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Fresh: Arkville Cowdome set to open this weekend

Joe Moskowitz and Pauline Liu in the freshly-sheetrocked 4,000-square-foot space currently being transformed into the Arkville Cowdome. Photo by Mellisa Misner.

This Memorial Day, a new venue for Catskill entertainment will be opening up in Arkville: The Cowdome. The 4,000 square foot space, which sits behind Cha Cha Hut BBQ on Route 28, will host community-oriented events such as movie screenings, concerts, banquets, weddings, mini-golf and maybe even some laser tag, according to its creators.

Until recently, the space was home to Roberts' Auction, now located on Route 28 in Boiceville. Building owners Joe Moskowitz and Pauline Liu have decided to bring the Cowdome – which was originally a community space and event venue in the early 1920s – back to its roots and provide the Catskill region with a new entertainment option.

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Employee charged in burglary of Hurley convenience store

New York State Police in Kingston announced the arrest of 22-year-old Sean Fischer on Thursday. Fischer's is the second arrest made in connection with a burglary at a Stewart’s Shop in Hurley on April 28.

Police say that Fischer, who was an employee of Stewart’s Shop at the time of the incident, stole $7,487 and six cartons of cigarettes from the store, located on Main Street.

Fischer faces charges of grand larceny in the third degree and conspiracy in the fifth degree.

Fischer is accused of conspiring with 21-year-old Jamie Moran, who was arrested by police on May 19 and charged with burglary in the same incident. Moran was charged with burglary in the third degree.

Fisher was arraigned in the town of Saugerties court and will appear in the town of Hurley court on June 5.

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Middleburgh mayor's house vandalized

Above: A severed water pipe in the basement of a house owned by Middleburgh mayor Matthew Avitabile. Photo by Matthew Avitabile.

In this week's Times Journal: A house owned by Middleburgh's new mayor has been broken into, in an incident that looks like a deliberate act of vandalism.

Sometime on May 11 or 12, the Times Journal reports, someone broke into the house on Maple Avenue, cut and stole parts from several pipes in the basement, and left water gushing onto the floor:

With repairs ongoing, Mayor [Matthew] Avitabile hasn't been living there yet, though a roommate has. The roommate wasn't at the house at the time of the break-in, the night of May 11 or morning of Saturday, May 12.

"He found it Saturday. . .the water was rushing in the basement," Mayor Avitabile said of the roommate.

"It was lucky he caught it because there's a new furnace there."

He estimated the damage at $1,100.

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Threat level: Rainbow

Rain means rainbows, and recently, the Catskills has had its fair share of both. A few Watershed Post readers have taken stunning rainbow photos around the Catskills recently. Check out their captures of the colorful creations below.

Local Twitter user @atlanticist hit the jackpot: Double rainbow and a deer. Taken from Ashland looking south toward Windham and Hunter on May 22.

Marcia Olenych captured this rainbow hovering over a Bovina field on May 23.

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East Durham Irish Festival this weekend

Above: The schedule for this year's event.

Among the wealth of goings-on this weekend, the East Durham Irish Festival stands out. Held in the splendor of the "Irish Alps," this year's festival includes the City of Albany pipe band, music on two stages, Irish step dancing and a celebration of mass on Sunday morning. There's also a "Land of the Leprechauns" for kids with singing, storytelling and an introduction to Irish step dance. For more information, see the listing in our calendar.

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east durham irish festival

Monticello Walmart: Crawling with vermin (and news reporters)

This week, the Liberty Independent and the Sullivan County Democrat are hot on the trail of a local scandal: The Walmart in Monticello has apparently failed its fourth consecutive health inspection.

Yesterday, the Liberty Independent posted a photo of a failed inspection notice from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets to their Facebook wall. Today, the Democrat writes on their Facebook wall that they're chasing down the story:

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Bridges of Shandaken: Back in action

Above: A video showing the damage Irene wreaked on the Bridge Street Bridge in Phoenicia. Taken August 29, 2011 by YouTube user mjanensch1.

Phoenicia's Bridge Street Bridge, which was feared to be irreparable after the wrath of Irene, will officially re-open with a special ceremony at 9am on Friday, May 25. The reopening is over a month ahead of schedule: Ulster County officials promised in March that the bridge would be open by the Fourth of July.

Ulster County executive Mike Hein is busy this week with bridge ribbon-cutting ceremonies. On Tuesday, Hein presided over another ceremony at a new permanent bridge across the Cascade Brook on Route 47 in Big Indian, which has been open since March 21.

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Post-flood, Phoenicia's theatrical society re-opens with a new play

Above: The Shandaken Theatrical Society's sign on its historic building in Phoenicia. Photo by Julia Reischel.

The day that Hurricane Irene hit the Catskills last year, the Shandaken Theater Society was holding a small flea market in front of its playhouse on Church Street to benefit its “Raise the Roof” fundraising effort. Around the corner at the Phoenicia Parish Field, the annual Shandaken Day Festival was in full swing. Few forsaw the hardships and disruptions that lay in store for Phoenicia after Irene began her arrival late that afternoon.

STS was not spared. The main structure of the playhouse escaped serious damage, but flooding in the basement forced the non-profit theater society to replace the oil tank for the building – a costly, unexpected expense coming when it still needed money to replace an aging roof.

The problems STS faced in the wake of Irene pale compared to some of the human dramas members of the community were forced to deal with after that tropical storm. But the storm's human cost took a toll on the theater company as well.

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DEP to shut down six local stream gauges

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced today that the agency is making improvements to its stream flow and snow monitoring network, as part of a recently-announced partnership with the National Weather Service to do better streamflow forecasting.

But it appears the changes may come at the cost of six local stream gauges, part of a regional network of over 50 gauges in the watershed that the DEP maintains in yet another partnership with the U.S. Geological Service (USGS).

The real-time data from USGS stream gauges is public, and used widely by local governments as well as private citizens for planning, flood forecasting, and other uses.

The stream gauges to be eliminated:

USGS 01374654, Middle Branch of the Croton River near Carmel, Putnam County

USGS 01413088, East Branch of the Delaware River at Roxbury, Delaware County

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NYC Department of Environmental Protection

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Freshtown reopens

When is a fresh peach front-page news? When it's the first one for sale in town in almost nine months. Reader Sharon Skoble Goldstein took these photos today at the re-opening of Freshtown, a Margaretville supermarket that has been closed since the Irene flooding last summer.

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