Historic district is spruced up

COLEMAN STATION — Coleman Station has been beautified by Friends of Coleman Station every year since 2001.

Saturday and Sunday, volunteers, as well as students from the Webutuck and Pine Plains Central school districts, helped from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., weeding and picking up trash from the side of the road.

According to Lynn Mordas, the director of the organization who started the historic district cleanup six years ago, the turnout on Sunday was much better than the day before.

In fact, Mordas was the only person on hand at the Diana K. Temple Memorial Garden, where the volunteers converged, Saturday around noon.

However, the director said some of the older members of the community put in many hours earlier that week.

"A lot of the major work has been done already," she said.

Monday afternoon, Mordas commented on the next day’s activity.

"It was great. We had help from Webutuck students, a freshman at Sage College and some children," she said. "People were saying how great the garden looked and how much they liked it."

Friends of Coleman Station is looking to upgrade the garden even more with two benches made out of white cedar.

Herrington’s of Millerton donated the lumber for the first bench, but the Friends are still looking for a donor for the second.

Coleman Station, a hamlet of North East, is included on the National Register of Historic Places. The historic district includes nine historic family farms, some of them previously owned, as Mordas put it, by "notable people," as well as buildings that are architecturally significant.

Mordas said the cleanup is "sort of her thing" and it’s been growing since the year of its inception.

"The first year, we had three students from Webutuck and Pine Plains who were amazing. Each year, there seems to be a little less garbage," she continued, also elaborating on why the district needs to be kept prim and proper. "The district is designated because it has a sense of community. There was really a horrendous amount of garbage on both sides of the road. There were appliances. It was dangerous to the public and a health hazard."

Mordas is looking for volunteers to do work in the garden this summer, such as weeding. Anybody who is interested should call her at 518-789-0309.

She thanked Old Farm Nursery, Salisbury Garden Center, Millerton Nursery, Amenia Nursery and Paley’s, as well as the Community Foundation of Dutchess County and the Fisker’s Corp., for donations.