Skip to main content

Saving A Mountain

March 2023
2min read


Fifteen miles north of New York City the Tappan Zee Bridge reaches across the Hudson River to the southern tier of Rockland County and to the last large chunk of unprotected and undeveloped land in the region, a ridge of the Palisades range called Clausland Mountain. At this time of year parts of the mountain are green with eastern hemlock. In spring the deciduous forest understory comes alive with pink and white dogwood, wild cherry, and shadbush—a sanctuary for wild flowers, warblers, owls, fox, deer, and people. For the past two years a small group of nearby residents, extraordinary only in their perseverance and determination, have struggled to save Clausland Mountain from urban development and preserve it as natural parkland. They are now in the last crucial stage of the battle.

Just before Christmas, 1967, Rockland County papers reported that Columbia University planned to build a one-totwo-thousand-unit faculty housing development on Clausland and held an option to buy the five-hundred-acre ridge. The first of many “Save the Mountain” strategy sessions was held that New Year’s Eve, with a total of six people present, John and Gretta Alison, Barbara and Vincent Porta, Susan and Don Preston. Their early efforts to block the Columbia scheme included visits to local, state, and federal officials, school boards, civic associations, and the gathering of some two thousand signatures for a petition. But when the university responded only with vague assurances and renewed its option, an enlarged Save the Mountain committee set to work on the formidable job of raising the $1,350,000 to buy the mountain. By June an application was in for a 50 per cent matching grant from the federal government’s Land and Water Conservation Fund. (This vital fund, currently severely crippled for lack of money, aids in state, city, and county acquisition and development of outdoor recreation areas.) By August, in response to mounting pressure, the county board of supervisors voted to put up 20 per cent of the money needed and to designate the land, if necessary, as a wildlife sanctuary.

In November the federal government’s matching grant came through the committee’s first real victory after eleven months of work. $675,000 was now available provided another $675,000 could be raised within sixty days. Rockland County increased its commitment to 25 per cent ($337,500). With all possible government funding sources tapped, with $337,500 still to be found, Irving Maidman, the realtor who owned the land to which Columbia held option, contributed $100,000. An urgent appeal to the Nature Conservancy, a private nonprofit organization whose sole effort is directed to preserving valuable land, resulted in the largest loan in the history of that organization—the $237,500 necessary to match the federal grant. Apparently the mountain would be saved. All that remained to do now, it seemed, was to raise the money to repay the Nature Conservancy. But not so. Columbia University did not wish to release its option. The university intended to make a profit on the land, and not until April 8, 1969 over two months after all the money had been raised—did Columbia, in the face of public pressure, finally agree to give up the option.

Save the Mountain’s efforts to repay the Nature Conservancy loan have been hurt by Columbia’s delay and by a failure to get two or three big donors. But a sale of works by noted Rockland County artists last fall and support from local celebrities—Burgess Meredith gave a fund-raising party, Helen Hayes signed three hundred letters—have all helped. At this writing it appears Clausland will survive just as it is.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "February 1970"

Authored by: David McCullough

The wrecker’s ball swings in every city in the land, and memorable edifices of all kinds are coming down at a steady clip.

Authored by: Frank Graham Jr.

From a way Down East came a stench of politics and potatoes, and news of a border incident that true patriots will long remember as

Authored by: Allan L. Damon

In reprisal for a Tory atrocity, Washington ordered the hanging of a captive British officer chosen by lot. He was nineteen.

Authored by: Alvin M. Josephy Jr.

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty, young Peter Rindisbacher captured on canvas the lives of Indians and white pioneers on the Manitoba—Minnesota frontier

Authored by: Thomas Fleming

Benevolent father figure? Bloody-handed Cossack? Slow-witted flatfoot? Irish grafter? Brave but underpaid public servant? Check your prejudice against this inquiry into police history

Authored by: Tom Mccarthy

The lady author modelled her famous fictional creation after her own wonder boy —and condemned a generation of “manly little chaps” to velvet pants and curls

Authored by: Corey Ford

The furious speaker was Field Marshal Kesselring. The time was 1944. And the “shadow” was cast by Italian partisans and a handful of brave Americans from General Bill Donovan’s O.S.S.

Featured Articles

Famous writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts turned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery into our country’s first conservation project.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.

Born during Jim Crow, Belle da Costa Greene perfected the art of "passing" while working for one of the most powerful men in America.