From my experience the phenomena of urban renewal efforts tearing down large
parts of downtown areas and leaving behind parking fields seemed to be the
rule rather than the exception.  It always seemed that the funding for the
proposed "revitalization" projects never materialized.  Over the years
various smaller projects have filled in some of the empty lots, but not very
well nor very successfully.
The two examples that I am most familiar with are my hometown of Nyack, NY a
lovely river village that had half of its downtown area torn down and left
vacant for many years.  Eventually an upscale strip mall and some other
buildings filled in some of the vacant areas.  Also North Adams,
Massachusetts, where the urban renewal effort tore down the entire south
side of the downtown, leaving the stores on the north side facing vacant
lots for 30 years.  I believe that they finally convinced a K-Mart to build
on much of the vacant land.

Garet Livermore
Director of Education
New York State Historical Association
The Farmers' Museum
PO Box 800
Cooperstown, NY 13326
Voice - 607-547-1490
Fax - 607-547-1499

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Monje" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 10:19 AM
Subject: Small-town urban renewal


> I have run across a couple of instances of "urban renewal" projects in
small cities or towns in New York in the 1970s in which old structures were
razed but little or nothing new was built to replace them. Was that sort of
thing common, or were these most likely local eccentricities? Has anything
been written about this?