Pine Hills Eyesore Razed

Before I dig in, let me just introduce myself. Uh…hi. I’m Sean. I am a habitual dissenter who generally directs this towards politics. Andrew was nice enough to offer me a space to vent in a more, shall we say, sophisticated fashion than my usual 140 character diatribes lacking nuance. I also work for Citizen Action of New York and as an organizer for New York Students Rising. Really looking forward to talking with y’all and contributing to this space – we just so happen to live in a fantastic little city with so. much. potential. And I love talking about it. So, without further adieu…

At long last, it seems like someone had the inspiration to do something with the long abandoned 566 Washington Ave property (pictured above) that used to house a dry cleaner. City officials finally gave the go to demolish the building. But what’s really mind-numbing about this:

Thursday’s burst of action at the site, 12 years after it burned, laid bare the underlying turf skirmishes between city and county officials over who ought to receive proper credit for the action and blame that it took so long.

Apparently, doing nothing for 12 years and finally acting on an obvious problem is cause for accolades. Both McCoy and Jennings have been around for over a decade. Both live in the city of Albany. They’ve probably seen this building easily at least once or twice a week throughout their tenure, considering it’s on one of the city’s busiest avenues.

The vacant/abandoned housing/storefront problem is just not a priority for our elected officials unless there is some big ticket redevelopment project that would eliminate such blight – today’s demolition notwithstanding. City and county officials desperately need to abandon this mentality because all it leads to is procrastination and inaction.

Sigh.

I guess my only question now is when does someone shut down the Abbott? Didn’t even realize that is still a thing.