28 YEARS AGO — 1997
• Wendy Harrington sits in the student lounge at North Country Community College’s new Ticonderoga campus and wonders how students survived. “It was tough,” she said of classes held in cramped, temporary quarters since November 1996. “Now, morale is up, and we’re really happy to be here.” The college had been in the Ticonderoga Community Building since the late 1970s. But then the town announced it needed the space for its own offices. The college started looking for another place, but renovations to the Community Building began as planned. The college was still there, compressed into smaller and smaller space. A gas-powered saw malfunctioned one day and filled the building with fumes, forcing an evacuation. That was it. Adios to the Community Building. Town Supervisor Michael Connery, citing safety and liability concerns, refused to let them return.
• As a teenager, Andrew Cuomo earned pocket money rebuilding old cars. As a young man, he gave up a law practice to build housing for the homeless. Now, as the youngest member of President Clinton’s Cabinet, Cuomo is tackling the biggest fix-up challenge of his life: trying to repair the scandalous Department of Housing and Urban Development. It’s clear Cuomo recognizes the challenge. “Scandals. Bureaucracy. That’s what you think about when you think about HUD,” he said. Some members of Congress want to abolish the $19 billion agency. The 39-year-old secretary is trying to dispel such thinking and rewin support both on Capitol Hill and across the country for his embattled department and its housing mission.
50 YEARS AGO — 1975
• The village of Champlain “is done fooling around,” as one village official has put it. The owner of the Pearl Building on Main Street has been given a choice: repair the building or remove it. A notice has been posted on the door of the Pearl Building which informs the owner of the village’s position: “repair and secure the building or remove it.” An unidentified village resident who read the notice interjected that it was time the village took action. Village officials said this week that a notice and order has been sent to David Pearl of Chateaugay Realty Corp. by registered mail, informing him of the village’s position as well as two reports concerning the building’s condition. Officials said that Pearl should be receiving the letter “within the next two days.”
• If you need a policeman after 4 p.m. today, you won’t find one in City Hall. They’ll all be in their new station on Pine Street. The police department plans to move its gear into the new station beginning this morning, according to Chief Herbert O. Carpenter. The 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift will report to work at the new half-million-dollar facility, he said. The chief doesn’t expect the transition to cause any problems—such as in police coverage—not if everything is coordinated right,” he said hopefully. The policemen will be moving the equipment themselves. “It’s like moving your own household multiplied by 100,” Carpenter said. The departure of the police department leaves choice-size space vacant in City Hall, but the city has plans for it.
75 YEARS AGO — 1950
• Communism and its spread were assailed last night by National Commander-in-Chief Clyde A. Lewis of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Adrian Grobsmith, chairman of the VFW’s National Legislative Committee, during a joint installation of officers of VFW Post 125 and its Auxiliary. Installation ceremonies were held in the City Hall auditorium starting at eight o’clock. Mayor Tyrell and members of the Common Council were present for a portion of the installation, and for the buffet lunch later held at the VFW clubrooms on City-Hall Place. Grobsmith and Lewis united to attack Communism here and abroad. Lewis is a Plattsburgh attorney, and the first veteran of World War II to head a major veterans organization. President Anna Wilson of the New York Department of the VFW Auxiliary was another guest of honor. Robert S. Long, a veteran of World War I and now Clinton County surrogate, was master of ceremonies.
• The Managers and Service Club of Plattsburgh High School will hold a dance for high school students and their friends tonight in the school’s gymnasium. Dancing will start at eight o’clock and will continue until eleven. Card games will be played, also. Members of the committees in charge of arrangements announced yesterday that they had completed plans for an elaborate function. The gymnasium has been decorated in green and gold. A Coke and candy stand will be located at one end of the floor.
100 YEARS AGO — 1925
• Conductor Hugh Brennan and Brakeman George Bosley, for over 37 years pals on the Ausable and Mooers run, have retired from the service with the abandonment by the Delaware and Hudson Railroad of the Mooers branch. Thousands who have ridden on their train will miss the genial presence of the veteran railroaders who were always ready to step a bit out of their way to help a struggling woman laden with parcels, or to delay a moment to allow a belated passenger to catch on. Mr. Brennan entered railroad work Oct. 13, 1873—more than 61 years ago—when he drove a horse and cart during construction of the New York and Canada line from Whitehall north. The line was completed to Port Henry in the fall of 1874 and was pushed north to Plattsburgh by the following year.
• The greatest tree-planting program ever attempted by one commercial concern in this country starts this week west of the Harrows, between Upper and Lower Chateaugay Lake. The Chateaugay Ore and Iron Co., according to plans announced last night by Harold R. Bristol, superintendent of woodlands, will set out 1,400,000 trees this spring, and before the year is out will have set out 2,400,000—mostly red pine, but with some Scotch pine and some spruce. This tremendous task will give employment to men who will toil under the supervision of Reuben R., a graduate of the Cornell School of Forestry, who has worked under Mr. Bristol for the past half dozen years. The estimated cost in labor alone to the company will be about $75,000. The trees will all be transplanted from the company’s nursery at Bluff Point, where extensive forestation work has been in progress for several years. The greatest part are two or three years old, but some of those to be set out at Chateaugay are four years old.
— Compiled by Night Editor Ben Rowe