From her first day protecting majestic Storm King Mountain to her last working with the Village of Wappingers Falls to preserve a scenic viewshed and public access to the river, Franny Reese was the Hudson Valley's guardian angel.
With vision and unceasing determination, she championed our waterfronts and saw in them a way to regain the region's greatness. In life and legacy she is succeeding, not only with her accomplishments but also through her lasting empowerment of generations who can now take charge of their riverfronts.
A QUICK HISTORY
In 1609, as Hendrick Hudson journeyed up the river that would one day bear his name, his navigator declared the landscape, "the finest land for cultivation that I ever in my life set foot upon."
The Hudson River and its valley have long inspired writers, painters and travelers, and were pivotal in our nation's revolutionary birth. Early settlers raised crops in the valley's fertile soil, shipping their bounty from small villages to New York and beyond. Sloops and steamboats solidified the river's role as a commercial corridor.
In the mid-19th century, railroads attracted industry to waterfront cities but created physical barriers to the river. As populations grew municipalities focused civic and social life elsewhere.
Throughout the 20th century, industry declined, pollution decimated commercial fisheries, cities suffered economic losses and social upheaval, and factories were abandoned. Waterfronts became neglected and deserted.
But the modern environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s - led by Scenic Hudson - revived people's interest in our magnificent waterway. Landmark environmental laws gave citizens a voice in environmental decision-making. These rights codified meaningful public participation in revitalization planning and helped residents breathe new life into their communities.
Adding to the activists' arsenal was the state's Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP), which encouraged local development based on community vision, and the Hudson River Valley Greenway, which established a framework for intermunicipal cooperation. In 1996 the region was designated a National Heritage Area, and in 1998 the Hudson River was named an American Heritage River.
Much has occurred in the 400 years since Hudson's voyage of discovery. Today the river's beauty has inspired people from Yonkers to the Troy Dam to turn the tide on centuries of environmental degradation and urban blight.
Scenic Hudson has documented on the following pages of this article, and in our related Timeline, the stories of some of these citizen sparkplugs. |
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Timeline
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