How Glens Falls works

By Mark Frost, Chronicle Editor

Friday night at the Queensbury Hotel seemed to me a perfect example of how Glens Falls works.

We were there to attend Crandall Public Library’s “Heart of the Community Dinner,” a benefit honoring Dr. Jim Morrissey, 90, the retired cardiologist who’s been one of Glens Falls’s quiet, impeccable civic leaders most of our lives. No surprise a throng turned out at $99 each, filling the new Adirondack Room.

Down the hall, another 400 people turned out, at $10 apiece, for Dylan’s (45th) Birthday Bash in the Queen’s Ballroom. This fund-raiser was for Dylan McDonnell, Glens Falls High School Class of 1995, who was diagnosed at age 19 with the debilitating disease Friedreich’s Ataxia.

Non-stop music by The East End Boys, Margo Macero, Dirt Cheap, The Brain Darts Duo, and Bobby Dick. Cash bar, complimentary food, silent auction, 50-50 and “a really great basket raffle,” Dylan told us beforehand.

Our Managing Editor Cathy DeDe attended this fund-raiser (and gave it tons of publicity beforehand).

I was struck not just by the tremendous success of both benefits or even that they were going on simultaneously — but also by the fact that what propels them is a community of people glad to be coming together. The fund-raising is the good excuse.

It had been a very long time since my wife Sandy and I had been at a crowded function like the library gala.

Interesting to me that as Covid numbers creep up — we’ve risen to “Medium” again in the case rate. And the daily update we get from Glens Falls Hospital showed 16 patients there for Covid today, two of them in Intensive Care.

A few weeks ago I attended the preservation awards presented in Hudson Falls by Adirondack Architectural Heritage at the Sandy Hill Arts Center (the former Masonic building that was one of the honorees). AARCH’s president spoke of Covid’s resurgence and urged everyone to wear masks. I’d say about 15% of the attendees did so.

But at Friday’s Crandall Library gala, I saw no masks, but I saw tons of close conversations — I know I was involved in plenty of them. I admit the Covid risk crossed my mind, despite being twice vaccinated and twice boosted, but I think everybody in that room had made the calculation that it was more important to get together than it was to stay at home. Get together for the cause and the Morrisseys, but as much just to be around friends and acquaintances.

As I parked the car — surprised to find a space on Ridge Street directly across from the hotel — I said to Sandy, “Ed Moore will be a happy camper tonight.”

He owns and redeveloped the hotel, now operated by his son Zack and Zack’s neighbor Tyler Herrick. Their management firm is called Spruce Hospitality because that’s the street they live on.

Certainly two big banquets on a Friday night is great for the bottom-line, but what I meant in my comment to Sandy is that making the hotel the hub again of the community is as much what drove Ed’s investment. (He was at the gala too.)

Ed’s originally from Staten Island, where he operated an excavation business. Some people move here and never quite tune into and appreciate the specialness of the culture as well as the place’s natural beauty. Others move in and go native, like Ed.

What I also thought about on that Friday night was the guys at The Bullpen bar around the corner. Several years ago, when they rebuilt after an apartment fire upstairs, the Bullpen boys installed an elevator. It made sense because they did events on the bar’s second floor.

But the clincher in springing for the elevator, I remember Paul Bricoccoli telling me, was that it would be good for their friend Dylan McDonnell, because they did his benefit there every year.

Glens Falls.

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