Dear Members and Friends,
We have had the great honor of a repeat visit to Tannersville by Mike Leonard of NBC’s Today Show.
Some of you might have seen Mike filming along Main Street on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (October 1 – 3), dodging raindrops and looking for a few rays of sunshine. He extended his visit to Wednesday after Tuesday turned out to be a bit of a wash-out, ‘though he was able to do some interior shots while the rain pelted down.
Mike tells a wonderful story. He is inclusive by nature and during this visit covered not only the progress made over the 9 years since his last visit, but also the story of the Orpheum Theatre. He even touched upon the Piano Museum in Hunter. (The last two are both CMF projects).
On Tuesday morning, Mike expressed a desire for some live classical music to use as background to his story. A few phone calls later, Pam Weisberg from CMF had convinced Kenneth Hamrick to cancel his appointments in NYC, drive up from Manhattan and play a Beethoven Sonata at the museum. While Kenneth was speeding north, Pam had two piano’s tuned and readied for Prime Time by 5:00pm; Mike was most impressed.
Maggie Landis from Maggie’s Crooked Cafe was out of Town and, sadly, missed Mike’s visit, as did Oscar from Pancho Villa’s. Mike had a delicious lunch at Tannersville General Store and chatted to two groups of visitors who were also lunching there. Shakay from the Village Bistro cooked a flank steak for him on Monday night and a Wiener Schnitzel the next. He enjoyed his breakfasts and his stay at Hotel Mountain Brook very much, too.
After more than 30 years of storytelling, Mike is retiring from NBC at the end of this year. He has done more than a thousand stories from near and far and has paid a repeat visit to only three of those; and Tannersville is one of them.
Sincerely,
Elena Patterson