Down in the 'Burgh

The decrepit, abandoned Friehofer bakery facility down the hill from the Terrace in Lansingburgh, is nearly gone.

After years of wrangling among developers, real estate agents, landowners, city officials and preservationists, the brick eyesore and the adjacent yacht club building are being torn down and the debris carted off.

The choice piece of land, right on the Hudson River next to the Union Bridge between Troy and Waterford, is one of those rare opportunities. The problem at the moment is that we don't know what is going to be done with it. One hopes it won't be another cookie-cutter drug store as had been talked about a year or so ago.

Photos by April Dowd.

Snow going

When an equipment malfunction occurs during the winter's heaviest snowfall, you're bound to have some plowing problems.

Despite that, Mark and his crew got Terrace driveways pretty much cleared in time for people to get out to work Thursday morning and by 10 a.m. was doing what he calls the "finesse" work -- clearing walkways, moving two feet or more of snow out of the way after it wound up in large piles from City plowing (which took place around midnight last night) and his first-pass work.

Thanks to all Terrace residents who kept their cars out of the way of City and private plows, making the Great Valentine's Day Mess a lot easier to handle that it might otherwise have been.

Murley strikes again! Plus, Diamond Ridge expansion progressing

Thomas Murley, the man who started Moneta Overlook, the pizza-and-donut complex on Oakwood Avenue next to the empty, disintegrating restaurant building, and other enterprises, now wants to construct a gas station and a bank on his property at 310 Oakwood, opposite Biscayne Boulevard.

That's right. A gas station just a few doors from an existing Stewart's gas station/convenience store.

Murley, who lives at 32 Hialeah Drive across Oakwood from us, is scheduled to present a "conceptual review" of his proposal at the Thursday, Feb. 8, meeting of the City of Troy Planning Board.

The meeting will be held at 6 p.m. in the Council Chambers of City Hall, second floor. Murley's proposal is the seventh item on the agenda. Four pieces of old business, then two pieces of new business are scheduled to precede his turn.

The second item of old business also is a "conceptual review," this one of the Diamond Ridge expansion project. It consists of two phases:

• The first, which Diamond Ridge officials tell us they hope to have compp;leted by the end of the 2007 building season, calls for seven two-family units along Harris Road.

• The second, which still has to undergo state review as well as the city approval process, calls for a three-story building containing 60 senior housing units. Because it would be built at a grade level well below that of the Terrace, Diamond Ridge officials say the highest point of the building would be on a direct line with the front doorstep of the Claeys house so sightlines should not be disturbed.