Mayor of Middletown, New York, Spurs City Redevelopment Under New Vision
Middletown Mayor Joseph DeStefano grew up two blocks away from the now vacant O&W train station, a symbol of the railroad industry where his Italian grandparents once earned a living.
As the railroad and manufacturing industry waned in the second half of the twentieth century, his city soon suffered another blow from the development of highways and suburban malls, which sucked out urban businesses, big and small.
It is the kind of urban decay that plagues many industrial cities in the North—a downward trajectory that DeStefano has tried to reverse in the past years under a new vision….