The Post-Star from Glens Falls, New York • 29

The Post-Slur, Glens Falls, N.Y. Sunday, May 1 8. 2008 C9 STATE Historic Brooklyn Navy Yard gets makeover By RICHARD PYLE Associated Press --CvV I mmm' i liamsburg neighborhood. "The Navy yard is a great, resource for networking with other businesses," Kahn said. "I feel like we're in a community here.

We do business together, and it reinforces the feeling that we are in the right place." It didn't happen overnight. With the Navy gone, the drydocks and cranes that helped win seven wars fell into disrepair. The carved eagles-on-pillars guarding the main gate vanished, and it became a police department auto pound, where citizens pay $200 or more to reclaim stolen and towed vehicles. At the old naval hospital, a marble ghost dating from 1837, the wide corridors and patient wards echo with emptiness. On Admiral's Row, six graceful turn-of-the-century mansions once occupied by top officers and still owned by, the federal government, are falling into ruin, their future unclear.

The first ship built there, in 1798, was the frigate USS Adams, burned by its crew in 1812 to avoid British capture. The last, the amphibious transport USS Duluth, slipped into the East River in 1965. Other noteworthy vessels eluded the Fulton II, the first U.S. steam-powered warship to go to sea, in 1837; USS Niagara, which helped lay the first trans-Atlantic undersea cable; and. USS Monitor, built elsewhere but commissioned at the yard in 1862.

Within weeks it faced the Confederates' CSS Virginia in history's first clash of ironclads a standoff, but a death knell for wooden warships. NEW YORK Audrey Lyons was a $40-a-week parts inspector at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1944 when Margaret man was invited to christen the brand-new USS Missouri. "We all took time off to see it," recalls Lyons, now 84 and retired in Essex, Conn. But the daughter of Sen. (and soon-to-be-president) Harry Truman needed help to break the champagne bottle on the third try a less than sparkling debut for the "Mighty Mo," the last truly famous warship among hundreds produced at the yard since 1801.

The Pentagon closed the Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1966, an obsolete facility awash in history but torpedoed by time. Yet behind the nondescript facade visible to motorists rushing past on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the 40-plus buildings of the former shipyard have become a modern beehive of activity that includes almost everything but, well, bees. Its old machine shops and warehouses hum with small entrepreneurs makers of furniture, clothing, industrial equipment, theatrical sets and computer software as well as medical suppliers, fashion designers, printers, carpenters and artists, altogether employing 5,000 people. Andrew Kimball, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development a not-for-profit that manages the city-owned site, said current plans call for spending $250 million to add 1.3 million square feet of space and 1,500 more jobs BEBET0 MATTHEWS-ASSOCIATED PRESS Dock cranes are silhouetted during sunset at the Brooklyn Navy Yard In New York on May 8. held 1,500 bodies await transformation into a 20-acre "media campus" focused on entertainment, TV and graduate educational programs.

(The bodies were reburied in a cemetery in Queens.) Some of the six drydocks remain in use for maintenance. On a recent day, one held a large Singapore-based oil products tanker. The U.S. Coast Guard tug Sturgeon Bay occupied another. "Maritime is still part of what we do," Kimball said.

The yard's biggest tenant is Steiner Studios, a Hollywood-style operation in a cavernous former machine shop with sound stages where large pieces of vessels were once assembled. It, too, is expanding. There is a fish wholesaler to fancy restauarants, a by 2009. In a decade, he said, there should be 5,000 more jobs. "The Brooklyn Navy Yard has added another chapter to its rich history by becoming a thriving hub of industrial business," Kimball says.

The continuing expansion will emphasize "green" construction. Hospital buildings and an overgrown cemetery that once shroud-maker for Orthodox Jewish funerals and a factory producing coffee-sweetener packets. At Ferra Designs, partners Robert Ferraroni and Jeff Kahn use a powerful water jet to cut steel for custom-designed furniture and sculpture. They found space at the Navy yard after rising rents forced a move from the nearby Wil FROM PAGE ONE Health fair among the suggestions offered by local residents counties and a government liaison that could help families know what services are available. The key, most parents said, was finding help when a child is diagnosed with autism.

When Jennifer Livingston's son was diagnosed with autism, the Hartford resident said she had no idea what to do. Now her son takes a two-hour round trip bus ride to a specialized school. "I didn't know what to do," Livingston said. "Nobody knows what to do when they're in that situation. I just needed somebody to push me in the right direction." Richmond, who is the father of 5- and 7-year-old sons with autism, said Washington County can do more to inform folks about available programs.

"If the county Health Department could have a list of the many resources, it would be great," he said. "A lot of things we have done, we learned about by accident and by happenstance." Those who spoke suggested a health fair in either a school or the Glens Falls Civic Center that would allow area programs to advertise. Other suggestions included sharing services between Warren, Washington and Saratoga "I'm here for single mothers, lower-income people who are struggling and people in rural areas who have computers." He's held similar forums around the state, including Poughkeepsie, Orange County, Staten Island and one in Malta last month. Kingsbury resident Bill HEALTH Continued from CI York state," McDonald said. McDonald, whose two grandsons were diagnosed with autism, said he's not that concerned about upper-middle class families with two parents.

List cited 373 rapidly improved' schools SCHOOLS MAKE PROGRESS Extra wealth building power, I while never locking away your funds. I APT FOR BALANCES OF $50,000 AND ABOVE nKEY GOLD SJ MONEY MARKET SAVINGS Salem Elementary School Salem High School Dorothy Nolan Elementary School (Saratoga Springs city) Greenfield Elementary School (Saratoga Springs city) Geyser Road Elementary School (Saratoga Springs city) Maple Avenue Middle School (Saratoga Springs city) Schroon Lake Central School District Schuylerville Central School District Schuylerville Elementary School Schuylerville High School South Glens Falls Central School District Harrison Avenue Elementary School (South Glens Falls) Ballard Elementary School (South Glens Falls) Tanglewood Elementary School (South Glens Falls) Stillwater Central School District Stillwater Middle School High School Ticonderoga Elementary School Ticonderoga High School Ticonderoga Central School District Warrensburg Elementary School Warrensburg Central School District These local schools were named as "rapidly Argyle High School Maple Avenue Intermediate School (Ballston Spa) Warrensburg High School The state recognized the following local schools and districts for being "high performancegap closing." Argyle Elementary school Argyle Central School District Ballstbn Spa High School Wood Road Intermediate School (Ballston Spa) Cambridge Central School District Cambridge Elementary School Cambridge High School Corinth Elementary School Big Cross Street School (Glens Falls city) Santord Street School (Glens Falls city) Glens Falls Middle School Glens Falls High School Granville Elementary School Greenwich Elementary School Greenwich Central School District Stuart M.Townsend Middle School (Lake Luzerne) Hartford Central School District Hudson Falls High School Hudson Falls Intermediate School Hudson Falls Primary School Johnsburg Central School District North Warren Central School District Queensbury Union Free School District Queensbury Elementary School Queensbury Middle School William H. Barton Intermediate School (Queensbury) LIST Continued from CI meet all the state standards for English and math during the 2006-07 academic year while making adequate yearly progress in those subjects for two consecutive years to be recognized as high performinggap closing. Meanwhile, 373 schools and 62 districts were named "rapidly improving." In this group, a school or district did not meet all the standards, but showed improvement and made annual yearly progress from 2004 to 2007. Argyle High School was named as rapidly improving, while the elementary school made the list of high performinggap closing schools.

Ryan Sherman, the superintendent, said he is proud of what both schools have achieved. "It's years of hard work and cooperation with our whole school community," Sherman said. At Glens Falls city schools, four of the six schools in the district were named to the high performing list. Superintendent Thomas McGowan said he was trying to find out why the other two schools Jackson Heights and Kensington were left from the list. Still, the district continues to make progress, he said.

"Our people are working really hard to bring the changes to instruction to provide a better program to our kids," he said. State officials are encouraged that half of the state's eligible schools have made progress. Schools or districts must have at least 30 students enrolled in at least three accountability groups to be eligible for being named high performing or rapidly improving. The number of high performing schools increased by 100, while those as rapidly improving increased by more than 150, compared to the previous year. The number of A great interest rate with total liquidity is rare.

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