After 34 years, JCPenney, an anchor of the Hudson Valley Mall since the mall’s opening in Town of Ulster in 1981, is no more. Also gone are The Children’s Place, Deb Shops, and RadioShack, the last two victims of corporate bankruptcy. And across Route 9W, Office Depot, located in the hangar-like building that once housed the area’s first supermarket, is set to close its doors in a couple of weeks.
America’s epidemic of child obesity is a health crisis in the making, which has prompted new concerns about what’s being served in the school cafeteria. The federal and state governments have instigated new nutritional standards for school lunches, an initiative that’s in line with county concerns as well: Here in Ulster County, 24 percent of kids are overweight, a statistic the Ulster County Department of Health hopes to reduce to five percent through its “Healthy Kids” initiative, which includes addressing the food served in schools.
John Gill is surveying his fields after last night’s heavy rain, and it doesn’t look good; the stream that borders his property was clear yesterday, but this morning it’s brown from the topsoil that’s washed off his land. His fields are riddled with muddy puddles that have wiped out rows of corn seedlings, and Gill worries about the strawberries planted behind the family farm stand. “If they sit more than 24 hours in water, they’ll die,” he said.