FREE 7507 STATE ROUTE 5, (corner of Bidleman Road) LITTLE FALLS NY 13365
315-508-5131 www.mohawkvalleyfunerals.com
Largest facility in area with most off street parking
Daniel J. Enea 3rd Generation Funeral Director
VOLUME 4: NUMBER 7
JULY 2024
New basketball and pickleball courts ready for ribboncutting in Dolgeville By Dave Warner
Dolgeville is about to get a new basketball/pickleball court next to the new playground in Center Park during a ribboncutting event scheduled for July 2, 2024, at 1 pm.
opportunity to get involved in that program, and enough people were interested in it.”
The original idea was to install exercise stations around the village so that people could walk from station to station. In 2016/2017, the Village “Then, we got thinking started working with that the playground was Cornell Cooperative in such terrible condition Extension, working - a lot of the equipment towards a HEART grant was broken or had been to help pay for the removed - so we thought, project. “The whole idea let’s go big,” Reynolds of that was to increase said. activity in the community, especially among the They ended up calling it older population, for the Dolgeville Fun and heart health,” stated Fitness project, and they Christine Reynolds, the raised over $150,000 in Chairperson of Dolgeville grants, gifts, donations, Forward. fundraisers, and in-kind work from the DPW. Mayor Mary Puznowski said, “We had the “We actually did several
Photo by Dave Warner - The new basketball/pickleball courts in Dolgeville, with the new playbround equipment in the background.
coming, so we looked for some alternative funding, and that came from The Wadas Foundation. They gave us a very generous gift. I was also approached by Rodney Schwartz, our County Legislator because they had decided to split Kids were always down up their ARPA funds there wanting to play, between all the districts,” so they felt they had to Reynolds said. tackle that project as well. “That’s where we come The Legislators wanted into the Center Park that money to go Project,” said Puznowski. towards kids’ activities or something that would “That’s been pretty slow benefit the community. community builds to finish the entire playground,” Reynolds stated. “That was the first step, but we knew this basketball court was in poor shape with garbage asphalt and one ancient basket without a net.”
he’s now added tractors to the collection. “I don’t have them all out. A lot of them are still in boxes. There are about 6,000 that I couldn’t get on the shelves because I’ve run out of room. There are almost 7,000 Matchbox and Hot Wheels on display at his home. “I’ve probably got another 18,000 left in the other room in boxes still to get out.”
Photo by Dave Warner - Edward Cooley arranges a few of his Hot Wheel Toys on top of a display cabinet in his home.
Cooley continues to build his collection Cooley is a lifelong resident of Little Falls Edward Cooley hasn’t who graduated in 1977. slowed down in collecting He started collecting Hot Wheel Toys since we when he was 12 and last wrote about it in May doesn’t remember why of 2022 - in fact, there he started. are thousands more in his home since we last Since our last story, visited. he’s done plenty of remodeling on his display By Dave Warner
area - redoing floors, walls, ceilings, and LED lighting. “I’ve put proximity switches in so that at night, as you walk through, they turn on in each cabinet.”
Cooley said he’s thinking about removing the upstairs bedroom and converting it to display space, but he still has to convince his wife. “She’s not too keen on that yet.”
Lately, he hasn’t been in a buying mood because of all the work he’s been doing updating the displays, but he’s getting ready to get back into the He said there are 240 selling and buying of the feet of glass shelves collectables. with the display, and
“Those were the two sources of funding for the basketball court,” stated the Mayor. With that money, they haven’t had to tap into the original grant funding, so it’s still all going towards the Center Park Project. Regarding that project, the Mayor stated that they’ve torn down the old pavilion, cleared the land, removed old fencing and trees that were in the way, and cleaned out the
Please See COURTS Page 3
“I’m going to get rid of some of my extra ones. I’ve got about 3,000 to sell yet. They’re all in packages. I’ve probably got another 500-600 under the table that don’t have packages,” he stated. Cooley said that the market is pretty good right now. “It does slack off a little bit sometimes, but right now, it seems to be pretty hot.” He said that he buys most of the ‘red line’ models, which were made from 1968-1974. “They have a red line around the tires. I do mostly those because they’re more valuable and they’re rarer - they’re antiques.” Cooley said they make millions of the new ones, and you just can’t keep up. “They didn’t make so many years ago.” Please See TOYS Page 2
W W W . M Y L I T T L E F A L L S . C O M
BILL MACRI
ASSOCIATE BROKER C: 315.360.1920 O: 315.866.2209 bill.joemacrirealty@gmail.com joemacrirealty.com
235 S. Main St. Herkimer, NY 13350