by Alex Brooks
On Wednesday April 17 Hoosick Town Councilmen Bill Hanselman, Jerry McAuliffe and Eric Sheffer installed the new “Welcome to Hoosick” sign at the intersection of Routes 7 and 22 near the highway bridge over the Hoosic River. The old sign had deteriorated in the weather, especially on the west-facing side, and needed to be refurbished or replaced.
Councilman Eric Sheffer took on the project, and initially sought to refurbish the old sign, possibly adding a Grandma Moses image in the space on the old sign that had been left for that purpose.
Initial contacts with the St. Etienne Gallery, which holds the rights to Grandma Moses imagery, were promising, but when commuication with the gallery bogged down and it looked like the process of getting the rights and painting the image would be very slow and expensive, Sheffer switched to plan B and worked with a local sign company to have a new sign made.
The new sign was made by Sign Studio of Cohoes, and designed by Sarah Manley of that company. The picture in it is a picture of the Hoosick Hills.
Hoosick Rising expressed interest in refurbishing the old sign for use as a sign at the entrance to the Town offices in the Armory.