Oct 9, 2010

Soul food may be just the ticket at stationBy Dennis YuskoTimesUnion.com

Saratoga Springs, NY — Others have opened cafes and gift shops in the Saratoga Springs Train Station only to fail. But “Lady Myah” Brown and Samuel Jefferson are betting that her sweet potato pie and other comfort foods will draw area residents as well as commuters to the spacious but under-used facility.

Brown grew up in Queensbury and came to Saratoga Springs from the Bronx last April. She learned to cook corn bread, candied yams, greens with okra and pies from an award-winning cook and former in-law from Savannah, Ga. She also runs Focus on Humanity, a non-profit organization that helps the poor, hungry and sick through grants, donations and sponsorships.

Brown saw potential in the six-year-old remodeled Amtrak station last year, when it began serving as a Greyhound bus station and CDTA bus stop, too. After arriving from New York City, she noticed the beauty of the 6,400-square-foot facility, but also its limitations. The place offered only vending machine food, had no souvenir shop and emptied out whenever a train or bus departed.

Brown and Jefferson, her enthusiastic assistant, have plans to change that. They’re going to host jazz and open mike nights, and want to cater weddings and other events in the public space.

“We want to make it a destination as opposed to a pick-up and drop-off place,” Brown said.

The nearly $6 million brick-and-wood train station is located about three miles from downtown off West Avenue. The CDTA train hub sees about 24,000 passengers each year, serving primarily New York City, but also Montreal and Vermont. By contrast, the renovated $53.1 million Rensselaer Rail Station, opened in 2002, serves more than 750,000 persons a year.

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