The Sullivan County Democrat reports today that Medicap, Livingston Manor's sole pharmacy, closed its doors last week.
Shirley Fulton, owner of a nearby gift shop, told Democrat reporter Dan Hust that she's holding out hope that another pharmacy might open in the location:
“We need an anchor here,” affirmed Shirley Fulton, a Manor native who runs the Wildlife Gift Shop just down Main Street. “It’s like a hole in the community. I think it’s a terrible loss.”
Wolcott hopes someone does reopen the pharmacy – not so much for her own job prospects but for the hamlet’s sake, as the next closest pharmacies are in Liberty.
As the Democrat notes, the Medicap building is owned by Andrew Krieger, a Wall Street trader who poured millions into the little hamlet of Livingston Manor when times were good, and whose buildings fell into foreclosure in the wake of the economic meltdown.
New York Times columnist Peter Applebome, who often writes about the Catskills and who has chronicled both the rise and fall of Livingston Manor, wrote a column in 2009 on the wreckage Krieger's foreclosures have left in their wake. Applebome's observations are as pithy now as they were two years ago:
Mr. Krieger’s supporters and skeptics have one thing in common: the realization that solving his problems won’t solve Livingston Manor’s. Even by Catskills standards, this place has always had a “Perils of Pauline” quality — something’s always going wrong, whether it’s a moribund economy or three floods in 22 months culminating in one that swamped the downtown in 2006.
“We’re sort of like a baseball team that’s always rebuilding,” said Jeff Christensen, co-owner of the bookstore. “If we have any talent, we trade it for three prospects that never pan out.”
Here's hoping Livingston Manor won't be without a pharmacy for long.
