The New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Transportation (DOT) have announced the release of a draft Remsen-Lake Placid Travel Corridor Unit Management Plan (UMP) Amendment/Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).
The amended proposal comes after the operators of the Adirondack Scenic Railroad, which ran on the line between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid, successfully sued the state. They successfully argued that the State’s plan to turn the historic railroad line into a rail-trail did not comply with state historic preservation law or the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan.
The decision was handed down by State Supreme Court Judge Robert Main Jr. in 2017. In December, 2018 the state Adirondack Park Agency changed the “travel corridor” definition in the State Land Master Plan to allow for the removal of the rails. [Read more…] about State Issues New Plan For Historic Adirondack Rail Line
I grew up in an immigrant neighborhood close to downtown Rochester, New York in the 1950s. People displaced during the Second World War, along with migrants from the American South and Puerto Rico, were the newest arrivals to my part of the city (settled by Europeans in the last decades of the 19th century).
In December the latest round of Regional Economic Development Council (REDC) awards for 2018 were announced. The awards distribute funds to the different regions of the state by category. This week I reviewed the awards from I LOVENY, and listed them in alphabetical order by region and county. 
During the 2017 National Park Week, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke announced that 2016’s record visitation of 331 million visitors at America’s 417 National Park Service sites contributed $34.9 billion to the U.S. economy in 2016 – a $2.9 billion increase from 2015. Zinke made his announcement while visiting the historic Presidio of San Francisco at Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 
On Wednesday March 15, 2017 at Colgate University in Hamilton, the New York Cultural Heritage Tourism Network (NYCHTN) will host a conference on Strategic Organizational Sustainability. 
The New York State Tourism Industry Association has released a summary of the tourism initiatives contained in the Governor’s policy briefing book. The proposals are as follows: 
New York State’s rich cultural heritage and historic waterways will be central to a new, unique grant opportunity available through July 29 in a first-time inter-agency collaboration between the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and the NYS Canal Corporation.