled vintage auto parts—in a prime location at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.

Left: Heller next to his sculpture of a guitar made out of a 1953 Pontiac. Photo via the Fabulous Furniture website.

Perhaps it was written in the stars. Steve Heller, the creative force behind Fabulous Furniture, a furniture store based in the Ulster County hamlet of Boiceville since 1971, is passionate about automobiles, dinosaurs and rocket ships. Drivers passing his workshop on Route 28 can see some of his creations, including a silver Dodge Magnum licked with green flames called the “Cro-Magnum” and a large silver rocket labelled “Roswell or Bust.”

Deep space travel via wormholes is a logical extension.

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American Visionary Art Museum

This weekend: Halloween in the Catskills, Part 1

Above: A promo for Haunted Huguenot Street, New Paltz's annual spookfest, featuring "Mrs. Gertrude Deyo-Brodhead’s infamous Murder Mystery parties at the Deyo House." Tours, spirit readings and ghost stories all weekend.

It’s the darkening evening of the year, and the veil between the worlds has thinned. Venture out into the mountains and valleys for some resonant Halloween fun, costumed or otherwise, beginning this weekend. There’s a little of everything going on, whether you’re looking for pumpkins and not-too-scary spirits for the little guys, contemplative historic ghost-walks, or smokin’ hot dance parties into the wheeee hours.

Here’s our guide to the fearsome and frolicsome times for Oct. 24 - Oct. 26. We'll have another one next week, to cover the many festivities scheduled across the Catskills for Halloween itself.

DELAWARE COUNTY

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Catskills Halloween Guide

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Abandoned car sparks search for Pennsylvania shooter in Bovina

A stolen Pennsylvania car that was found abandoned in the small Catskills town of Bovina caused a massive police search for possible connections to fugitive Eric Matthew Frein on Wednesday, Oct. 22. Police say that there is no confirmed link to Frein, and no imminent danger to residents in the rural Delaware County area around Bovina.

Frein, who is accused of shooting two Pennsylvania state police officers on Sept. 12, one of them fatally, is on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted list.

Above: Detail from the FBI's Wanted notice on Frein.

There is no direct evidence that Frein has anything to do with the car, according to Delaware County Sheriff Tom Mills.

"We just wanted to err on the side of caution," Mills said.

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Zephyr: Farm-to-table dining breezes into Pine Hill

It took Michael and Amelia Hegeman eight years to find the perfect spot to open Zephyr, their new farm-to-table restaurant. The first time the couple set eyes on the 100-year-old building in the Ulster County hamlet of Pine Hill that is now Zephyr's home, they thought, “no way.”

“It had taken a lot of abuse,” said Hegeman, Zephyr's chef and owner.

Left: Michael Hegeman. Via Zephyr's website.

But, with help from Amelia's family, the Hegemans bought the building in May, renovated it, and opened Zephyr for breakfast and lunch in August. Over Labor Day weekend, they expanded to dinner. Now the restaurant is open Thursday to Monday, serving all three meals.

The new restaurant and its emphasis on local food has been embraced by its mountainside community. Hegeman said that diners return regularly; sometimes, more than once a day.

“We do have people who come in for breakfast and then return that evening for dinner,” he said.

“All from scratch”

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Sharing school services is on the table again in western Catskills

Above: Andes Central School's tiny graduating class of 2014. Photo by Joe Damone of Joe Damone Photography.

A long-stalled conversation about sharing school services is being revived at a meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 22 in the Delaware County village of Margaretville, prompted by the departure of Margaretville Central School's superintendent this fall.

The meeting, initially intended as a discussion about Margaretville's next superintendent, has become an impromptu regional summit on the painful issue of rising costs and declining enrollment in Catskills schools. Officials from four Catskills school systems in three counties will attend.

No one in Margaretville has seriously considered sharing services since 2010, when a proposal to share sports teams with the neighboring Andes Central School caused an uproar.

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Margaretville Central School

Patrick Darfler-Sweeney

This Weekend: Zombie Run 5K and Scare Fair

Above: Photo by Daniel Hollister of ThatZombiePhoto.com.

Everyone knows that you run faster when you're being pursued by ravenous zombies. And there will be zombies galore at the Blenheim-Gilboa Visitor's Center in Blenheim this Saturday to scare 5K runners into performing at their personal best.

The Zombie Run 5K is a fundraiser for the Middleburgh Library--for $25, both runners and zombies are invited to participate. Come in costume or pay $5 extra for on-site zombification.

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State trooper not fooled by counterfeit bills in Wal-Mart parking lot

Two SUNY Delhi students were caught while attempting to use counterfeit $10 bills to buy tire rims from an off-duty New York State Police trooper on Thursday, Oct. 16, according to a press release from the New York State Police.

Left: Brian Colon and Nicole Nunez. Photo via the New York State Police.

Brian Colon, an 18-year-old from the Bronx, and Nicole Nunez, his 18-year-old girlfriend from Manhattan, were reportedly arrested after contacting the off-duty trooper through Craigslist.org, and then meeting him in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Oneonta to finalize the sale.

Colon reportedly paid the trooper $700 for four tire rims with 70 counterfeit $10 bills. Police say that Nunez knowingly possessed several more counterfeit $10 bills.

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Crime

New York State Police

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Delhi

Fall blazes in the Schoharie Valley

Photographer Caleb Jacobus took these photographs of the blazing fall colors in the Schoharie Valley this morning, Friday, Oct. 17.

He was hiking on the cliffs in the town of Middleburgh, looking out towards Vroman's Nose and the Catskills. Below, there is a shot of the trail.

Caleb says that the colors of the shots are enhanced slightly by a filter on his camera, but are otherwise unaltered. You can see more of Jacobus's photography from around Schoharie County on his public CJ Stills Photography Facebook page

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CJ Stills Photography

New York Times' "Living City" explores NYC's water supply

Up here in the Catskills, in the heart of New York City's vast rural watershed, it's impossible to forget that one lives in the middle of the city's water supply. The city's huge reservoirs dominate the landscape. Watershed affairs dominate local politics. New York City's watershed police patrol along sleepy back roads a hundred miles from Manhattan.

For most downstate New Yorkers, though, water is just a thing that comes out of the tap. This week, the New York Times introduced its readers to their astonishing water system in "Living City," a video series that explores some of the wonders of urban engineering that make life in our nation's largest city possible.

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outdoors

nyc water

nyc watershed

Cannonsville Reservoir

paul rush

Department of Environmental Conservation

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