Hinchey Catskill Interpretive Center has its ribbon cut

Article from Woodstock Times:

County Executive Michael Hein with former Congressman Maurice Hinchey at the dedication. (photo by Alan Carey)

Several hundred people gathered for the dedication and opening of the Maurice D. Hinchey Catskill Interpretive Center (CIC) in Mount Tremper on July 1. Local officials spoke in celebration of the long-delayed center, addressing an audience that included many Shandaken residents, along with representatives of cultural and environmental organizations.
Former Congressman Hinchey was present to receive the accolades of his admirers, including Ulster County Executive Mike Hein, who praised him as “someone who understood the issue of the environment when no one else was talking about it, who understood what it meant to be stewards of the environment and why it mattered.” Assemblyman Kevin Cahill said he had worked for Hinchey in 1975, when the Congressman sponsored bills such as one that banned new billboards from being erected in the Catskills.

Holiday hotspots: where to go in 2014

Guardian.co.uk article: Start planning your 2014 travels with the help of our top 40 destination round-up. Some are hosting major events, others are under-the-radar places only just starting to attract tourists, but all of them are inspiring or exciting right now.

1. Cape Town, South Africa

2. Uzès, France

3. Austin, Texas, US

4. Carmarthenshire, UK

23. Catskills, US

Phoenicia Diner, Phoenicia
    

CWC pulls out of Phoenicia sewer project

An article in the Watershed Post announces:
Shandaken's latest bout of dithering over a proposed Phoenicia sewer plant may have cost the town $15.8 million in New York City grant money. After years of negotiation with a reluctant town board over the Phoenicia sewer project, the Catskill Watershed Corporation has finally decided enough is enough.

And: But it seems there is little hope that Phoenicia will be able to get that grant now. Alan Rosa, executive director of the CWC, told the Watershed Post on Tuesday that the nonprofit is washing its hands of Phoenicia's dirty water

Declaring Pine Hill ‘historic’

The Italianate facade of the Colonial Inn, one of the few hotels still in operation in Pine Hill.

 The sleepy hamlet of Pine Hill, at the western end of Shandaken, is poised to capitalize on its past as a significant tourist destination by obtaining legal designation as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places. Residents and businesspeople hope that signage and official listings — appearing on maps, Smartphone apps, brochures, and GPS units — will revive the hamlet by once again attracting tourists to view its many homes, hotels, library, former school building, churches, and stone bridges that were built between 1880 and 1925.