On-Hudson.com

CornWall On Hudson To Dedicate Street In Honor Of Distinguished General David Petraus

http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091008/NEWS/910080318

Gen. Petraeus returning to visit his Hudson Valley roots

Alexa James

CORNWALL — America's top commander in Iraq and Afghanistan will return to his Hudson Valley roots on Thursday for several days of celebration.

Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, will arrive at Stewart International Airport Thursday afternoon, then go over to the Orange County Choppers garage in Newburgh where he'll present Paul Teutel Sr. with an award for supporting the troops.

Petraeus, 56, will then trek to his hometown of Cornwall, which is dedicating a street in his honor.

About a mile's worth of County Route 107, or Quaker Avenue, will be renamed Gen. David Howell Petraeus Highway at a public ceremony in the middle school at 4 p.m. Petraeus graduated from Cornwall High in 1970.

Thursday evening, the general will speak at the Orange County Boy Scouts' Distinguished Citizen Award Dinner at Anthony's Pier Nine in New Windsor. Petraeus was also a Cub Scout in Cornwall.

The commander will conclude his homecoming at his West Point Class of 1974 reunion this weekend.

He'll toss the coin at the Army Black Knights football game in Michie Stadium on Saturday.

ajames@th-record.com

Pontiac Given Last Rights

Death Of An Icon 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124060030328753755.html#mod=rss_whats_news_us

Pontiac Headed for Junk Yard

Fabled Muscle-Car Brand Is Being Eliminated Amid GM's Cutbacks

New York Luxury Liner Sightings Are Still An Eyeful

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/nyregion/thecity/26crui.html?ref=thecity

URBAN STUDIES | BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

The Ghost Ships of the Hudson

Floating hotels on local waters lift spirits and conjure another era.

CONSTANCE ROSENBLUM

THE luxury liners that once crossed the Atlantic at a regular clip are of course a thing of the past, long since converted to cruise ships or disappeared entirely. And since 2005, some New York-bound cruise ships have been hanging a sharp right as they enter the harbor, heading not for the West Side’s Passenger Ship Terminal but for Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Still, many of them continue to make their way up the Hudson River en route to the piers in the West 40s and 50s. And as seen from the window of a Brooklyn Heights apartment with a sweeping view of the harbor, these ghost ships, as they almost beg to be called, are a haunting, almost mystical sight.

They typically swim into view sometime after 7 a.m., languid wedding cakes moving silently upriver. If the sun is rising, they are washed in a surreal lemony light. On foggy mornings, they are barely visible through the haze. They appear and disappear like great, slow-moving mirages, seemingly so evanescent they could vanish in the blink of an eye.

Though these vessels are typically about a thousand feet long, from such a distance they look scarcely bigger than a child’s bath toy. The colorful scrawl on their white hulls is indecipherable from so far away. And although you know that at this very moment several thousand passengers are milling about the vast decks, savoring the final moments of their journey, all this activity needs to be imagined, taken on faith.

Ghost ships give rise to romantic imaginings. They recall the heady days when the comings and goings of ocean liners and their starry-eyed occupants were big news, when every paper worth its salt had a ships’ news reporter and flashbulbs from bulky Speed Graphics, cameras of a now-bygone era, bathed arriving princes and showgirls and millionaires in sudden bursts of brightness. They bring to mind the pop of Champagne corks, the confetti, the giddiness, the hubbub.

The golden age of the luxury liner was a hard act to follow. But the ghost ships have their own quiet allure. To suddenly catch sight of one of these ships as you’re sipping coffee and desultorily leafing through the newspaper seems a small early-morning miracle. And once in a while, as you’re savoring your good fortune, out of the corner of your eye you spot a second ship. It feels like a lucky way to start the day.