by Bill Batson Every ornament, toy and clock in Hickory Dickory Dock tells a story. Once you pass under the canopied entrance of 43 South Broadway, passing through a gauntlet of wind chimes, you enter […]
Author: Bill Batson
Bill Batson is an artist, writer and activist. He has worked for non profits, labor unions, and
government in New York State as an organizer writer and public relations specialist.
Nyack Sketch Log: The Folk Art of John Rossi
by Bill Batson Since 1992, John Rossi has created over 450 woodcut replicas of private homes and public buildings in Rockland County. You may have seen his distinctive miniatures on the back counter of Koblin’s […]
Nyack Sketch Log: Helen Hayes MacArthur
by Bill Batson Legend has it that when Helen Hayes MacArthur first saw this fine example of Italianate architecture on North Broadway, her husband, playwright Charles MacArthur told her it would cost a Pretty Penny. […]
Nyack Sketch Log: Main Street Revival
by Bill Batson In Nyack, cheering for Main Street is more than just a metaphor. The state of our major commercial thoroughfare is a reliable barometer for our future. For the next few months, economics […]
Nyack Sketch Log: Year Round Farmers’ Market
by Bill Batson Each Thursday morning at 6 am, over a dozen vendors arrive in the municipal parking lot in Nyack. Two hours later, a tent village has risen from the asphalt. Crates of locally […]
Nyack Sketch Log: Vets Rock
by Bill Batson Even though our recent hurricane destroyed his houseboat at the Nyack Marina, Sandy is not the storm that preoccupies Jerry Donnellan. As the director of Rock Vets (County of Rockland Veterans Service […]
Nyack Sketch Log: Brave New Normal
by Bill Batson On a recent phone call with President Barack Obama, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo observed that we seem to have a one hundred year storm every year now. Fortunately for us, the […]
Nyack Sketch Log: 1 Poltergeist Place, Nyack, NY?
by Bill Batson “As a matter of law, the house is haunted.” This sentence in a ruling by the New York Supreme Court in July, 1991 generated international headlines for a real estate dispute surrounding […]
Nyack Sketch Log: William Prime Batson
Every morning for the last year, I have created a watercolor portrait of my father, William Prime Batson. I started the project on his 90th birthday on October 22, 2011. On Sunday, October 21, 2012, […]
Nyack Sketch Log: Art Café
by Bill Batson The walls of the Art Café celebrate drawing, painting and photography. The building is an exquisite example of the reserved Italianate architectural style, and the food that comes from the kitchen, in […]