Birchez Associates LLC

When it comes to seeing wonderful places, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more knowledgeable in that department than Mary Jackson, a Manhattan-native who moved up to High Falls in the 1960s to work as an elementary school teacher.

“I really like travelling,” she gushes.  When pressed for where she’s been, she replies, “Oh, gosh!  I visited most states in the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska.  I’ve visited England, I’ve visited France, I’ve visited Greece, and Turkey, and Mexico, and Africa, and, of course, Canada.”

Then she remembers that there’s still a location she has on her list that has yet to be checked off:  “There’s only one place that I really hate that I didn’t get to see, and it was because the state department at that time said I shouldn’t go, because of the problems in Egypt — I wanted to go see the pyramids.  We were getting ready to go, and they said, because of the disturbances at that particular time that it wasn’t advisable, so we didn’t go.”

In fact, Mary’s travels have a bit of a reputation among her friends for the trouble she tends to find.

“M y friend used to joke with me, saying, ‘I don’t want to go anyplace that you’re going, because you have run into two or three revolutions.’  And he said, ‘they wait for you to come.’”

But she hasn’t given up hope: “I have a friend now who says, even though we have to limp, maybe we’ll go,” she says with a laugh.  “I would love to see the the pyramids.  I can’t imagine how people were able to build those things without the machinery of today.  Only back-power.  I would love to see it—I’m just unhappy that I won’t be able to climb them—just be able to see them.  Those in Mexico are not quite the same.  They’re great, but they’re not quite the same.”

Mary’s discriminating taste in construction is apparent; and as such, it’s especially telling when she discusses how she feels about The Birches at Esopus, her home for the last year.

“Really, I think that more people should take a look at this sort of place and see what’s being done for us,” she says of the building and the community.   “It really is a lovely place.”

It’s not difficult for Mary to enumerate the many reasons she’s a fan of her home.  Like when she lists the places she’s visited, the list of things she likes about The Birches at Esopus comes easy and without hesitation.

“The apartment is spacious; it’s easy to get to, because so many of the things we do, we do in Kingston.  It’s quiet, and they have done a marvelous job of doing the landscaping. And I don’t worry about maintenance — there are people here who work here that seem to come right away if something goes wrong, so I don’t have problems with upkeep.”

But that’s not all—the building’s fitness studio is one of Mary’s favorite features as well.

“I love the fitness studio.  Lately I’ve been going each day or so.  Mostly work on my own, but the trainer is a marvelous young lady —  I think she does very well with all of us.”

Mary also belongs to the community’s Residents’  Club, by whom she’s been asked to teach and lead crafts sessions.

“I love crafts,” she says.  “And I’ve been ask to teach them about making certain boxes, and origami, and things like that — I’ve done a lot of that.”

Brian Rubin for Birchez Associates, birchezassociates@gmail.com

When it comes to sewing, Indiana-native Bobby Taylor has plenty of experience.  Having once run her own handmade doll company — called, appropriately, Taylor Made — these days Bobby is lending her skills to the Residents’ Club at The Birches at Esopus, where she’s lived for the past year.  In addition to serving as the club’s treasurer, she creates table covers for the community room where the club meets, and her current project is to sew grocery tote bags for her fellow residents.

“I’m making tote bags, and what I’m trying to do is make it so that everybody here can have at least one grocery tote,” she says.  “I gave one to each of the other three officers in the club, and they say it works great, and holds a lot of stuff. That’ll be my project for the next business meeting, and I hope to have one for everyone that wants one.”

However, it’s not just her sewing skills that she brings to bear in the club.  Her position as treasurer is well deserved: “I have the background for it.  I spent forty years working with big budgets and money and stuff.” Bobby got her start with budgets when she got her first big job, working for the Sansabelt Slacks Company.

“When I started there, I didn’t know what an invoice was,” she says.  “When I left, I was in charge of my own department.”

While sewing and keeping track of the residents’ club’s finances, Bobby has taken note of the benefits her home in The Birches at Esopus, which she shares with her husband George and their daughter, Nikki, who acts as their caretaker.

“Oh, the building is so nice,” she says.  “We don’t have to go outside for anything except to buy food.  You don’t have to schlep through snow and ice to get rid of your garbage or pick up the mail.  You don’t have to carry laundry baskets next door or anything.  It’s very nice to have it accessible.”

Brian Rubin for Birchez Associates, birchezassociates@gmail.com