Hot 4th wraps busy holiday weekend

ALBANY — As they prepared for Monday’s July 4th fireworks extravaganza, city of Albany officials said they had been energized by the community response to city-planned events over the three-day holiday.

“The folks who complain about there being nothing to do in Albany, well now they have to realize that that is not the case,” City Manager Sharon Subadan said Monday. “The community’s response to our events this weekend has been very encouraging for everyone involved in the hard work it took to put this together.

“I believe that as we create more events for our citizens downtown, we’re going to create and build customer loyalty.”

Downtown Manager Latoya Cutts said Monday the team effort of Recreation and Parks, Civic Center, Public Works and employees in other city departments had “created a spark of energy” downtown that she expects to carry over and create momentum as the city continues its redevelopment efforts.

“We’re very pleased with the response to our July 4th events,” Cutts said. “The celebration at the Marine base Friday cut into our participation in the bike roll downtown, but we had good response and there was lots of interest in the yoga class after the bike ride.

“Saturday was phenomenal, there were well over 4,000 people at the concert at Veterans Park. And last night, it was amazing to see Riverfront Park packed with people for the Movie in the Park event. There were around 1,000 people in the park; people just kept coming. And because we had a very visible police presence, we had no issues.”

Celebrants started gathering along Front Street mid-afternoon Monday, even with a heat index well above 100 degrees, anticipating the evening’s fireworks. Others, meanwhile, sought shelter from the intense heat.

The Thompson family of Atlanta — mom Katy, dad Kenny, and siblings Trammell, Mary Evenal and Ozie — took a walk along the Flint Riverwalk late Monday morning. The family was in town visiting relatives.

“We decided to take a nature walk alongside the river,” Katy Thompson said. “My parents live in Albany, and we’re here to spend some time with them. We’re looking forward to tonight’s fireworks.”

Early arrivers downtown Monday afternoon said they were ready to take advantage of the holiday off.

“We didn’t want to sit around the house all day and we didn’t want to drive miles to go someplace else,” Jimmie Thornton of Albany said. “I don’t know if people know it our not, but this celebration has always been nice and it’s easy to get to.”

Native New Yorker Linda Smith chose to brave the heat, although she didn’t particularly care for it.

“I moved down here several years ago and like the city,” she said, “but I really don’t like this heat. I’m still not used to it.”

Bonnie Monroe of Albany said she came downtown early so her young daughter could play in the Riverfront Park water feature.

“I brought my daughter out here because we didn’t want to sit around in a hot house all day on the Fourth of July,” Monroe said. “She seems to really enjoy playing in the fountain; I know it’s helped keep her cool.

“We’ll stick around to watch the fireworks.”

Subadan said the enthusiasm of the well-attended and orderly events was catching.

“I had two or three people come up to me and tell me what a good time they were having,” the city manager. “I told them that was great … now go tell 10 of your friends.”

Terry Lewis contributed to this report.