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From https://hudsonvalleyone.com/2018/08/21/discovering-franny-reese-park/
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Franny Reese, as it turns out, was the grande dame of the Hudson Valley River Valley, helping to spearhead an early, formative group of crusaders who sought to protect Storm King Mountain from becoming the site of the world’s largest hydroelectric plant — something that would have forever changed the landscape of the river valley. With Reese’s unbridled energy, this band of early riverkeepers — soon to become known as Scenic Hudson — was able to keep the utility powerhouse Con Edison off Storm King Mountain.
Born in Manhattan, Reese was enthralled by the beauty and history of the Hudson River Valley, and after this victory, continued to champion all the efforts that spun off from this first victory to protect the region and preserve its many iconic landmarks. She served as Scenic Hudson’s chairwoman for almost two decades, into the era when the organization mounted its campaign to get GE to remove health-threatening PCBs dumped in the river north of Albany.
A champion of Scenic Hudson’s land preservation efforts, she helped form the organization’s separately incorporated land trust during the early 1980s. Since that time, the Scenic Hudson Land Trust has created or enhanced more than 40 parks and preserves up and down the Hudson River for the public to enjoy. A number of these were polluted former industrial sites that were reclaimed.
To commemorate her contributions, Scenic Hudson named this 251-acre park after Reese, who was killed in an automobile accident in Cold Spring in 2003, when she was 85 years old.
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1917 - 2003 (86 years)
